I agree with her call for workplace/maternity leave equality. Her abortion/paternal rights logic is interesting. I've always felt rather progressive for feeling like a man who decides to contribute his sperm should have to own up to his hormones and play a part...but she is taking a total opposite perspective....by equating it with the proscription against abortion for women..
Also, curious to hear what Alternet people think of her stance on partial-birth abortions...That the child is essentially the woman up until separation...

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Women are afraid to argue with each other? Does Hirshman include herself in this fantastic statement? More importantly, does she have any knowledge, either intellectual or first-hand, of the history of feminist organizing, which has involved women arguing with each other about values pretty much non-stop? In any case, are egalitarian values as defined by a bunch of dead, white men really the best foundation for building a just society? I'm willing to argue to the contrary. Whoops, I forgot! Women don't like to argue with each other.

Beyond that, it's not clear to me why young women would feel compelled to take the condescending advice of someone who obviously dislikes them so much.

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........you have to be f'ng kidding me! She's serious?

What a pile of pond scum.


Poe

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Like Hirshman, I’m retired too, and I’m a feminist. To me, the assertion that “…feminist women can live their ideals only through public lives of work and activism, not private lives of family and domesticity” is the most UN-feminist statement I have ever heard. (As well as one of the stupidest).Whatever happened to choice?!!!
No. True feminism is about valuing men and women equally. It’s about valuing not only what individual men do and are good at but what individual women do and are good at. In other words it is about valuing and rewarding (equally) the contributions that PEOPLE make to society, irrespective of whether they are male or female. It is about respecting and valuing the choices we make, whether male or female, to do what we enjoy and are good at, whether that is raising children or anything else.
To speak so scathingly about “stay-at-home mommy bloggers” who have chosen to make their contribution to society by devoting either a few years or many to rearing their own children is to devalue and disparage their choice and their all-important work. How can she speak of her sisters like that and still call herself a feminist?
One sign that feminism still has a long way to go is the fact that we are still talking about ‘work and activism’ vs. ‘family and domesticity’ as though they were entirely separate spheres.
Our species is biologically programmed to raise its young through infancy and early childhood, not lay eggs and walk away like partridges. So someone has to raise the children. By Hirshman’s logic, if a woman raises her own children in her own home she is not ‘in the workforce’, she is just ‘staying home’. But if someone else comes into her house each day from 8:00 till 4:00 (or takes them to her or his own house down the street) and raises them for her, than that other person IS ‘in the workforce’. How ridiculous is that?
And how do you categorise an author, for example, who sits at home writing best-sellers and the full-time parent who home-schools as part of a community group and is out of the house most of the day doing stuff with other parents and children? Who is ‘in the workforce’ and who is ‘staying at home’?. Or is it simply about payment? In which case, is a full-time volunteer not working? The distinctions are not only blurred, they are unnecessary and to make them at all can be positively harmful. It is certainly anti-feminist.
A woman who chooses to fulfil the child-rearing role herself instead of employing surrogates is ‘in the workforce’ as surely as her sister who has chosen to spend her days tapping a computer in a corporate office or making widgets in a factory. Until this fact is fully recognized, valued and rewarded, feminism will not have achieved its objectives of true equality.

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I just read Hirschman's book and she is absolutely right--staying at home with your kids WILL cost you in dollars and in power (in the world AND in your marriage). THAT'S the main point of Hirschman's book. And she doesn't like overeducated women "voluntarily" "choosing" to abandon their expensive educations to stay home and watch Sesame Street. Men don't EVER do that, so why do women? is one of the questions she asks (not answers).

Yes, the issue of who will raise the kids is a good one. Having fewer children is certainly part of the answer, and is good for other reasons as well, I think we will all agree. But I know Linda Hirschman is speaking the truth that women don't want to hear--if they take time off to raise their kids, they WILL pay a price in money and power. They will have less power in the world and less power vis-a-vis their husband, on whom they will be dependent. It IS a little strange that women are "choosing" to go back to a retro lifestyle, isn't it? Can't we at least talk about that?

I stayed home with my kids for a long time, about 12 years, working only part-time during that time, volunteering, going back for my master's degree, all fun stuff. I loved being there for my kids but I know I paid a terrible price financially, in terms of career progress, and ultimately in terms of the power arrangement with my (ex-) husband. If I had it all to do over again, I would have kept working seriously as Hirschman advises.

