2006: What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us

This book is a look at the modern woman and the feminist movement's effect on her. The premise is that feminism misled women in some ways and that the modern woman is less happy and fulfilled than she would be without the influences of feminism. To quote from the book, these are the results of the feminist movement:

We receive more respect at the office but less respect as mothers. We lead more emancipated sex lives, but we have sacrificed male deference and commitment. We have more control over our professional lives but much less satisfaction in our personal lives. [page 174]

Kara chose this book, and boy was it a divisive one! It raised some interesting points and made for excellent discussion. In general, I find that the more passionate the feelings that are created by a book, the better the conversation. And like I said, the girls were very passionate on both sides about this topic!

Although I found the book to be a bit preachy, I thought it did raise some valuable points, such as:

• women formerly understood - and cared - that their actions have impact on other women ... but most women today appear unconcerned with this, focusing only on themselves [pages 41-43]
• feminism is all about choice (whatever you want is ok, as long as it is your choice) but what about the women who have no choice, the one whose husband left after years of marriage, or who is infertile because she focused on her career before starting a family, etc.? [page 174]
• what used to be called morality is known derisively as "old fashioned values" [page 183]
• many people today want to deny that there are ethical truths [page 191]
• for the modern woman to be any more like a man, she would have to actually BE a man [page 177]

There were 9 of us taking part in this discussion and our votes were: 4x2, 5x2, 6x3 and 7x2, with an official rating of 5.6.