
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Feb. 14, 2006
/ 16 Shevat, 5766
Women who make women look bad
By
Kathryn Lopez
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I simply have no patience for women.
Odds are I don't mean you, your wife or your mother. I do mean, however, the type of gal who tends to grace the likes of The New York Times editorial pages.
I'm thinking in particular of Judith Warner. Warner is the author of a book called "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" . In memorializing the recently deceased feminist "founding mother" Betty Friedan (as she is frequently described), Warner heralded Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" as "surprisingly relevant today" — indeed, "horribly familiar."
To understand Warner, one must understand Friedan. "The Feminine Mystique," a feminist classic, has a chapter entitled "The Comfortable Concentration Camp." Friedan was a seriously desperate housewife, comparing women raising kids at home to the hopelessness of American POWs in Korea. She was married and unhappy and based a philosophy on her personal coping strategy. Friedan moved on, but not without leading others astray with her ideas.
As my friend and colleague Kate O'Beirne writes in her book, "Women Who Make the World Worse" , Friedan got a divorce, "but unfortunately not before she expounded on the merits of Marxist economics, persuaded far too many women that a selfless devotion to their families was a recipe for misery, helped create the National Organization for Women (NOW), and destructively politicized relations between the sexes."
| BUY THE BOOK |
| Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.).
|
|
Likewise in 2006, Judith Warner seems to want to base a revived Friedanism — and reinvigorate "destructively politicized relations between the sexes" — on personal choices she's not entirely delighted with. Her problem seems to stem from a husband who doesn't clean up his socks. Warner writes, "The outside world has changed enormously for women in these past 40 years. But home life? Think about it. Who routinely unloads the dishwasher, puts away the laundry and picks up the socks in your house? Who earns the largest share of the money? Who calls the shots?"
Warner seems to consider the life of a mom who can choose to stay at home with her children, working at writing for minimal hours, wrought with "soul-numbing sacrifices."
Obviously, some women will find motherhood and home life not for them.
(Though even some hardened feminists have written about the reality check that falling in love with their baby meant for their own gender biases.) But Warner's answer is to universalize her experience and encourage women to put their kids' childhoods into the "soul-numbing sacrifice" category. Some women rather celebrate the opportunity.
Warner, as she explains it in her book, believes that the village should raise the children. In "Perfect Madness," Warner calls for "institutions that can help us take care of our children so we don't have to do everything on our own," wanting French-style month-long mommy vacations and other big-government solutions.
Now, don't get me wrong, a month off sounds great in a "Calgon take me away" kinda way. And I don't mean to diminish the stress and anxiety that comes with families making hard choices, sometimes a single parent making it. But ... can we be serious?
Her thinking is pulled straight out of Betty Friedan. Friedan wrote: "But even if a woman does not have to work to eat, she can find identity only in work that is of real value to society — work for which, usually, our society pays." Warner, who has, in fact, been dubbed "The New Betty Friedan," would easily run the hysteria marathon with the feminist torch of victimization held high. But that's nothing to award a gold medal for.
Friedan/Warner thinking is a slap-in-the-face to stay-at-home moms who are home because they actually want to be there. And it's an attitude that is damaging to children. O'Beirne summarizes the research and debates well in a chapter of "Women Who Make the World Worse" called "Day Care Good; Mother Bad." Besides the ear infections and other physical disadvantages of sending your kid off to an institution, an expert on the first three years of childhood, O'Beirne cites, says it all — and it's all so natural: "babies form their first human attachment only once. Babies begin to learn language only once ... The outcome of these processes play a major role in shaping the future of each child."
I'm not looking to inflame so-called Mommy Wars here, but it's pretty simple: If you can stay home with your kid, it's a good thing. Embrace it. Don't let modern day bottle burners tell you any differently.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|