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gets a graduate degree, she will probably have equal power). So, for
an egalitarian relationship, the couple needs to be roughly equal in
ability, in love, in neediness, and in education.
Who organizes and runs the family? Regardless of who is "the
ultimate boss," there is an opportunity for someone to gain some
satisfaction or status and power by becoming the family organizer or
director. Often that is the wife, either as an assigned role (by the boss)
or as a desired acquired role. Stern (1988) writes about The
Indispensable Woman, who wants to be needed. So, she takes on a
job for extra money, does the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning,
and laundry, keeps track of everyone's clothes and tries to monitor
how everyone looks each morning, wants to look fantastic herself,
finds the baby sitters, keeps everybody's schedule and makes sure
they are on time, plans family activities and "lessons" for the children,
helps her husband socialize, is sure the family would fall apart if she
didn't run things for everyone, and feels overburdened and
unappreciated! Solution: admit the overload is your fault (if it is),
reassign some responsibilities and drop others, stop expecting
perfection, and take time to find a life of your own. Bepko and Krestan
(1990) have a similar notion, namely, that women are strongly driven
to be "good" and please others; consequently, they take on too much
and often feel insecure or unsure that they are good enough. Solution:
stop kowtowing and self-sacrificing.
There are hundreds of books about sexism and how to deal with it.
Some of the better early references about women's rights are Freidan
(1963), Bengis's (1973) attack on men, Boston Women's (1972) well
known catalog, Friedman's (1983) refutation of the idea that you're no
body until somebody loves you, Friese, Parsons, Johnson, Ruble &
Zellman's (1978) textbook, and Paulsen & Kuhn's (1976) handbook.
Feminists have kept up the attack on the unfairness. Susan Faludi
(1991) describes many subtle but calculated scare tactics and attacks
on feminism, including the frequent description of the single woman as
neurotic, emotional, and miserable (e.g. Fatal Attraction), the
erroneous but frightening contention that no males will be available for
the single female over 30, the spreading of false rumors that women
careerists were taking over law, medicine, dental, and other
professions, and on and on for 460 pages. One of the most scathing
attacks on men is MacKinnon's (1987) Feminism Unmodified, in which
she underscores that 44% of women are raped or about raped
because "men consider women inferior." See the discussion of date
rape under premarital sex in chapter 10. She and others say
pornography defiles all women because it portrays them as inferior, as
sexual objects without personal significance or a soul. Men get
defensive when they read these charges, but we all--men and women-
-must face reality, especially unpleasant reality.
There can be no doubt that many men still discount or put down
women in many ways. Change is slow; it must also be sure.
Brownmiller's (1984) book on Femininity is a gold mine of information.
