The Backlash Continues

When we got married, my wife decided I need to be more sensitized to the plight of women in America, so she made me read Susan Faludi's Backlash. Now I didn't finish it (nobody can - it's repetitive, depressing, and huge), but after that I was quicker to spot anti-feminist rhetoric than she was. And when there is a whole bunch of it published within a short period, I have to comment.

Yesterday was Mother's Day, so of course there were the predictable odes to motherhood. There were also backhanded critiques of women without children or who work while they do, also predictably. First, there is Katherine Ellison, who suggests that the challenges of motherhood actually make women smarter. And then there is this article in the Post by Jennifer Frey and Claudia Deane, who write a "trend" article in which a few affluent people are interviewed to paint a general picture that the double-day of working and child-rearing is actually fun. And then there is the always-annoying smears of any prominent woman, but particularly Hillary Clinton, as noted by Peter Beinart, who states that there is "the unstated assumption that high-profile women, especially feminists, must -- in their hearts -- be dovish, relativistic and secular."

The hidden message of the Ellison and Frey & Deane pieces? That women should stop complaining and embrace the tremendous burdens placed on them by society. According to the backlash narrative, we don't need federal child care, or pay equity, or a wage scale that permits 2 parents to work part time in order to stay in the middle class, rather than two parents working double overtime to do so. Of course not! They think that all women need to do is quit whining. Assholes.

For a good discussion of what should actually be done to help mothers, read this.