Apologies, Poirot, for not acknowledging your important point above. Women have been conned into seeing liberation as merely an equal share of an existing pie--sublimating whatever genuine potential they possess, that is uniquely feminine, for a prominent place at their former masters' table.
Some of the men's misogynist grumbles are legitimate. Now that they have relative equality, when are women going to take responsibility and exert a more salubrious influence on the world?
I've asked such questions before; they go unanswered.
But then, as I say above, neither sex any longer has the capacity for self-determination or grand designs. Both are neutered, eunuchs of the system.

Hasbeen, I am glad your mother had such a good life, but I doubt that privileged life was very common.
Certainly it wasn't the case with my mother's life, or anyone else I knew back then.
I don't disagree that more women wouldn't want to stay home with their kids full time, but there aren't many families who are in a financial position to do that.
Even so, I am glad I am a mother these days, rather than in the 'good old days'.

Squuers interesting observations. I've yet to see any real justification though for the view that women are less tied to the perks of capitalism than men. We're all in this together, sometimes with a different focus on specifics but much of the same effect.

Hasbeen, no maids in my home growing up. Instead two parents who worked in and out of the home as opportunity and need dictated. Both hands on as parents and from what I got to observe working fairly well as a partnership.

I've got really tired of the constant quoting of the "oppressions" women suffered, the constant bagging of men's bad points and how rare it is to hear from feminists about the lives most men lead in the same periods or about the good things men have done.

Feminism has provided a focus for some good changes (gender based laws are wrong and needed changing) but it's one sided advocacy and inability to recognise the contributions men make renders it incapable of much other worthwhile social good. It's simplistic focus on making men responsible for the choices women make exposes it's "critical analysis" as a poor joke.

R0bert

Squeers,

What shape do you think a Dionysian influence would take that could tame Apollo? How could women exert a more salubrious influence on the world?....it's a genuine question, for it seems the human penchant for greed and excess seems to be overriding the complementary roles of the genders and the feminine virtues of receptivity and nurture.

Referring to my last post, I also note that our system which now demands that women are incorporated in the workplace as well as the market place, simultaneously seeks to institutionalise all those that aren't directly participating - such as infants, children and the elderly.

What a strange world the West has fashioned for itself. The story of its "triumph" is a material and psychological flight away from our immersion in chthonian nature. Paglia says that civilised life requires a state of illusion. Perhaps the illusion has overtaken the Western mind so completely that now we've reached the stage where we can only be defined as a grasping androgynous resource-guzzling entity. Surely human potential promises more than this?

Poirot

I'm with you on this topic. We all have ourselves to blame for this fine mess.

Feminism did achieve women's voices finally being heard, but many are still not listening.

Some women want to stay home with the kids (and be dependent on another's earnings), so do some men.

Some women want to run mega corporations (Gina Rinehart), so do some men (Rupert Murdoch).

Most of us simple want a fair pay for a fair day's work.
Most if us don't like to be labeled and placed in boxes.
Most of us abhor greed.
Most of us are reasonable people which makes us open to exploitation by those more ruthless.

I am grateful to be a woman in Australia in this century where we have the Pill and not 12 children, washing machines and not boilers, electricity and not open fire places in an Australian summer, vaccines and not watching our children die, computers so we can blog each other and write nasty generalisations about each other AND have the time to do so.

Ammonite,

Yes, everything you listed is an aid to comfort...but don't you think somewhere along our magnificent ascent we forgot the meaning of moderation?

Where have our organic communities gone? Why do we now expect an institution (any institution) to provide those things which sprung naturally from community cooperation and endeavour?

People have always communicated - usually with other people with whom they have some sort of broader relationship. We blog because we can, although it's probably more to do with the fractured nature of modern life and the "lack" of time and opportunity for real relationships - we now indulge in anonymous interaction and most relationships conducted in this way are warped to a certain extent.