Enjoy (video, 12:06).
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Well first of all, as Catherine Hakim amongst others points out, in the UK there was only a brief period in the 1960s and 70s when the end of post war austerity meant significant numbers of women could be completely out of the workforce. All my friends apart from the son of a Doctor and a Middle manager had mothers who worked at least part time. Increasing their hours as we grew older. My offspring basically need two incomes to cover rents or mortgages. Perhaps the much higher wages in the USA can facilitate this more easily. And of course the fast majority of men and women have jobs to earn money rather than “careers”. So in a way both sides of the debate were talking “luxury”. Pearl’s central point is about responsibility and the family as a unit, as opposed to total individualism. And there is the real core of this because in the past the partners set to do do what it took to support a family, whatever it took. As she says now its “all about me” and particularly for the sex that defines themselves as a “consumer” of good, services and other people. And of course it is also the sex that comes a cropper when “being hot” is harder to maintain and that dreadful biological clock takes them past the time they can reproduce.
It is both deeply irritating that any such debate never includes a man or a male perspective on this. Generally I suspect most men now would want a partner who at least made some effort to contribute to the huge costs of housing etc. for instance rather than a pretty devote of Bake Off. But it does rather illustrate the truth that marriage is basically for women. To get a provider and protector committed to devoting his efforts to his wife and children at the period of time they are most dependent. Just like the “where are all the good men” and “commitment phobes” the women , not just feminists, generally never seem to even wonder what’s in it for men? What do the women offer to men? Could they improve their Offer to men? Have they even bothered to ask what men might want? No of course they don’t, apart from “radical” Pearl.
Generally in truth the feminists and trad wives even just want men to “man up” to bankroll their “choices”.