Kelly Rohrs ("I'm Just a Girl in the World...," July 2005) engages in what has defined each generation's feminism: criticism of our mothers. This stance demonstrates the full inculcation of young women into the very value system Rohrs bemoans. The best evidence of this is the continued insistence that women who stay home with children are not "working," or are not engaging in a worthwhile profession. Child care is definitely a job of low prestige. This is the value system into which feminism was born, where mothers are second-class citizens.
Rohrs rejected her mother's pregnant body as "gross" and "grotesque." These are the denigrations of the female form that run rampant on this campus. Instead of roundness full of life, the emaciated body, lacking substance, vitality and nourishment is upheld as the model of perfection and achievement.
Feminism should not be solely about your job. Another way it might be defined: as respect for our mothers, their work and their bodies.
Ellen McLarney
Asst. Professor of the Practice, Asian and African Languages and Literature
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