blog 8: Belkin

After researching many of the responses that women had to the article "The Opt-Out Revolution by Lisa Belkin, I found that many women had conflicting ideas with this theory.  Women either strongly agreed with it or strongly disagreed with it and many were insulted by the article.  It seems that there is an ongoing conflict between the women who choose to leave the work place to take care of their children and the women who stay in the work place because they need to have the finances to take care of their children.  The problem with Belkin's article is that it only refers to upper class white women who have the ability to leave the work place and still have enough money to pay for their children mostly because they have an employed husband.  However, the article does not refer to the women who are single mothers or the women who simply love to work for their own desire.  These are the women that the article offended because not all women have the ability to just leave work because they have a child.  The article also offended the women who felt that they were forced to leave work, they didn't "opt out".  Many work places do not accommodate women who have just had children because they do not allow enough time off for the mother to take care of her newborn.  This is why many women feel forced out of work because they feel they need to be with their child in the first few months and they would not be able to return to work after being away so long.  Personally I disagree with the article and I believe it only applies to a small percentage of the population, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

In response to the readings, I think that women should not feel obligated to stay at home and be a "housewife" just because society says thats normal.  I also feel that women should not feel obligated to work if they do not want to or feel the need to.  If a women is financially stable and does not want to work then that's fine, but I believe all women should have the opportunity to work and succeed in the work place.  However, women do need to face the fact of life and realize that we are the ones who have the children and we do need to take care of them properly, but we just need to find a balance between work and family.  Women should not be forced to pick one or the other.