Home / Quotes / Quote by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Quote by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

“The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families.”

Quote by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Author

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is an American author recognized for her contributions to feminism and Jewish culture. Born on June 9, 1939, she has been a significant figure in the feminist movement through her writing and activism. Pogrebin's works often delve into the intersection of gender, religion, and identity, providing valuable insights into contemporary life. more

You May Also Like

“Work-family conflicts - the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child - would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”

Ifs Men Children Jobs Women Work Responsibility Careers Conflict Trade Your Children Bucks Disregard Trade Offs Family Conflict Work Family Responsibility For Children

Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin

“In the supposedly enlightened eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, parental indifference, child neglect, and raw cruelty appearedamong Europeans of all classes.... In mid-nineteenth- century France, families abandoned their children at the rate of thirty-three thousand a year.... It took sixty years after the criminalization of cruelty to animals for cruelty to children to be made punishable under English law.... Industrialized America added brutalizing child labor to the oppressions of the young.”

“Compared to other parents, remarried parents seem more desirous of their child's approval, more alert to the child's emotional state, and more sensitive in their parent-child relations. Perhaps this is the result of heightened empathy for the child's suffering, perhaps it is a guilt reaction; in either case, it gives the child a potent weapon--the power to disrupt the new household and come between parent and the new spouse.”

Source: Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

“The ultra-right would have us believe that families are in trouble because of humanism, feminism, secular education, or sexual liberation, but the consensus of Americans is that what tears families apart is unemployment, inflation, and financial worries.”

Believe Worry Trouble Feminism Tears Financial Humanism Liberation Secular Unemployment Inflation Consensus Ultras Family Apart

Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

Source: Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

“Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity.”

Source: Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

“The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.”

May Children Self Jobs Mother Growth Results Risk Helpless Sabotage Self Sufficiency Sufficiency Refutation

Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

Source: Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier

“If a great man struggling with misfortunes is a noble object, a little man that despises them is no contemptible one.”

Ifs Men Littles Struggle Objects Noble Great Men Misfortunes Despise Little Man

Book:Life and works of Cowper, by R. Southey

Source: Life and works of Cowper, by R. Southey

“London has fine museums, the British Library is one of the greatest library institutions in the world... It's got everything you want, really.”

World Want Fine Institutions Library British London Museums

Author:David Attenborough

“We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe . . . taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, . . . and eating bran flakes . .. and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust.”

“Adolescence hits boys harder than it does girls. Girls bleed a little and their breasts pop out, big deal, but adolescence lands on a guy with both feet. . . . Your body is engulfed by chemicals of rage and despair, you pound, you shriek, you batter your head against the trees. You come away wounded, feeling that life is unknowable, can never be understood, only endured and sometimes cheated.”

Source: The Book of Guys: Stories