My daughter is now 18 and a freshman in college and I got her this book for Christmas. She read it in an hour and agreed with all of it except for the "have just one kid" part. She thinks only children are weird, lol. I wish I had had this book when I was 18. I married at 24, had two babies before I was thirty, never established my career properly, and now have to go back in my late 40s, divorced, with all my relevant experience 20 years old. And I gotta tell you, employers DO NOT count part-time, freelance and volunteer work as experience, they DO NOT.

It was perhaps a better world when work was based in the home and mothers could work all day long in PRODUCTIVE (not consumptive) tasks like making clothes, gardening, canning, making butter, etc. ALONGSIDE their children, who were also learning adult skills all day long. Frankly I think more telecommuting could solve the problem for a lot of people. There are a TON of jobs where I don't understand for the life of me why people are required to go to a central office every day because they spend all their time on the phone or the computer.

Also, people need to reconsider the idea of moving far from family and friends--if you want to work AND have kids, you will need HELP, the nuclear family was never meant to do it all, you need the extended. Our society has become so mobile and so transient--if we were all surrounded by friends and family and helping each other out, it would be a lot easier.

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This woman is scary and is not doing us any favors. Please go back underneath the rock from which you came and stay away from sharp objects.

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This dribble is why the divorce rate is almost 70% and more and more American men are traveling to other countries looking for a life partner. Men are tired of being subjected to this feminist dribble. This is not an article from a strong woman, this is a whiner who hasn't learned when to shut up.

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...and what you have is the abandonment of anything approximating a genuinely "pro-choice" lifestyle.

Tell me the new progressive mantra isn't to run (ruin) people's lives?

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Linda, please stop turning our lives into a social/philisophical experiment. I don't care to hear YOUR list of do's and don't's. I don't care what you think. You are not in touch with everyday life as most of us live it. We need fewer people telling us what to do. What women need is fewer obstacles. No matter what we do there are people to tell us how and when. Just please get out of the way. If we need help we'll ask. Shut up and go away. Thanks, ANNA

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for pointing out the obvious. It is always interesting to see how many hackles get raised by simply, merely questioning the traditional role of women in this culture. In reading the previous posts, I can see that the Mommies are outraged, the Misgynists in particular are outraged - but then, they are always in a stew about something or rather. Alot of knee jerk reactions and name calling is going on without any real consideration that the woman might be right about a few things. Oh well, rant on, right wing nuts and defensive sorts. The day of the theocracy is is ending and Hirschman is more indicative of the way most folks feel than not. C'est la vie.

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Another female steps out of the shadows to affirm what I've noticed over the past 30 years. Men are not the problem when it comes to "holding women back"...women are! It seems we are the ones constantly judging one anothers abilities, intentions, and values...insisting that it has to be "one or the other." We bitch about not being treated "as equals," then we bitch about it when we are! It has to be "our way" in the feminist world..or nothing.

Why not both ways? Why not do it our own way, in our own time, without asking "Jill, may I?" I'm SO tired of "feminism!"

Can we please try "womanism" for a while? You know...respecting ourselves, our mates, children (including the as yet unborn), homes and workplaces? If we're not happy with a situation (no matter where is is)...let's change it. Let's DO IT, without whining about what we don't have, and try looking instead at what we do have. Then maybe we should count ourselves blessed.

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"why men should be forced to take parental leave"

.. if being forced into something is so damned bad for women, why the fuck would it be considered tolerable for men???

Please don't use feminism as a guise for rank sexism.

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As an American living in Norway I am witness to the benefits of maternity leaves and paternity leaves. Mothers receive a year's paid maternity leave with two months paid paternity leave for fathers. Incidentally, paternity leave cannot take place if the mother is at home, so that the father actually has to take full responsibility for the baby. More and more young fathers are taking this leave and find it a beneficial change. Norway has one of the highest birthrates in Europe because it is taken for granted that society has to be flexible to accomodate young families.

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As a previous poster stated, why are we giving so much coverage to the extremists such as Hirshman? It’s just as damaging to have an inflexible, somewhat volatile voice like this campaigning for woman’s rights & equality, as it is to continue with the way things are right now. There is no way we should force men to stay home with their offspring if it is not the choice both parents involved wish to make, just as we shouldn’t force women into any other new roles.

The idea that abortion should be a valid option for all women, all the way through 9 months, is an idiotic and selfish one; someone should have figured out they were pregnant way back at the first or second month and made the decision then, not well beyond the point that the fetus is capable of survival outside the womb.

