Some time ago, I read a piece by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, titled “What’s a Modern Girl To Do?” describing the courtship and career dilemmas of the post-feminist era. Apparently, the entire nation is backsliding on every front, and women are high-tailing it back to the concentration camp formerly known as “homemaking”. As a feminist and freethinker, I have to wonder why I’m not among them. Ms. Dowd cites studies showing two things. First, women tend to pursue powerful, dominant, high-status men, and will choose a CEO or VP over a rank-and-file worker. Second, men tend to choose submissive, non-intellectual women, secretaries rather than Cabinet ministers. She goes on to provide considerable anecdotal evidence that educated, professional urban 20- somethings have felt pressured to choose between frumpy feminism and a lifetime of following “The Rules”.

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