Anne Kingston on feminism and its backlash:
It's ironic. Twentieth-century feminism is routinely trashed for having assumed all women wanted a hard-driving career. Even Friedan came to recognize the error of that presumption, writing in her memoir, Life So Far: "I couldn't define 'liberation' for women in terms that denied the sexual and human reality of our need to love, and even, sometimes, to depend upon a man."
But now critics of feminism routinely make a reverse generalization -- that feminism got it wrong and that women really want to drop out and revel in the traditional role of woman.
The backlash could have been predicted if we consider that the modern corporation was created based on the assumption that employees had domestic backup and that married men should be paid more than single women. Should we be surprised that corporate life tends to be unaccommodating to married women and mothers? Or that a wage gap between men and women continues and women are frustrated they cannot get ahead?
The last paragraph of the article, which points out what women really want, is worth checking out.