Belittling women, whose interests happen to be in the arts and those who want to be stay-at-home mothers, does not encourage the fair and equal treatment for both sexes, which is one of the major points of feminism, but promotes even more division and animosity amongst the sexes and sadly, amongst women themselves.

Ms. Hirshman’s ideals are in the same class as those she’s supposedly fighting against: narrow-minded, bigoted, and unrealistic. Did she forget somewhere that women are in fact humans and we too have wants and desires that might not include business majors, politics, or might actually want to enjoy some time as *gasp* mothers?

Please lady, stop doing what’s been done for centuries: stop trying to pin women into narrow job descriptions and let us lead lives that we want to live. The real fight is for equal treatment, not another defined role.

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Someone who is for womens liberation wants to require (i.e force) them into maternity leave. What if they don't want to go on maternity leave? So much for women's rights.

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From the BBC:
linked text

Egyptian women also enjoyed a surprising degree of financial independence, with surviving accounts and contracts showing that women received the same pay rations as men for undertaking the same job - something the UK has yet to achieve

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... is fatuous.

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All this balderdash about "valuing" "women's work" equally, while assuming that "women's work" is staying home with kids?

Hey, you can "value" it however you want, but WHO IS PAYING YOUR PAYCHECK, darlings?

Not me. Not society.

You can whine, but you can't make us "value" you that much.

You don't have a job. You work at the whim of your husbands, who are the ones footing the bill.

Which is fine. You can get some man to foot the bill for you to dwell upon one or two offspring all day long, he can buy what he wants.

But if you can't -- well, then, darlings, you are UNEMPLOYED. I don't care how society "values" your work as a mother -- if you don't have a father paying you to do it, you may have a lot of work to do (just like people who obsess about climbing mountains, caring for elderly parents or volunteering in Africa) but you don't have a JOB because you don't have a PAYCHECK.

Without a paycheck, you need to find a job to survive.

Why is it that somehow stay-at-home moms think that if "society" would just "value" their work, that somehow all their problems of poverty upon divorce, inability to re-enter the job market at a reasonable level, etc etc would go away?

"Valuing" motherhood is a vague, meaningless concept. It isn't going to get you anywhere. You are really talking about someone PAYING you to do it, in the absence of the child's father. Or you are talking about asking corporations to pretend that you have been doing something which gives you relevant experience when, in fact, you haven't been.

Well, that isn't going to happen. Because as much as you think that raising kids is a wonderful thing to do, the fact is, the rest of us just groan and roll our eyes back in disgust the more kids women pop out and foist on an unwilling, overpopulated, overexploited, stripped and mined world.

WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIDS.

If the father isn't going to pay for it, no one else is going to, that's for sure. There isn't any shortage of kids around -- there are lots. Mothering more of them is just creating more problems for the rest of us, so you can feel "fulfilled," "womanly," and "valued."

Well, "value" yourselves, or get some man to "value" your "womanliness" and to want and pay for that kid, but leave the rest of us out of it -- we were never consulted when you decided to have kids, we certainly didn't ever ask you to quit work to stay home, become a dependent and ruin your employability to take care of them and we don't "value" that AT ALL.

Why don't you-all "value" my exercise program, my journaling, my artwork, my home design and all my other personal indulgences? Not interested? So, why am I required to "value" YOURS just because they will be running around spreading pollution for the next 70 years?

Jan VanDenBerg

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Hirchman is just telling the ladies what the ladies don't want to hear -- fulfilling your womanhood by popping out brats, staying at home and becoming a dependent on the father and then society if that doesn't work out is going to COST YOU BIG.

Because more and more men and the rest of society just aren't interested in picking up the tab for this personal indulgence of yours called a KID.

We are only going to be polluted upon, crowded out by and pushed up against by your kid. We don't need any more kids; we are overpopulated.

This reality is being forced into your consciousness by economic facts because the fact that the globe is overpopulated has changed prices on many markets (labor markets, food markets, housing markets,e tc) in ways which are sending women a very clear message -- YOUR KIDS ARE A PERSONAL INDULGENCE of your own and a BURDEN ON THE REST OF US.

We don't want your kids. Your kids are going to cost a fortune to make them into viable adults, so we hope you have the wealth to cover that expense yourself.

