Maggie's Farm

Kay Hymowitz reviews a new book by Flanagan: To Hell with all that: Loving and Loathing our Inner Housewife. The radical feminists hate her, but they should not: it's the radical feminists who "reinforce stereotypes." Who would want to be the kid of a radical feminist? Not me.

Quote from the excellent review:

What Flanagan might have better underscored is that her real subject is not The Question: To Work Or Not To Work. It is love. Flanagan had a fierce devotion to her own mother, whose presence haunts the book. She experienced in her mother’s pot roasts and freshly ironed laundry the embodiment of comfort, safety, and love. Despite Flanagan’s deficiencies in the domestic arts, it’s a feeling she badly wants to bring to her own family. What this talented writer reminds us of are two simple truths that are apostasy to the fundamentalists and, sadly, lost to many young women who never saw them in action: that when working properly, satisfying domestic life can embody a mother’s love for her children, the most powerful love there is; and that no matter how women choose to live, this love will forever be entangled with self-sacrifice.

Should this really be the stuff of war without end?

Whole thing at City Journal here - it's good, and funny.

Image: A young woman gazing at the ocean at Cahoon's Hollow, wondering about her identity, feminist stereotyping, male oppression, and the meaning of life - and hoping she'll meet the tall, dark and handsome man of her dreams at the bar later on.