Yep, I agree with that re: Dowd in general.
40 real estate agents sounds promising! If there is that much interest, you'd think you'd be able to get a good price...?
More good points from Thomas.
Boomer, I know what you mean about cut off at the knees. On the other hand, I think that Dowd does feminism a disservice with articles like these. That's part of why I get sputtering, that I'm ready to agree and then it's no, nooo, what?!
I don't know where I fall in all of this, generation-wise. I'm almost 35 and don't know if that can be called "young". But as Thomas indicated, I dislike the "those young women today" aspect when it's the likes of taking on a husband's last name and choosing balance rather than a single high-powered career.
Oh, didn't see boomer there, was agreeing with Osso -- though I agree with boomer, too.
I guess the "recognize" is what I get caught on. The evidence that young women -- in general -- don't recognize this is that they have Cosmo on their desks and don't insist on being called Ms.? I'm picking up on the more trivial elements of an article that does have more serious elements, but it's precisely the fact that so much of it is trivial that bothers me.
I know what you mean soz, it is very trivial. I think the fact that it has become trivial is a very good thing.
I really like watching the see-saw of culture.
No matter what choices you make someone is always going to think your a fool. It would be boring if we had to toe someone else's line.
To put it another way....
Rosa Parks has been in the news a lot lately and for very good reason. I too sing the praises of Rosa Parks.
But one of my personal heros is Ida B. Wells.
Rosa walked quietly in Ida B's noisy footsteps.
Without the one we might not have had the other.
I'm finding a lot of your characterizations hard to imagine. In 1973, i knew a group of young university women (who, like me, would now be in their 50s) who were very much concerned with the outcome of the Roe versus Wade case. But they weren't terribly exercised about whether or not they'd have children and a career, nor were they dogmatic about what a woman "ought to do." I remember all of us having a good laught at a Ms Magazine article about a man not making a bed, and the author trying to make it a political issue.
I think with Dowd or any of the "feminist literatti" you're getting a distorted view, because these women write for a living, and controversy is the bread and meat of their metier. My experience of university women thirty years ago, and now, is that they have about the same attitudes. And finally, why should any of them feel any gratitude to women who claimed to have been militant feminists? Do such women contend that there'd have been no progress without them? Nonsense.
You all laughed with good reason because that's just plain stupid -- the making the bed thing.
I think we're agreeing, but I have a feeling that you think we're disagreeing when you say college women in the 70s weren't all worked up about whether they would have kids and a career.
I think in the 70s and 80s that women expected to have both. The either/or and when debate is something newish -- women expect to have both on a strict timetable that allows them to produce the most exceptional and uncompromising results with both.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
For me, it is totally unrealistic to do well at both. I have to prioritize my stuff a bit better. I can't walk, chew gum and juggle at the same time, either.
I do believe that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Would progress have been make without the squeaky wheels -- absolutely. Would it have happened so quickly or galvanized so many -- probably not.
If black people had quietly seethed over Jim Crow laws for another 10 years where would the civil rights movement have gone? It would have happened but not as quickly.
Do women owe a debt of gratitude to "militant feminist" (Is this what Limbaugh calls a "feminazi?)?
Do black people owe a debt of gratitude to civil rights activist?
I guess that is a matter of opinion, but my opinion is that yes, they do.
Do I agree with everything Gloria Steinem (or Maureen Dowd) said or everything the Black Panthers did?
No, I don't.
I have never considered myself a feminist and I'm surprised to see myself arguing in favor of their impact on my life but so be it.