A third of all American kids drop out of high school. They are little failures. They are going to be a huge burden on society. We have far too much unskilled labor. Wages for unskilled and semi-skilled labor is dropping.

Getting a kid to the point that he is not unskilled and can compete successfully on the globalized labor market costs hundreds of thousands of dollars (good schools, tutors, 4-year tuition, etc etc) -- money you will NEVER get back from that kid in any way, shape or form, regardless of how well he does or how filial he is.

Men have noticed this. They just aren't that interested in helping raise kids anymore, because there is no return on it for them.

Women need to take this on board and stop trying to change these realities by whining about society needing to "value" their work. If society really valued their work, they would be rewarded well in order to get them to do it. When society DOESN'T do that, well, women need to sit up and take notice and respond to the reality of the fact that there is no reward to be had for raising kids.

So, just stop it. Cut it back to ONE KID and GET A JOB.

Make yourself useful -- and then everyone will "value" that appropriately and let you know so by sending you a nice, fat paycheck. Because that is how society works.

Jan VanDenBerg

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This article is operating for a pretty narrow spectrum of the human experience. The article and the comments rehash the usual anti-woman and anti-child sentiments. And, of course, no one has the balls to talk about children--what they are like and what they need.

Hirschman is correct--power and wealth are adversly affected by childbirth. This is true for both partners (for children lucky enough to be in two partner households). Children cost a lot of money. Just the birth will set an uninsured woman back thousands, not to mention the prenatal care and well-baby care. As for staying home, most Americans can't afford it. And now, thanks to the welfare queen myth and the use of race to villify maternity, poor woman no longer have the option of staying home. The Section 8 waiting list in Eugene, OR, is closed and four years long. TANF grants are not given to families holding any assets and require work as a prerequsite for enrollment. Having a child and working for low income women means counting on an overburdened and unsafe system of unnoficial caregivers. Only wealthy women or those with a mate who has consented to provide financial support have the option of staying home with a child.

Now, here is the rub--the people who are writing policy seem to have no knowledge of what children are like, that young babies require constant attention and care. Mothers are everything in the eyes of their babies, and to take that away hurts the child. Yes, all of us must feel pain in our lives, but those who choose to try to live out that most important and basic of human relationships should not be prevented by finances in the richest country in the world or stigmatized for not realizing women's pecuniary potential. No one is going to give as much to the child as the one person who built them cell by cell and then nourished them with their milk (crackheads and nut cases excluded). However, our system relentlessly denies the rights of children because children cannot defend themselves--they can't vote, are physically and mentally impaired, and cannot make contributions to the economy. The question becomes, does every child have a right to the kind of care and attention that a mother can give them? Chew on that for a while.

If the answer is yes, then mothers and children need financial support from a steady source. My vote is paying for maternity leave through the unemployment tax for the first two to three years and then universal pre-school should be provided. If partners also want to take leave, that should be encouraged and paid for. Most men that I've known who spent time at home enjoyed the experience and felt immesurably enriched by it. Yes, they had to mop up poop for free when they would be getting $10 an hour to do it as a nurse's aid or orderly, but they really didn't seem to mind.

If the answer is no, then this country needs to stop paying lip service to families with the implied message that some children have worth and other do not and that care provided for children also has no worth. Instead, we idealize the mother and then make her task impossible.

But back to Hirschman--she is correct. Valuing one's children enough to provide them with your labor reduces a parent's value in the labor force. I feel that needs to be addressed by changing the system via regulation: paid maternity leave and an honest committment to our children. Politicians will not offer us this committment until we stand up and demand it. Instead, they will continue to hawk "family values" like forced prayer.

Oh, and I agree about the abortion thing.

