@BillRM,
How come you don't want to know how much money I make, or my net worth, or what make car I drive, or how many children I have, or what size bra I wear, or how I vote, or what kind of home I live in, or how I dress, or whether I belong to or support the NRA, or whether I have any religious affiliation, or the color of my eyes and hair, or my height and weight, or what my hobbies and leisure pursuits are?
You are just plain nuts. I'm not going to satisfy your obsession with me.
To return to the topic of the thread...
In the cases of Ms. Venker and Ms. Schlafly, it is significant to note that neither of these women functions, or has functioned, exclusively as a wife and mother. Schlafly's own mother worked as a librarian and schoolteacher and was the breadwinner of the family after her husband was thrown into long-term unemployment as a result of the Depression. Schlafly herself married an affluent attorney, which removed financial concerns from her life, but she had earned both B.A. and Masters degrees prior to her marriage (and later in her life she graduated from law school) and she ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress only three years after marrying her husband.
Quote:Critics of Schlafly have emphasized an apparent contradiction between her advocacy against equal rights and her role as a working professional. Gloria Steinem and author Pia de Solenni, among others, have noted what they consider irony in Schlafly's role as an advocate for the full-time mother and wife, while being herself a lawyer, editor of a monthly newsletter, regular speaker at anti-liberal rallies, and political activist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly
Suzanne Venker is Schlafly's niece and she works as a writer, but she's certainly willing to venture from her home when her work requires it--like the book promotion tours and interviews for the book that provoked this thread. Venker very much feels that a man's earning power should affect a woman's decision about whether to marry him (so he can support her while she stays home raising the children) and she's said she'd advise her daughter against becoming something like a brain surgeon because it would take too much time from wifely and motherly duties. But yet she supports someone like Sarah Palin who went into politics and became governor of a state while she still had school age children in her home simply because Palin's on her side of the right-wing conservative, religious values, spectrum.
So, since neither of these two women has ever functioned exclusively in the roles of wife and mother, one has to wonder why they are advocating such a life for other women. They have also both benefited from the strides made by feminists without acknowledging any positive aspects of feminism. And, in a society where 1 out of every 2 marriages ends in divorce (including Venker's first marriage), one has to question their grasp on reality if they feel that women should still be defining themselves mainly in terms of their husbands and not coming to grips with the fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce, some other marriages end with the death of the husband, and woman often must consequently work while still raising their children. It's also nice to live in affluence, as Schlafly did during her marriage, but many middle class families would be unable to send their children to college if there were not two wage earners in the family saving for such expenses. And neither Venker and Schlafly, nor many feminists, ever consider the plight of lower income women who can't afford the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom nor do they have access to the educational opportunities that could lead to a career.
Demonizing feminism, or presenting a somewhat warped and distorted view of it, in order to promote a right-wing conservative political agenda, with definite religious overtones and bias, which is also anti-gay, anti-choice regarding abortion, anti-sex, pro the death penalty, even for minors, and sees conspiracies everywhere, particularly left-wing conspiracies, might be a good way to grab attention to sell books, but it hardly qualifies as serious objective social commentary or a dispassionate evaluation of the over-all effects of feminism. This is nothing more than the same old song and dance that Schlafly's been doing for the last 40 years--as she's been busy pursuing her own career and "having it all"--except that her niece, Venker, is able to present it in a more light-hearted format.
These two are not going to convince most women that they would have been happier if time had stopped in the 1950's and the women's movement had never happened, let alone convince them that a woman's life should be one of "altruism and sacrifice". We need real workable solutions to the real problems of today, including the care of children in a two income or two career family, or in a single parent home, and that's going to involve looking forward and not backward.
