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September 21, 2005

That 70's Feminism! When women are NOT allowed 'choice'

I certainly wasn't surprised by the NY Times running an article on the musings of college women on what the future holds for them. And I wasn't that surprised the Grey Lady could barely conceal her scandalized tones with a vapors and fainting couch headline as:

Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood
Of course, none of the women the article are eschewing their education to just make babies and bake cookies. It just seems to come as quite a surprise to those people who believe it is their duty to dictate how these young women will live that many of the women are not phobic about their uterus and look forward to spending a few or more years raising their own children.

You know, that very nasty, fascist concept of self-responsibility.

:::GASP:::

This is amusing

"It really does raise this question for all of us and for the country: when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for women, what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served as dean for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
So, Lewis seems to think that it is she who can demand of young women she has never met exactly how they will live their life in eternal gratitude towards the elder stateswomyn of 70's feminism?
It is less than clear what universities should, or could, do about it. For one, a person's expectations at age 18 are less than perfect predictors of their life choices 10 years later. And in any case, admissions officers are not likely to ask applicants whether they plan to become stay-at-home moms.
Geez, the God of Irony is having a good laugh at that one ... women were 'kept out' of colleges way back when because their education would be "wasted" on a girl that was going to "do nothing" but have babies, and here is a hint from ostensible champions of opportunity and choice that they'd love to do the same.
"What does concern me," said Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale College, "is that so few students seem to be able to think outside the box; so few students seem to be able to imagine a life for themselves that isn't constructed along traditional gender roles."
Pity poor Peter that being dean has so ill prepared him to look at young women who have grown up in the very atmosphere where they have received messages/lectures/screeds/entertainment dedicated to ridiculing or dismissing "traditional" roles and because they don't choose as he would choose for them, he thinks the problem lies within the young women.As one reads the article one finds young women who are serious about looking at all their choices, weighing them soberly with their desires and trying to find a realistic plan of working and motherhood done serially rather than the concurrently. These are young women who understand that parents are the best people to be raising their own children. But such thinking doesn't sit well with the 70's the personal is the political crowd
"They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're accepting it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Yale.
Wexler is baldly stating it -- being a mother is a PUBLIC issue.

Don't ever again think for one moment that gender-feminism is about allowing women personal choice.

Posted by Darleen at September 21, 2005 12:00 AM

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