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It seems like these same issues are debated over and over again on any working mother/feminist blog on AlterNet.
Seems to me that Ms. Linda is a bit over-zealous in some of her comments, but she is being so blatant to hit women and society over the head with the raw facts....having children does take away from your current and future abilities in the work force. It is that plain and simple. She is not being biased or bigoted in that statement. It is a fact.
To some, losing clout in the working world can be a negative thing. It's all in where your priorities lie. If you have children, you have to be ready to sacrifice some of your career whether you stay home or not. Children alter everything. They just do. I don't understand why women who work 70 hours a week have children! Sorry, I don't! I don't understand the thought process of a woman who gives up the whole of her being to raise her children. That is not healthy for anybody.
Young women in American society need to be educated about these very topics. Couples need to be ready for sacrifices BEFORE having children. If the couple is not willing to sacrifice, they should not have children.
I am a firm believer that all women need to have a source of income of their own. There were previous blogs about everything being about money and where is the focus on children, but who is going to feed these mouths? How will the family clothe these children, keep them warm, have water to drink etc etc without money. They won't. So while the idea of having a mommy at home blissfully in love with an infant is idyllic and beautiful, it is unrealistic for most of the American population. And what about daddy who goes off to work? What if he never comes back? Then what about mommy and baby? It has been blogged that women need to do the primal thing and take care of their babies. Yes, that is true in the physical sense as in being there, but some of that has to be sacrificed for the raw drive to keep your children in a warm home and with food.
A mother having a life outside of her children is absolutely vital. If not, what happens to the mother? What happens to the marriage?
The bottom line is families (note I said families not women) need to adjust when children come into the world. Anything less is selfish.

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What shallow lives you lead. Women trying to be act like men, and thinking that is liberation. I guess it is-if you worship money.

I could not live without my kids and my horse and garden. My clothes are not fancy, I don't make a lot of money, but I own my own (small) home.

I can see the mountains and a river and a lake from where I live, and they are a few minutes away. I try to stay out of the city, it stresses me out to go there. I think it makes people crazy.

Oh and yes I have a BA in Art. Art is more important than money to me. But I gess it is better to drink at the bars and go shopping and whatever else you all do to relax after a day at the office.
I do not see how your lifestyle is going to help the world.

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Let's face it, human life is messy. We don't make easy choices for ourselves because frankly, most of our solutions are "after the fact" and not thought out actions in the first place. But then when we do have a kid, oops, sometimes women get pregnant even ON birth control. That is why if you look at the statistics of contraceptives and their true results sometimes you get babies even on it. Abstinence you say? Ya right. Like any needy person with an emotionally needy heart is ever going to always be abstinent. Who are these cold blooded machines that can deny their love without supervision from an adult? And if women really wanted to be equal to men, they would do what men do: stop trying to be like women. Be totally feminine and let the block-headed men DEAL with it. That is how men act with women. Men do what they do and if it works fine, if it doesn't, oh well. Women worry too much (that is why they make great mothers) and men in this society don't give a crap. (That is why a lot are dead beat dads). So women, just be women. Embrace everything that means. Stop competing and start OWNING your power. URAH!

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--I mean this respectfully and in a "Kantian Way of course."
...It is extremely odd to me that such an intelligent woman would so marginalize and limit her gender by pandering to the "established rules" of what constitutes value in a given society. Hirshman apparently can not see beyond her own myopic view that everyone must in some way "valuationally contribute"--as decided by both capitalist society. Does she seek a new paradigm? No, rather as an "avante gard" femininist she chooses instead to invoke the same tired old capitalistic societal standards. I wonder what pushed her to go back to school to obtain a Phd in Philosophy? Surely she is sufficiently intelligent and capable enough to go directly to the sources of classical works (i.e. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Descartes and yes even Emmanuel Kant)--why the need for a Phd? I mean wouldn't putting her own thoughts out to the general public be enough? Why would she need the faux imprimatur of the advanced educated effete?
Yet in this Feminist's twisted mind, the world falls into very narrow classifications: 1) you are defined not by your own values, but by those around you, 2) you only " have worth" if you can both substantiate and quantify your "value" via the working world by cold hard cash. So unless you pick up a big paycheck, you are of no value either to yourself, or society. How these feminist theories of "value," ties into she teaching philosophy--a bullshit degree if anyone ever saw one--is not explained. I mean how can someone tell women not to take " Art, but something more practical"--so what does this feminist dipshit do? She gives up her " practical " law degree to get a Phd in Philosophy!!!...oh yeah hold on to your hats folks--dem feminists are goin to shake up da world!!!! Obviously using Hirshman's "practically focused logic ", Socrates, who never made a dime and was executed for his effort to teach the young men of Athens had no value. Nor Plato, nor poor demented Vincent Van Gogh.
On the other hand, Jenna Jamison who is teaching all these rigidly frigid intellectual feminist elites how to "fuck like a porn star," and who has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for numerous weeks and is making money hand over fist and by doing so is able to demonstrate the ideal feminist "valuational quotient?" (and indirectly her value to both society and feminism) ...hmmmm...
So, as Hirshman allegedly defines in her works: if a woman--gifted, talented and wise--decides that her passion is raising her children according to her own enlightened standards--on her own terms... by doing so she is: a) not rising to her promise, b) short changing society, c) she can not "live out her ideals, and therefore d) cannot be truly equal--in a male dominated societal framework?
Now where does that put the rest of "us poo niggaas"--both male and female?
Well, according to Hirshman, (we) are in what philosophers call a "situation of extreme scarcity." We are the society's effluence. We cannot get the good paying jobs because we don't have that drive to excel and therefore we are not even counted. We have no reason to even be moral or have values. Why would we? For according to this Feminist Philosopher, in order to have values and be judged morally, one has to be "fully using their capabilities."--" in a Kantian way of course."
Hmmm? Now let me see, I have to make a value choice: My own Mother who could hardly speak English and worked two jobs to help raise her family and always gave--never took and never worried about whether she had any societal value and wouldn't know a feminist from a Martian; or Linda Hirshman, the gifted attorney--turned philosopher and who is living up to all these incredible feminist ideals of both equality and value and has all the allure of chewing on cardboard... now who would I want to rear me-- " in a Kantian way of course..."

