Sunday, June 15, 2008

Do Feminist Mothers Have to Choose Between Dreams and Diapers?

Rebecca Walker

Alice and Rebecca Walker Clash: Do Feminist Mothers Have to Choose Between Dreams and Diapers?

By Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet. Posted June 13, 2008.

Rebecca Walker is a well-known third-wave feminist and daughter of author Alice Walker. So why is she adopting anti-feminist talking points?

I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a Ph.D or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They've missed the opportunity and they're bereft. Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

Who might you guess wrote such a bold denunciation of feminism? Perhaps one of the smug blondes that frequent Bill O'Reilly's lair -- Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham? Perhaps ol' Atlantic Monthly anti-feminists Caitlin Flanagan or Lori Gottlieb, both of whom seem to think that contemporary women should settle for Mr. Good Enough and get hip to housework?

Nope, think again. These words were penned by none other than feminism's first daughter, Rebecca Walker. Read the rest of the story here.