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" Being a feminist is not about how successful, talented, and assertive you are in your own life. It's about whether you support the struggle to overcome the limiting gendered stereotypes and barriers that force so many women to restrict their aspirations as workers, to fulfill their aspirations as parents, and force so many men to do the opposite. "

Stephanie Coontz

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Struggle

" As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love. "

" Too often, tributes to the home-cooked meal assume every family has a schedule that gets everyone home by 5:30 P.M. And too many recipes treat cooking as a solitary pursuit that requires the cook - still most often Mom - to take time away from other family interactions and chores. "

" Putting women first would mean strengthening America's social safety net, because a higher proportion of single-mother families live in poverty here than in any other wealthy country. "

" It's always seductive to know where one stands in relation to the average. "

" Many alternatives to traditional marriage have emerged. People feel free to shop around, experimenting with several living arrangements in succession. And when people do marry, they have different expectations and goals. "

" Social and economic policies constructed around the male breadwinner model have always disadvantaged women. "

" Investing in living-wage jobs and reducing the inequities between local school districts would give young people more, not less, incentive to postpone childbearing and more possibilities for independence. "

" Cohabitation itself doesn't cause ineffective parenting. "

" Hyper-parenting has many pitfalls. Overprotected and overpraised children may develop an inflated sense of entitlement. "

" Putting women's traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It's the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike. "

" Economically as well as emotionally, modern marriage has become like an affluent gated community. It has become harder for low-income Americans to enter and sustain. "

" When you can't change what's bothering you, one typical response is to convince yourself that it doesn't actually bother you. "

" No single choice about how to organize work and family life is right or possible - for every family. And every choice has tradeoffs. "

" In 1975, which was the height of the women's movement, I thought I'd write a book on women's history. But in searching for a topic, I realized that there were few places in history where men and women interacted. Finally, it hit me: 'Oh, look at the family. That's the one place.' "

" Whatever their relative valuation of the single and married states, most societies in history made sharp distinctions between those who married and those who remained single: They were seen as mutually exclusive ways of life, with different legal rights and social obligations. "

" People feel better when their spouses have good friendships, over and above the effects of their own friendships. "

" Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women's progress by itself is not a panacea for America's inequities. "

" In 1992, I critiqued the panic over growing family diversity. My skepticism about the doomsayers has since been proven correct. "

" When I speak on work-family issues to audiences around the country, some of the biggest complaints I hear come from individuals who are described by the census as living in 'non-family households.' They resent the fact that their family responsibilities literally don't 'count,' either for society or for their employers. "

" It is ironic that so many politicians claim to defend traditional Christian values of 'faith and family.' In fact, a radical antifamily ideology permeates Christ's teaching, and the early Christian tradition often set faith and family against each other. "

" Trump made his fortune manipulating tax laws and stiffing small businessmen, creating a few well-paying jobs along the way. Vulnerable people looking to master 'the art of the deal' learned the hard way that Trump held all the cards. "

" Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let's stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. "

" Labeling people single parents, for example, when they may in fact be co-parenting - either with an unmarried other parent in the home or with an ex-spouse in a joint custody situation - stigmatizes their children as the products of 'single parenthood' and makes the uncounted parent invisible to society. "

" Social changes always involve trade-offs. "

" As a historian, I've spent much of my career warning people about the dangers of nostalgia. "

" Marriage is no longer the main way in which societies regulate sexuality and parenting or organize the division of labor between men and women. "

" As time passes, the actual complexity of our history - even of our own personal experience - gets buried under the weight of the ideal image. "

" Especially around Valentine's Day, it's easy to find advice about sustaining a successful marriage, with suggestions for 'date nights' and romantic dinners for two. But as we spend more and more of our lives outside marriage, it's equally important to cultivate the skills of successful singlehood. "

" Marriage can provide a bounty of emotional, practical, and financial support. But finding the right mate is no substitute for having friends and other interests. "