Feminism wasnโt 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 two people have a couple of kids, somebody does have to take care of the kids. Somebody does have to cook dinner; somebody does have to do garbage duty. We need to take some time and give some thought, without being angry, to just thinking about what these new structures are going to look like.
Debora SparWomen are racing all the time to try to have a perfect house and perfect kids and be a perfect cook. Men, somehow, for whatever reason, seem to be better able to pick and choose, to focus on things they like and that are important to them, and let the other things go.
Debora SparWe must...forge partnerships with those around us, and begin to dismantle the myth of solitary perfection.
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 women are doing to themselves is that they're seeing these different images of perfection - the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect career person, the perfect movie star - and they're somehow thinking that they should be all of these things, and that's the problem.
Debora Spar