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" It's always seductive to know where one stands in relation to the average. "
Stephanie Coontz
Average
Always
Know
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" I am not arguing that women ought to 'settle.' I am arguing that we can now expect more of a mate than we could when we depended on men for our financial security, social status, and sense of accomplishment. "
Stephanie Coontz
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Accomplishment
I Am
" The origins of modern marital instability lie largely in the triumph of what many people believe to be marriage's traditional role - providing love, intimacy, fidelity, and mutual fulfillment. The truth is that for centuries, marriage was stable precisely because it was not expected to provide such benefits. "
Stephanie Coontz
Truth Is
Lie
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" As a historian, I've spent much of my career warning people about the dangers of nostalgia. "
Stephanie Coontz
People
Warning
Career
" Couples need time alone to renew their relationship. They also need to sustain supportive networks of friends and family. "
Stephanie Coontz
Time
Alone
Family
" Indeed, the spread of 'virtual' communities on the Internet speaks to a deep hunger to reach out to others. "
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Deep
Reach
" In personal life, the warm glow of nostalgia amplifies good memories and minimizes bad ones about experiences and relationships, encouraging us to revisit and renew our ties with friends and family. It always involves a little harmless self-deception, like forgetting the pain of childbirth. "
Stephanie Coontz
Life
Good
Glow
" The closer we get to achieving equality of opportunity between the sexes, the more clearly we can see that the next major obstacle to improving the well-being of most men and women is the growing socioeconomic inequality within each sex. "
Stephanie Coontz
Opportunity
Women
Sex
" Nostalgia is a very human trait. "
Stephanie Coontz
Very
Human
Nostalgia
" 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. "
Stephanie Coontz
Living
Speak
Country
" 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.' "
Stephanie Coontz
Women
Family
Book
" Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it to compensate for the way that work has devoured time once spent cultivating friendships. "
Stephanie Coontz
Marriage
Work
Time
" As an overly confident college freshman, the first time I received a below-average score on an exam was a needed wake-up call. "
Stephanie Coontz
College
Confident
First Time
" It no longer makes sense to see singlehood and marriage as two distinct and stable social categories that should be accorded different legal rights and social esteem. "
Stephanie Coontz
See
Legal
Rights
" For most of America's history, people typically aspired to acquire 'a competency' rather than great riches. A competency meant the ability to comfortably sustain a household without depending on others. 'Competence' also meant being capable and reliable. The American Dream was that people who worked hard and capably could support their families. "
Stephanie Coontz
History
Great
American Dream
" Rising inequality has changed family dynamics for all socioeconomic groups. "
Stephanie Coontz
Inequality
Changed
Family
" When liberals dismiss all Trump supporters as racists, this only fuels their anger. "
Stephanie Coontz
Anger
Only
Liberals
" 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. "
Stephanie Coontz
Values
Faith
Christian
" 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. "
Stephanie Coontz
End
Progress
Women
" Sometimes, having a mom stay home is a big help. On the other hand, when a mother works outside the home, her husband generally does more child care and has higher parental knowledge about his childrens' friends, routines, and needs, cutting across the tendency for fathers to be second-string parents at home. "
Stephanie Coontz
Knowledge
Mom
Parents
" 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
You
Struggle
Women
" Historically, it has required a combination of favorable employment trends and active government intervention to lower the percentage of people in poverty and raise living standards for the working middle class. "
Stephanie Coontz
Government
Poverty
People
" A primary motivation for introducing no-fault divorce was, in fact, to reduce perjury in the legal system. "
Stephanie Coontz
System
Motivation
Legal
" Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. "
Stephanie Coontz
Political
Relationship
Love
" There's nothing wrong with celebrating the good things in our past. But memories, like witnesses, do not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We need to cross-examine them, recognizing and accepting the inconsistencies and gaps in those that make us proud and happy as well as those that cause us pain. "
Stephanie Coontz
Happy
Memories
Truth
" Marriage is no longer the only place where people make major life transitions and decisions, enter into commitments, or incur obligations. "
Stephanie Coontz
Decisions
People
Life
" Liberal politicians, in celebrating the benefits of modernization, free trade, diverse families, and the rise of more women and minorities into political and economic prominence, have often glossed over the pain of white blue-collar communities. "
Stephanie Coontz
Women
Political
Pain
" One thing standing in the way of further progress for many men is the same obstacle that held women back for so long: overinvestment in their gender identity instead of their individual personhood. "
Stephanie Coontz
Identity
Women
Progress
" During the 1960s, rising real wages for low-income and high-income workers, due in part to rapid economic growth and the spread of unionization, worked in tandem with expanding government support systems to improve Americans' well-being. "
Stephanie Coontz
Government
Growth
Well-Being
" You can't judge a family's health by the form it's in at a given moment. "
Stephanie Coontz
You
Health
Form
" Establishing a 'livable wage' floor would immediately reduce the gap in average pay between American women and men. "
Stephanie Coontz
American
Women
Men