Mothers_Day_Kiss-Off

Angry According to Leslie Bennetts, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1988 and the author of the Feminine Mistake, women are angry. In her article, A Mother’s Day Kiss Off, Bennetts provides lots of reasoning and evidence as to why mothers, or women in general, are angry. She offers reasons as to why women should listen to her and stop making so many personal sacrifices. Although she makes a great point, she doesn’t provide any evidence for women who aren’t angry or mad and who agree with their role. The reason she needs to provide more evidence is because there are so many women who are not angry and who are perfectly happy with their lives! Her first reason as to why women are mad is that she believes they do not feel “equal” to men. Women feel unequal to men in many situations including stuff in their work life and at home. Bennetts suggested that “motherhood represents the first time women run headfirst into fundamental inequalities--not just the biological differences between men and women but also the disproportionate burdens imposed by a culture still regards the raising of children as the mothers responsibility (par 6).” To me, the raising of children was never set in stone to be a mother’s job, but it is something that most women take with a lot of pride. I always thought that women wanted to raise there kids and be around them all of the time. There are a lot of men who would love to become a stay-at-home dad and let his wife make all of the money. In a way, women have been thrown under the bus for years when it comes to work. A woman can do the same exact job as a man in most situations, yet they are paid a substantial amount less in some cases. “Childless women earn up to 10% less than their male counterparts, women with children earn about 27% less (par 18), and single mothers earn about 44% less. After a divorce, a woman’s standard of living drops about 36% while a man’s rises by about 28% (par 19). This information seems relatively credible because Bennetts is suggesting that it is a problem that women have been facing for a long time. While this information is really good, it goes back to one of my judgments before that there are plenty of women who have never had to deal with this problem. If Bennetts could provide more real life examples, then believe her article would be much more effective and get the attention of many more women, or people in general. Another reason that Bennetts believes women are angry is because they feel like employers have unforgiving demands and make it almost impossible for women to excel at their job and at being a mother, so they are sometime forced to quit their jobs. Most women don’t want to quit their careers to become a stay at home mom, but husbands still view childcare and household chores as women’s work, even when those women are working full time. “Stressed and resentful, the majority of women nonetheless continue to work, many out of financial necessity. Others quit their jobs to stay home, although the price may include conflicted feelings of having had to make such a choice (par 8).” Since men are viewed as the ones who are supposed to work and “support” their families, women are forced to quit their jobs sometimes and pickup a full time mothering job. While Bennetts is makes a great point about employers being to hard on women, they are also equally as hard on men. There are many employers who are extremely hard on there employees, but only because that is the nature of the job. If employers weren’t hard on their employees, then the quality of that companies product may not be as good as it is. Although I agree with most of Bennetts article, I think that it is very weak in the fact that there are still a lot of women who accept their role as a mother and who have absolutely no problem with it. She makes it sound like it is every woman in the world that is mad that they have to be a stay at home mom. She needs to provide more evidence as to whom this is directed to because a lot of women view stay-at- home moms as a more traditional thing, and others view raising children as their primary responsibility in life, some accept this responsibility with open arms while others don’t. In her article, Bennetts is criticized by many women who do not agree with what she is saying, these women ridiculed her weight and even said her kids must be “scarred and dysfunctional”, yet she isn’t mad at them. She said “and yet the real problems are systemic, not personal. Women are indeed giving up to much, which may be why so many are angry (par 17).” These women weren’t mad because they agreed with her, they were possibly mad because they disagreed with what she had to say, and Bennetts needs to realize that. Bennetts offers reason as to why women are unequal to men and why they should stop giving up so much of their personal lives. For example, women don’t earn as much as men doing the same job, or women are forced to give up their careers in order to become a stay at home mom. In practically every corner of the world, the man is the one who traditionally supports his family, and Bennetts is saying that it should be a more even job. “It’s long past time for women to stop venting their anger on each other and redirect it to changing the institutions, policies, and practices that oppress us all. We need solutions, not scapegoats (par 23).” In conclusion, Bennetts tries to make a strong argument, but she has many weak links that lead us to believe that it is not as serious of a problem as she is trying to make it.