Shriver: More Reader Blowback
By
Published: Oct 21, 2009
1) “Women are working — in largely underpaid jobs that men have generally found to be beneath them (secretaries, nurses, grade school teachers). And what about all those much-touted Ivy-league educated mommies with the muscular earning power who opted out (the big story of only a few years ago)? Are they back in the trenches?”
2) “Shriver’s rank and privilege allow for this skewed report to raise the indignant fist higher in the air, but what is it really saying? Women’s lives still suck and now we’ve got to do it ALL. Rah. Rah.”
3) “The cultural changes — the change in the relationship between men and women, primarily with the man not being ‘the provider’ as in the past — are huge. It is a huge blow to the male ego in most cases, in my view, at least to men in my generation. They can’t handle it. They don’t understand their role any more. They don’t like doing too much ‘women’s work’ and find it demeaning, and it makes them feel unmanly. In many cases, they’ll do it when the spirit moves them, and then want praise for it…. Men seem to think not only should we work outside the home and make money, but also do the heavy lifting at home and be in charge of housework and children by default.”