Saturday, September 22, 2012

What Do Women Really Want?


A man who wants to know what women want has one surefire way to find out. Ask….

If Freud had trusted women, if he had respected their judgment and been willing to take them at their word he would not have had to torment himself about the mystery of women’s desire.

In a recent survey young mothers were asked what they really, really want. The answer: they want to stay at home with their children. They would rather not work outside of their homes. 

Meghan Casserly reports:

At a moment in history when the American conversation seems to be obsessed with bringing attention to women in the workplace (check out “The End of Men,” or Google “gender paygap” for a primer), it seems a remarkable chasm between what we’d like to see (more women in the corporate ranks) and what we’d like for ourselves (getting out of Dodge). But it’s true: according to our survey, 84% of working women told ForbesWoman and TheBump that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to.

What’s more, more than one in three resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.

If this is true, then what are we to make of the feminist siren song that tells women that they cannot be happy and fulfilled unless they have a great career?

Are feminists lying to women about themselves?

Are feminists systematically disrespecting women’s desires and doing everything in their power to ensure that those desires are frustrated?

Feminism pretends to defend the best interests of women. In some cases it has enjoyed notable success in defending women’s political rights.

And yet, feminism has another uglier side, one that is not about politics but about the way a woman chooses to live her life. A radical ideology seeking a major cultural transformation, feminism wants women to conform to its idea of what they should want.

The national conversation about women in the workplace is a ruse. It shows how feminism manipulates women’s minds to make them believe that if they are not sacrificing their wishes for feminism’s, they are betraying that cause.

Feminism does not respect women; it does not respect women’s wishes; it does not respect women’s choices.

Working mothers who cannot afford to stay at home with their children resent their men for not being better providers. All the talk about the end of men has masked women's resentment of the men who are not affording them the opportunity to stay at home with their children.

Yet, feminism has long been fighting a culture war against the role of the male breadwinner. It has argued that a woman who depends on a man for financial support is a chattel slave.

There were times in history when women have been grossly mistreated. It is happening as we speak. There have been times when women have not been allowed to vote or to own property in their names.

Comparing those appalling practices to the custom of having a woman stay at home to be with her children evinces paranoid thinking. It's almost as stupid as thinking that a suburban housewife is living in conditions that are akin to those that existed in concentration camps.

If a woman chooses freely to stay at home radical feminists will say that she has been so corrupted by the patriarchy that she is colluding with her oppressors.

Rest assured, for radical feminists there is no such thing as a fact or an expression of a woman’s desire that could possibly disprove their ideology.

In reality, women do not stay on the job because they want to fulfill a feminist’s dream. They do it because they have to, because their families cannot maintain their lifestyle on a single income.

And they resent their husbands for not being good enough providers. Surely, this is not a good thing.

All of this means that a young woman who is not yet married and not yet a mother should plan ahead. For those young women who wish to make such  a plan Penelope Trunk offers some excellent advice.

8 comments:

Jim said...

About 17 years ago when my wife gave birth to twin boys at the age of 40 our lives became quite different. My wife quit her job and we made do with less so she could stay home with the twins. We also had a teenaged son at the same time. Whenever my wife would take the twins shopping, other women noticed and would often ask "Does your husband let you stay home so you can enjoy your babies?" and she would say yes and the response was always something like "good for you". I was very surprised to hear of this as we lived near Los Angeles at the time. Of course, the women who envied my wife were not highly paid professionals who could afford nannies but working class, (mostly Latina) women who would love to have more time to spend with their children.

Katielee4211 said...

Good article. As a woman, I can tell you I have no doubt of mine, or any woman's competency in the workplace. If she chooses. But I can also tell you I, and most I know, would have rather been home with their kids. But then I, and the women I know are secure in being women. (When mine were young, I and quite a few Mom's, had that option, or work part time only. Our spouses were in the oil fields--good money. When I mention that to Mom's today, to the one they think we were lucky, they envy that.)

I wonder if feminists really don't like being women. Maybe, in a rather Freudian way, they really do have pen-- envy.

modern psychotherapy said...

nice article..if your husband can really support your family its better to stay at home with your kids,so you can really take care of them and you can look after them and at the same time you can also take care to your husband..

Dennis said...

It is interesting that we find, as opposed to what feminists, the handmaids of the modern Democrat party, state, most women would rather be home with their children. Then we find that Hispanics, as represented by UNIVISION, question Obama's lack of action and governing, or lack thereof, ability. Far more representative of a free press than what passes as the MSM. Many of us who live in states with large Hispanic populations know they are hard working, family oriented, and religious individuals who in many cases are far more appreciative of being Americans as those who have lived as Americans for generations.
Does anyone wonder if we are not being purposefully being pitted against each other by groups so that we cannot see how much we have in common? If one analyzed this one might be led to ponder whether there is a political party that does everything in its power to keep us from solving our problems together as Americans. As long as we have problems that seem too "complex" to solve we will need them to tell us what to do. Government just has to save us from ourselves.
Does anyone see the same actions being taken to make us dislike each other? When one steps back it just smacks one in the face it is so obvious.
Then one is forced to ask why we have allowed the extremists, progressives and radicals to lead use down this path of disintegration as a nation of citizens to a nation of interest groups growing ever more dependent on government to tell us the where, when, how and who of the lives we are allowed to live? Instead of seeing how much we have in common and to gain from each other we are allowing the government to make us enemies.
I suspect if we took a real look at who most of us are as people we would truly enjoy being Americans. We are what happens when we have a "melting pot" that combines the best of what the world has to offer in one nation.

Dennis said...

Can one not look at Mia Love and see a bright intelligent woman whose parents came here to add to that "melting pot" and be quintessentially American? For that matter the large numbers of black Americans, mostly Conservative, who represent all of us like Representative Alan West.
One wonders how so many in the black community have allowed the destruction of their families by the same extremists, radicals, progressives and hate mongers of the Left and sadly the Democrat party? How long does it take to understand that conditions have gotten worse for them? One can either climb up the ladder of success on one's own ability or allow the government to force everyone down the ladder to dependency and stereotypical group identities trying to grab a piece of the pie instead of baking one's own pie and sharing it with others if one so desires and to give a hand up vice a handout.
I am proud to be an American, but that does no mean I am proud of what my government has become. Increasingly my government serves its desire for power and not the citizens who it was established to represent. We are a good people and we need to put limits on this all consuming "beast" that divides us for its purposes.

Sam L. said...

" Are feminists lying to women about themselves?

Are feminists systematically disrespecting women’s desires and doing everything in their power to ensure that those desires are frustrated?"

Yes, and Yes.

Anonymous said...

Contemporary feminist ideology is rooted in FEAR of who they are or ar not. It does not empower women. It cannot empower women. Fear just breeds more fear. Being that most of the feminist Left lives in academia, I suspect they feel right at home with the other "______ Studies" victimized windbags. That makes them stay-at-home feminists. How fitting.

I've always found it amusing that Lefties ask others "Whose values???" when it comes to values, ethics and morals in the public sphere. They judgmentally pass judgment on those they consider "judgmental" (a word I have come to detest). What is not amusing is that they get away with it without the question bein imposed on the, "So... What are YOUR values???" This strikes me as the easiest way to end such one-sided "conversation." When I do this in exchanges with feminists, it stops traffic. They become very defensive. They refuse to answer. They are extremely uncomfortable. Then they leave.

This is because what animates contemporary ideological feminism is deep, self-indulgent anger. It is rooted in powerlessness. These are the womyn Christina Hoff Sommers famously described as "gender feminists," contrasted with "equity feminists" who hold equal opportunity for women as the fundamental goal.

Tip

modern psychotherapy said...

we woman also is hard to understand and woman are so sensitive specially when it comes to problems..we get easily emotional..we need to lessen our attitude when it comes to this kind of situation..