To: jlallen who wrote (30343 ) 1/27/1999 5:45:00 PM From: Lizzie Tudor Read Replies (1) | Respond to
OK JLA, this is the last time Im going to go through this exercise, but because it is so easy I did it (Just go to the heritage foundation web page, do a search on "feminism" or "women + work" etc and all kinds of dirt comes up).heritage.org :80/library/categories/theory/hl590.htmlWe have come a long way from the Murphy Brown debate, and now it's difficult to find anyone who does not believe that Dan Quayle was right. - Excuse me while I laugh!Mothers who work typically (and I include myself in this category) are more frazzled in balancing career and home than mothers who do not work. Says Ms. Ephron, mother of two, of her fictional creation: "Everything that is good news for her [the mother in the movie] is bad news for [her] kids." I have had similar experiences in my work life. . The First Lady hosted a luncheon for working mothers. Fair enough, but the women who wrote me wanted to know if she might host a luncheon for working mothers who stay at home, their work being their children. Good question: In my column, I suggested that the First Lady might like to do just that, but I wouldn't hold my breath because that kind of attitude is still not politically chic among the Democrats. - notice a derogatory tone here? This luncheon was for working women, not stay at home moms, this attitude is out of line.Anne Roiphe, a novelist who also describes herself as a feminist, scolds feminists for downgrading motherhood and eliminating that as a positive choice. "The only thing I know for sure," she says, "is that I would rather have a child than a book." (She has both.) Most social critics will now concede that the full-time working father and the mother stirring the gravy were in no way ideal, but society and our children have paid a heavy price for having fewer full-time mothers and full-time fathers to raise families. The first feminists, like true revolutionaries, attacked the good with the bad. Discrimination is rarely a revolutionary virtue. Noonan replies cautiously that of all the ways you can spend your time between now and death, she thinks "work is just...overrated." There are two fundamental reasons to work: You need the money to
