Perhaps The Today Show needs a little help from Oxford Old English — they seem to be a bit confused about the definition of the word “new“:
It was the first report in the Today Show’s week-long series, “The Changing Marriage” — a look at “how kids, lack of time together, previous marriages, and taking your vows when you’re young affects your relationship.”
The question today was, “Who is the New Wife?” Who, indeed?
The report was built around the work of Susan Shapiro Barash, a gender studies professor at Marymount Manhattan College, and her 2004 book, The New Wife. Barash’s theory — and it’s hardly a new one; see, for instance, Lisa Belkin’s 2003 New York Times Magazine cover story — is that professional women today, unsatisfied by the demands and the stress of trying to “have it all,” are no longer trying. Rather, they are turning their attention to becoming the best head-of-household they can be.
Of course, these theories often work from the assumptions that a) women, ultimately, can never find complete satisfaction with a role in the public sphere; they are always yearning for a return to the domestic b) that all women’s families have the economic means to make the stay-at-home choice possible and c) men are either naturally unable to be equal caretakers of their children or that women would never want to relinquish part of that responsibility.
Read the whole thing at Ms. Musings. And thanks to Natalie for the heads up!