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I was a 1970 feminist, and am a 2007 feminist, and would have disagreed with Linda Hirshman’s argument then, as I do now. Not because of an exaltation of domesticity, and not because I don’t agree with Hirshman’s main premise, expressed elsewhere, that we need more women in positions of power. But her remedy is to better suit young women to excel in the same crippling, patriarchal system that we are still suffering under. Neither women nor men who rise as cogs in this machine are likely to rebel against the hierarchy that rewards them.

Let's change the debate. How do we structure business to help parents move their experience in and out of the marketplace? How do we help foster independent and home based businesses? How do we regain the bonds of community so that we are all actively involved in the raising of our youth? How can we make business and politics more fluid and accessible so that older women, with children grown, can easily refocus their amazing energy?

It’s not a question of whether we all belong in the kitchen or the cubicle, it’s whether we all belong in a better world.

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I already felt she was emphasizing "Duh" items like the fact that staying home to raise your own children hurts you financially. We know that. I have my letter from my ex-employer telling me how much I would be earning if I turned my toddler over to substitute care and joined that Rushin Roulette wheel.

Also I believe her other stances are simply troublemaking. For example, her judgmental and biased ivory tower opinion that raising children is not important enough to be a worthwhile extended occupation for an educated woman.

But the abortion up to 9 months is just stupid. It also undermines genuine pro-choice arguments, by posing as a "logical extension." Disregarding personal opinions on abortion, this would never work.

Let's roleplay it. Assume we have an 8 1/2 month pregnant woman who suddenly decides she doesn't want the baby and wants nobody else to adopt either. Let's not go into how unlikely that might be.

Is she to be induced into early labor? Probably impractical and too hard on the woman, who is of primary consideration in this scenario.
So there is a Cesarian like operation to remove a baby/fetus which is probably viable, which then somebody is going to have to "look in the face" and then perform the job of... gassing? Cutting up? Selling in secret on the black market adoption arena for lots of money?

What doctor worthy of the name would do this? Even most pro-choice doctors don't really like performing abortions as they are today. I mean really, has she given this any thought at all except in the abstract? There is a genuine reason why society has drawn a biological gestation line that is "acceptable" for abortion. At a certain point the fetus is too "baby-like".

Makes for lots of media attention though, and I can understand the temptation.

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I thought Linda Hirschman was a little scary based on excerpts I read from her book, but this interview makes her seem seriously disturbed. If I ran Brandeis, I would be more than a little concerned that she was teaching philosophy (love of wisdom??) to college kids.
A couple of quick points. It isn't feminism when you define human rights as those rights men have historically claimed for themselves. It isn't feminism when you validate what works for men (what has historically worked for men) as the universal human ideal. It certainly isn't feminism when you insist that women ought to participate in a system many of us have reason to believe is shallow, if not morally bankrupt.
Just because men have never worried overmuch about seeking their fulfillment at the expense of those with less power and fewer options than they have doesn't mean this isn't a serious moral question that educated women have a right --and a duty--to wrestle with.
In the best of all possible worlds, it might be desirable for kids to be reared communally. But today's culture has been overrun by commercial interests that care for nothing but market share. If you're going to turn your kids over to that, why would you want them in the first place?

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