Feminism, the Body and the Machine, Wendell Berry

There are so many quotes in this article that I want to exclaim, proclaim and discuss with everyone I know, but for the sake of focusing I'll pick this one

"I know that I am in dangerous territory, and so I had better be plain: what I have to say about marriage and household I mean to apply to men as much as to women. I do not believe that there is anything better to do than to make one’s marriage and household, whether one is a man or a woman. I do not believe that “employment outside the home” is as valuable or important or satisfying as employment at home, for either men or women. It is clear to me from my experience as a teacher, for example, that children need an ordinary daily association with both parents. They need to see their parents at work; they need, at first, to play at the work they see their parents doing, and then they need to work with their parents. It does not matter so much that this working together should be what is called “quality time,” but it matters a great deal that the work done should have the dignity of economic value." You can read the whole article here, be warned it's very dense, well written and long.

oh to write as well and as passionately, to love the written word again, to be in love with a sentence with a passage, with a phrase, Mr. Berry has inspired me.

http://www.crosscurrents.org/berryspring2003.htm

and OK one more....


"Why would any woman who would refuse, properly, to take the marital vow of obedience (on the ground, presumably, that subservience to a mere human being is beneath human dignity) then regard as “liberating” a job that puts her under the authority of a boss (man or woman) whose authority specifically requires and expects obedience?"