I’m amused at how discombobulated the Feminist Establishment has become over Louise Story’s New York Times article noting that 60 percent of Yale women (and, implictly, a similar percentage at other elite colleges) plan to become full-time mothers when they start having children. We’ve heard about how these young women will be “wasting” their education and shouldn’t be allowed into the Ivies in the frst place. We’ve heard about how they’re being brainwashed into barefoot pregnancy by the evil patriarchal establishment:
And now, here’s a new twist from the feministas: women who want to stay at home with their babies are “selfish.” Yup, that’s the view of Julie Shiller writing for the Hartford Courant (hat tip: our friend Wendy McElroy):
“Do these women feel a sense of entitlement to be entirely supported by their husbands? Although all women should be permitted to be full-time mothers, most do not have the freedom to stop working outside the home. It is not an equal choice when less wealthy and marginalized women are not granted the option. Women who were born into an unearned advantaged position are relinquishing their power and independence to patriarchy….
“Ivy League women are not taking advantage of the ability they have to make incredible strides in the fight for gender equality that would benefit women from all backgrounds. Instead, they are choosing to use their power for their own selfish desires.
“In the Victorian era, women were forced by men to adhere to submissive, weak and emotional roles as a way for males to maintain ultimate control and status. Now young, dominant women are in a commanding position to enhance the civil liberties granted to disadvantaged women and other minority groups. Unfortunately, the future of our nation has been placed in the hands of elite young women who have chosen to thoughtlessly improve their own lives while jeopardizing the future of those that they had the power to assist.”
Time was–say, back in the ’70s–when radical feminists looked at full-time mitherhood as a life of unmitigated drudgery. Now they look on full-time motherhood as a life of unmitigated laziness. I say that any way you look at it, it beats being a full-time footsoldier in the “fight for gender equality.”