“Mrs. Clinton’s recent candidacy was a moment of reckoning for women of her generation, who treated her run as a mirror in which to examine their own lives. With Ms. Palin’s entry into the field, a younger generation of women have picked up that mirror, using her candidacy to address the question of just how demanding a job a mother with such intense family obligations should tackle.”

An interesting story in The New York Times, about what Sarah Palin represents to women: A New Twist in the Debate on Mothers.
Conservative women, who have traditionally criticized women for working, are super-excited about …read more

The Battle Ground of Feminism is the Home.
Because I don’t necessarily want to have that battle in my home today, I’ll stick with citing examples from FEMININE MISTAKE, THE: ARE WE GIVING UP TOO MUCH?, by Leslie Bennetts.
“This opt-out thing is about false choices,” says sociologist Barbara Risman. “If you’ve been raised thinking you can do everything, and your husband works eighty hours a week, and you work eighty hours a week, and he’s not willing to budge an inch, and you never see your chilren, so you opt-out – that’s not really opting out; that’s being pushed …read more

I hear mothers talk about how sacrifice is “worth it” for their kids. I especially hear this if mother’s have given up something valuable – economic independence, dreams, ambitions, time, goals, careers, autonomy, hobbies, interests, etc.
When did I – as a human being – lose my inherent value? Was it when I stopped being the child so worthy of my mother’s sacrifice? Or was it when I became the mother, expected to sacrifice everything for my children, and then say, “it’s worth it?” Or was it when I turned 18 and stopped being a legal child?
I’m just …read more

Mothers periodically reevaluate whether they should go back to work or quit their jobs – depending on their current situation.
I found these fascinating statistics in FEMININE MISTAKE, THE: ARE WE GIVING UP TOO MUCH?.
One Harvard and Cornell study found that
Women who were homemakers at the beginning of their three-year study and and then went to work full time reported a decrease in psychological distress.
A Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and Women’s eNews study found that
Women who were employed full time and then dropped out to stay home reported an increase in distress, regardless if they had children. …read more

Feminism has long suffered from one major logistical problem.

The “build a career years” and the “raise the baby years” are the same years.

Women on the career path are leaving the workforce in droves because of this logistical conflict.

Both deserve our full attention so women either feel they have to choose or live with perpetual guilt for dividing their attentions.

Enter Barbara Walters with a 150 year solution.

According to the Barbara Walter’s Special my children could very likely live between 100 and 150 years.

The difference is science and our ability through stem-cell research and other advancements to cure disease. Eradicate disease and …read more

I’ve not yet read the new feminist manifesto, The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts, citing the difficult to refute reasons why women shouldn’t commit to a life as a stay-at-home mom (or apparently any variation therein including part-time or work-from-home mom). My Australian Feminist Mommy counter-part Blue Milk did such an in-depth review of this book,  I would hate for you to miss it.Here are some excerpts from Blue Milk’s review of The Feminine Mistake“The Feminine Mistake has little to say about how our community and economy could be organised differently to focus less on a traditional male life-course, and much to say about how women can best ensure their security …read more

 Hillary is a name that inspires venom in many women I know.
It’s hard to fathom exactly why.
 She’s too ambitious.
But certainly she’s not more or less ambitious than any male presidential candidate. To run for president it’s necessary to be ambitious and certainly you don’t hope for an unambitious president.
She’s not a good role model.
In what sense? The current president is a recovering alcoholic and cocaine-user with a criminal record, but many religious people still voted for him and perceive him as a great role model. Hillary has a clean record, is as religious as any of the men running. It’s inconsistent.
The most baffling is when you …read more

I know a few new moms who are finding the transition to Mommy difficult. I can totally relate. I suffered Post-Partum Depression pretty severely after the birth of my first child. I had just witnessed 9-11 which was traumatic and that most likely contributed to the severity of my PPD. I’ve written a little bit about it on So Sioux Me so you can read Fear Not, if you want to know more details about my extremely difficult transition into Mama.
I’ve had a second child since then and I have had five years to reflect on the massive overhaul of identity that …read more