The Feminism of the 20th century (and before) was a backlash against the forced motherhood and domestic enslavement of previous generations of women. Society expected women to get married, take care of a house, and have children. Their husbands would work to provide the resources. Honestly, this seems like a very logical separation of duties, but the problem is that not all people were ok with these duties being assigned by gender.
In this new century, we have come so far with gender equality, yet we are still trying to .
We need a solution that everyone is happy with, or can at least compromise on.
The ideal solution would:
allow both men and women to work outside the home, if they choose.
allow either the man or the woman to stay at home, if one chooses.
allow parents to decide what is best for their own children.
minimize or eradicate workplace advantages for non-parents over parents or vice-versa.
It just seems to be a fact of nature that human babies are highly dependent on their mothers for at least the first three years of life. We can label this as a problem with the babies, which will only lead to stress for the baby and mother, or we can just accept it.
Biology may not be destiny, but men cannot become pregnant or breastfeed. This is a fact of nature. Men can feed babies their mother's milk using a bottle, and this is a wonderful invention allowing for the modern freedom of women.
Nature doesn't care about your freedom. You don't want to hunt for food? Tough shit. You don't want to be pregnant again? Cry me a river. You just lost everything due to a natural disaster? That's life.
That is how other animals live.
Humans have been intelligent enough to provide freedom for ourselves through technology. We just need to make sure that this technology doesn't doom us under the guise of allowing us freedom. I'm talking about the prevalence of engineered food-like substances (for adults and children!) and the increasing toxicity of our vital molecules (O2 and H2O).
We in developed nations have the luxury of discussing our freedom and demanding it from the societies we live in, and we shouldn't forget that. Humans in more primitive situations don't have that option.
The problem is that our society is not set up for mothers and children to be close to one another for the first three years of the child's life.
The main issue hindering the closeness of mother and babies is that many mothers need, want, or like to work outside the home. This is what Feminists fought for and it should be celebrated as wonderful that a woman can have any job she wants. It would be ridiculous to tell women that they cannot have careers if they want to be mothers. The problem lies not with the mothers who want to work, but with the workplaces.
http://www.apesma.asn.au/women/maternity_leave_around_the_world.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave
