Most women are one man away from welfare.
-Gloria Steinem

I've yet to be on a campus where most women weren't worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I've yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing.
-Gloria Steinem

At my graduation, I thought we had to marry what we wished to become. Now you are becoming the men you once would have wished to marry.
-Gloria Steinem

We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.
-Gloria Steinem

There are aspects of the housewife role that make it almost impossible for a woman of adult intelligence to retain a sense of human identity, the fine core of self or I without which a human being, man or woman, is not truly alive.
-Betty Friedan

A job is to a woman as a wife is to a man.
-Arlie Hochschild

Most men want their wives to have a jobette.
-Gloria Steinem

Woman and man were made for each other, but their mutual dependency is not the same. The men depend on women only on the account of their desires, the women on the men both on the account of their desires and their necessities. We could subsist better without them than they with us.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau's notion of men getting along better without women than vice versa is not statistically supported. In fact, the opposite is true: single men as a group live shorter, less healthy lives than their married counterparts.

And Betty Friedan knows nothing whereof she speaks in this case.

My experience is that as soon as MY role and what I am missing/gaining/feeling/sacrificing becomes the focus of my life, I am living outside the Christ life. I believe the rule for gender roles ought to be the same as for life in general: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it heartily, as to the Lord." That might be protecting or seeking protection, serving or being served, needing care or caring for another, giving or receiving.... just do it as to the Lord. And be thankful.

Ah Will, I feel like you posted this topic especially for me, even though I know you didn't! I'm not actually sure what I think about all this (hence the opinions of other people); I struggle with the same thing as your girlfriend. Personally, I think I will end up trying to balance both a professional life as an academic/researcher/statistician/economic sociologist and a wife/mother/volunteer/church member/activist. But as one woman who balanced both for 40 years told me last week, you can't have 100% of both-you have to compromise on both if you want to do both. So then the question becomes, do you want to compromise on either, or do you want to dedicate your life fully to just a family or just a career?

On the more psychological/emotional issue of dependency, I would have to agree with your gf's friends' responses to her blog; that it's a matter of mutual dependency. Knowing you, you are the last man I worry about; you are hardly an emotionally recluse commitmentphobic who would take advantage of your partner's trust in you. You would give back emotionally and depend on her also. That said, the historical and societal precedent is such that women have to worry more about losing themselves than men-but I don't think it's the case for this situation.

Will's Mom-I agree with you on R. Statistics show that married men are healthier and wealthier than single men. Unfortunately, marriage has the opposite effect for women....go figure. Hopefully TKP is not reading this =). However, I very much doubt any happily married woman with great kids would regret a little more stress and juggling in their lives because of having a family. I know my mom never did.

This all coming from an independent, albeit confused, feminist, Christian who has turned down several marriage proposals and broken off an engagement to pursue a PhD, of course....

I feel like i am taking a crazy pill, or at least am in the twilight zone. i guess i don't really understand any of what anyone is saying. why do we have to apologize for how God made us.

testosterone prohibits growth of the corpus colosum in male infants resulting in men's inhibited abilities to multi task, but increased abilities in making single decisions. does this make men better or worse?

i mean i don't mind saying that my wife is my "protector".... but in no way the same way that i am hers.

I am a strong man and take the concept of protection very seriously. There is no way that i would sink to putting the added stress of protection on my wife’s list of duties, if i didn't have to. at the same time, i would go to the mattress over anyone demeaning my wife.

The twilight zone talks about how the world could be with no consideration for how the world is.
---
There are aspects of the housewife role that make
it almost impossible for a woman of adult intelligence to retain a sense of human identity, the fine core of self or I without which a human being, man or woman, is not truly alive.
-Betty Friedan
---
that statement is made despite the numerous women who are of adult intelligence and have retained a sense of human identity.

this thought proceeds from a child’s mind. a child cannot understand that people have their own eyes and perspectives. this person must be assuming no one could be fulfilled in motherhood.... or they are just living in the twilight zone

Sato, of course, has recently acquired a new protective role, following the birth of his first son. Congratulations, and may God bless your family as you gain entirely new insights into the love of God for His children, as you love your own child.

I have been mulling over this topic since it was first posted at TKP's blog. The direction of the comments, focused as they are on "me" and "my role" and being sure "I am fulfilled" as defined by who-knows-who, is troubling to me, but I haven't had time to put my thoughts down in a coherent manner (not that coherence has a whole lot to do with blog posting...)

This morning, however, I was catching up on some other blogs, and found this Luther quote at the Cranach blog (http://cranach.worldmagblog.com/cranach/) that pretty much sums it up:

If you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God, or the holy, or yourself, but not for your neighbor alone, then you should know that that work is not a good work. For each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one’s enemies, a husband for his wife and children, a wife for her husband, children for their parents, servants for their masters, masters for their servants, rulers for their subjects and subjects for their rulers, so that one’s hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart and desire is for others; these are Christian works, good in nature. (Luther's Advent Postil 1522)

That kind of life has nothing to do with any -ism, be it feminism or otherwise. And it's certainly not about me. The life we are to live is one without regard to self or anything other than Christ and our neighbor.

Of course, a greater authority than Luther said it this way: "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." Matthew 10:39
Sadly, I can't remember the last time I heard a sermon from that text.

Just for the record, it's "go to the mat," not "go to the mattress," although most of us would prefer the latter when it comes to self-sacrifice :)

I have heard people use that phrase. i am thinking of the of the godfather reference

"Sonny: No! No no more meetings no more Solozzo tricks. You sending a message to Tattaglia? Say "I want Sollozzo" if not it's all out war and we go to the mattresses"
-http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/quotes

i'm assuming the mat is refering to a wrestling mat?

I've never seen The Godfather. The saying has been around a lot longer than that, and I've always assumed the reference was wrestling.