Elizabeth Wurtzel is a lawyer, and the author of Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America and More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. She also is extremely misinformed in her latest article on the Atlantic. Wurtzel wrote a piece called, “1% Wives Are Helping Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible,” and in it she says, “Being a mother isn’t a real job — and the men who run the world know it.” I am so angered by this article that I am going to break it down line by destructive line.
Line one: I am going to smack the next idiot who tells me that raising her children full time — by which she really means going to Jivamukti classes and pedicure appointments while the nanny babysits — is her feminist choice. Who can possibly take feminism seriously when it allows everything, as long as women choose it? The whole point to begin with was that women were losing their minds pushing mops and strollers all day without a room or a salary of their own.
Let’s please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don’t depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own.
My Response: Okay, violence is always an excellent first response. “I’m going to smack the next idiot.” Wow…just wow. I want to grab Wurtzel and shake her and tell her that someone who has a nanny is not a stay at home mom – she is a kept wife. Now is being a kept wife feminist? No. Is being a stay at home mom who spends her entire day looking after her children? Yes. Are they two completely different things? YES! Really? Is she being serious with this article? This is on the Atlantic, and not the Onion, right? Ugh. Moving on.
“Real feminists don’t depend on men have money and means of their own.”
I am a real feminist and I depend on my male roommate to come up with his half of the rent because I have no money because I’m a 26 year old writer.
You know what? I can’t even continue breaking down the article because the more I reread it, the more I want to type in all caps and scream at my screen that Wurtzel is an idiot. She’s an idiot. That’s it and that’s all. Her article is nothing more than Wurtzel standing on her soapbox telling the women of the world that she makes the best decisions and they don’t. Excuse me Miss Lawyer Lady, but I object! I’ve read Prozac Nation, I went to college, I have severe depression, and I …
