Feminism wasn’t supposed to make us miserable. It was supposed to make us free; to give women the power to shape their fortunes and work for a more just world. Today, women have choices that their grandmothers could not have imagined. The challenge lies in recognizing that having choices carries the responsibility to make them wisely, striving not for perfection or the ephemeral all, but for lives and loves that matter.
Debora SparIf we don't find a way to keep women in the workforce, keep them productive, keep them happy, we are literally just throwing our investment down the drain, and we can't afford to do that.
Debora Spar'Maybe' is what gets us into trouble, because I think constantly women are saying I'll try to do it, maybe I'll do it, I'll do it if I can," and then they're feeling guilty when inevitably they can't do everything.
Debora SparI think sometimes by portraying our lives as being too perfect, as being too balanced, we're actually selling younger women a bill of goods that's not true.
Debora SparI think what we need to do is to step back as a society and say okay, we've kind of turned things upside-down. We have moved away from the nuclear family, in which the man always works and the woman stays home. How are we going to rearrange things now? We've done the first part of the revolution, we've turned everything on its head, but we haven't figured out what structures will actually work in this new world.
Debora SparI really don't see any men sitting in the corner office plotting to keep women out. All the men I know are actively trying to promote women, to get more women involved. These men have wives they care about; they have daughters they desperately care about. So I don't think it's fair to blame men - or I don't think it's accurate to blame men anymore.
Debora Spar