the myth of the independent woman

The basic idea of feminism is a paradigm shift - one embodied in the phrase, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle".

The idea is that, if the problem is that women are trained to be a man's helpmate, the solution is to separate completely from man.

The problem IMO is that feminists went too far. It isn't that they attacked women who collaborated with the enemy (although they did do that, and still do that). It's that their very worldview pathologizes the idea of a woman joining with a man to create a family.

It is not true that women should want to stand alone, at best side by side with but not truly merged with the man she creates a baby with.

It is true that some women are happiest with this model - and it is also true that some men are, as well.

But it is also equally true that some people want a higher level of commitment and involvement with their family unit. They have less need or desire for individuality and more need or desire for a merge into the unit.

Some people want to trade away some of that independence feminists prize - and liberals don't have any right to decide that it's wrong to do so, because what's right for them isn't right for everyone.

That is what 'choice' ought to be about - se;f-definition, or the freedom to accommodate different people with different needs. But it isn't. Instead liberals just set up their own preference as the one true model, and the further you get away from what they say is 'right', the more you are considered to be a very messed-up person.

We don't have any means of separating a good choice from abuse. We haven't really even tried to do so.

Instead, women have abandoned feminism - because they do reject the model of independence that is at the heart of feminism.

This is partly temperamental - some people are suited for commitment while others are suited for solitude.

But it's also economic, because the "unit first" approach is a source of strength (specialization: I will focus on the kids if you will focus on the breadwinning - instead of each of us buying groceries, let me buy groceries for the whole family....) The poorer you are, the more you need a strong family unit - and the less you can indulge the fantasy of being an independent entity that does not need its kin.

What I object to is the approach taken by what we might call the liberal establishment - that the independent stand-alone person is healthy and whole, while the person who is willing to trade away rights in exchange for inclusion in a larger family unit is pathological, childlike, "co-dependent", etc.

From what I can see, when the family unit is sound and strong, those who are committed to family units are much happier and much more fulfilled than those who are not closely linked to family units.

Of course, it goes the other way, as well - to be strongly connected to a family unit in crisis is extraordinarily painful.

But the liberals who are most likely to set themselves up as saviors to the troubled marriage and/or the troubled family are the same people who view the very fact of being "enmeshed*" as an inherently bad thing. They are too ready to label parents' demands as unreasonable, lacking a basic understanding of (or respect for) what is needed to keep a family's cohesion together, and they are too ready to advocate for divorce. Often they point to the very fact that women have traded away the independent of her identity as grounds for divorce.

IMO a happy marriage should be based on women getting their needs met, not on women having independence.

Related to this: women who barter away their independence might be making a rational choice - not at al pathological.

When feminists and liberals understand that all the complaints about what is "wrong" with marriage are things that need to be fixed, rather than reasons why marriage is bad, then women will have real freedom - including the freedom to choose to barter their emotional resources any way they want (without liberal daddy and mommy telling them what's good for them), and including the freedom to have children.

And if liberals want to hold up a myth of how perfectly people live in some other country (say Sweden, or France), where cohabitation is much more popular than here , it is entirely on the liberals' head to come up with a workable vision of what such a vision might look like here in America**. And if it is an appealing vision, people may be willing to trade what we've got for what we could have.

So far, the vision is not appealing - it looks cold and impoverished - so don't blame Americans for rejecting it.

(Who wants to be Maureen Dowd when they grow up, anyway?)
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* "enmeshed" is a derogatory term.

** please remember that Sweden is small and the USA is not. Yes - logistics does make a difference. If you want people to behave as if they can choose to rely on the nation-state, that is instead of having to rely on a family, for life-sustaining support, then please be prepared to actually deliver the necessary (and/or promised) support services - and make those preparations before asking people to make leap-of-faith change in their behavior.