Wonder Women - Debora L. Spar - Part 1

Wonder Women - Debora L. Spar

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 74

  March 15, 2017 

Book 24 - Wonder Women - Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection
by Debora L. Spar (2013)
 Part 1 - pages 1-52
Reading Time - 60 minutes

So this seems like a bit of a radical book. The author grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and never really considered herself a feminist. She nodded to the earlier generation of feminists and then merrily went on her way getting a family and a career. She bought the idea that she had it all. She believed that she could be a feminist without being a feminist. But as life went on, she began to experience a bunch of little things that drove her nuts and began to see that the top tiers are stacked against women.

Despite the "equal rights for women" movement... women are far, far from being equal to men. She's convinced that the goals of the early feminist movement are still relevant. At the same time she has some questions. Just because women could do everything, they felt as if they had to do everything.

There's some history in here which is good for me... as I have no idea of the feminist movement. Betty Friedan, in the 1960s, wrote a book that questioned the role of housewives... "is this all that there is". Women were "liberated" and all of a sudden they could have careers and families and have it all. Except... they still continued to do their historical roles PLUS the new feminist roles. So, really... we just added to our workload.

This book reminds me of one I read last year... Unfinished business : women men work family by Anne-Marie Slaughter. She argued something similar. There is a trade off to working successfully outside the home. Someone needs to be in the home, taking care of the kids and the house and the stuff that goes with maintaining a home base. Men had successful careers because they usually had a woman at home taking care of everything. But... with the entry of women into the workforce... they have no one at home to take care of things sooo... they are expected to do it all.

Not sure that "having it all" really meant we had to "do it all". Because, for me, that is a recipe for burnout! We'll see where Debora L. Spar takes this book next!