Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others--first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one's own interests and desires. Carried to its "perfection," it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.
Jean Baker MillerConflict is inevitable, the source of all growth, and an absolute necessity if one is to be alive.
Jean Baker MillerWomen will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action.... Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength--and strength to enhance affiliation.
Jean Baker MillerIn a basic sense, the greater the development of each individual the more able, more effective, and less needy of limiting or restricting others she or he will be.
Jean Baker MillerThe question is still asked of women: 'How do you propose to answer the need for child care?' That is an obvious attempt to structure conflict in the old terms. The questions are rather: 'If we as a human community want children, how does the total society propose to provide for them?'.
Jean Baker Miller