jamidwyer

I hope the people who branded Loh with a scarlet "A" don't succeed in stifling her voice. I relate much more to a woman living out of her bizarrely messy car than to a woman like Waldman, whose "guilty admissions" on a radio interview I heard all sounded a lot like bragging to anyone who married a mere mortal.

A couple of points of contention with this piece, though. I doubt Loh really pines to move into a house in Fort Lauderdale with her parents or in-laws. While some sort of more communal parenting could definitely take some pressure off women, traditional extended family arrangements had their own pitfalls for women, who were traded like a new washing machine from one family to the next.

And the 1950s were absolutely NOT better for women. Searching The Atlantic archive for 1959, one notes a certain absence of, oh, half the population:
google.com [google.com] =+site:theatlantic.com+the+atlantic+1959&ei=X4oNS4D9MtL7nAfK_ZDCAw&sa=X&oi=nshc&resnum=1&ct=more-results&ved=0CAsQ2AQ&fp=25d2df88517031cf

The women missing were not sipping martinis in fabulous frilly aprons, as television's "Mad Men" is apparently having people believe. The fantasy of being a fully-supported housewife who does exactly what she wants with her time and stays always glamorous is only a fantasy. In reality, having no access to one's own money was a nightmare for women, and continues to be for women who opt out of the workplace in favor of servicing their husbands and their husbands' children.

I think the steps feminists should be taking now include looking at communal arrangements (that feel like less work, not more, of course) and opting out of all thankless scutwork. Your home doesn't have to be "Better Homes and Gardens"-ready ever, let alone all the time. And plenty of children have thrived through the ages without going to soccer practice and Gymboree and piano lessons and and and. As Loh points out, a lot of the things driving modern parenting practices today benefit business interests, not the interests of children and their parents.

I find most of the Weekly Standard's political positions repellent, but it's time someone addressed the Huffington Post's disgusting misuse of women's bodies on the right half of their page. Ms. Ham does the best job of it I've seen thus far.