You Can't Be a Feminist and Have Kids (Or: Everything You Do Is Wrong)
Blog:
This week, The New York Times is running a series on the benefits and pitfalls of attachment parenting in its Room for Debate section, inspired by Elisabeth Badinter's "The Conflict." For the most part, the essays are thoughtful and measured, and some of them (Erica Jong's and Annie Urban's in particular, I think) discuss important factors in child-rearing.
But the title of the series is "Motherhood vs. Feminism," with the subtitle, "Has women's obsession with being the perfect mother destroyed feminism?" And one of the essays argues seriously that feminism needs to go because women now feel pressure to work outside the home rather than putting our families first.
Every week, it seems, a book or article comes out telling mothers how we're doing it wrong. And because we do want to get it "right," since so much is at stake, many of us buy and read these critiques, which are often ill-
But the title of the series is "Motherhood vs. Feminism," with the subtitle, "Has women's obsession with being the perfect mother destroyed feminism?" And one of the essays argues seriously that feminism needs to go because women now feel pressure to work outside the home rather than putting our families first.
Every week, it seems, a book or article comes out telling mothers how we're doing it wrong. And because we do want to get it "right," since so much is at stake, many of us buy and read these critiques, which are often ill-
