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" 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. "

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" Cooking ought to be, quite literally, child's play. And every child ought to have access to the game. Just don't tell them it's healthy. "

Stephanie Coontz

Game

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Child

" Usually, Valentine's Day comes and goes with just a day or two of news media attention to courtship and marriage. "

" Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children - was an immense boon to many couples. "

" Unemployment, low wages, and poverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it less likely that individuals will marry in the first place and more likely that their marriages will dissolve. "

" Feminism insists on women's right to make choices - about whether to marry, whether to have children, whether to combine work and family or to focus on one over the other. It also urges men and women to share the joys and burdens of family life and calls on society to place a higher priority on supporting caregiving work. "

" Why do people - gay or straight - need the state's permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn't, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents' agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity. "

" 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. "

" In the 1970s, family history wasn't yet thought of a serious field for study. I was terrified of being laughed at by other historians. I called my book 'The Social Origins of Private Life.' It should have been 'As Pompous as You Want to Be.' Every sentence was academic jargon, and if I said X, I qualified it with Y. "

" As an overly confident college freshman, the first time I received a below-average score on an exam was a needed wake-up call. "

" 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. "

" Contrary to myth, 'The Feminine Mystique' and feminism did not represent the beginning of the decline of the stay-at-home mother but a turning point that led to much stronger legal rights and 'working conditions' for her. "

" 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. "

" As a child, I was lucky enough to spend each summer with my grandmother. "

" 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. "

" Feminism needs a political program because gender inequality has been fostered by political decisions. "

" Valentine's Day is a perfect time to reject the idea that the ideal man is taller, richer, more knowledgeable, more renowned, or more powerful. "

Stephanie Coontz

Man

Perfect

" Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. "

" You can't judge a family's health by the form it's in at a given moment. "

" Because we live so much of our adult lives as singles, it no longer makes sense to assume that marriage is the only way people will organize their obligations and commitments. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When we assume that 'normal' people need 'time to heal,' or discourage individuals from making any decisions until a year or more after a loss, as some grief counselors do, we may be giving inappropriate advice. Such advice can cause people who feel ready to move on to wonder if they are hardhearted. "

" Couples need time alone to renew their relationship. They also need to sustain supportive networks of friends and family. "

" Graduating from high school is certainly a good idea, but it's no longer much protection against poverty. "

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

" 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. "

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

" Using the existence of a marriage license to determine when the state should protect interpersonal relationships is increasingly impractical. "

" 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. "