I ran across this article, and thought it might prompt some interesting discussions.
I've said for a few years now that the women's movement of the 1970's ultimately did us no favors; it just overburdened us with impossible workloads and insane expectations, and made us feel we should be grateful for them.

This is a bit long, but is a quick read. Especially over the whiny bits. Eye-wink
I suspect this may be one of those items where the Mail readers' comments are better than the actual story.
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Why do women feel so ANGRY? Welcome to the age of female rage

By Elizabeth Stewart
Last updated at 12:35 AM on 23rd February 2009

Last week, I was woken at 2am by the unmistakable sound of vomiting. For a foolish split second, I waited to see if my husband, Johnny, would get up and see to Grace, our three-year-old daughter.

I'd been on my feet for 18 hours straight the previous day, giving a major presentation to one of my advertising company's most important clients. I hadn't got home until 10pm and was exhausted. I craved sleep the way an addict longs for his next fix.

Johnny, on the other hand, had knocked off at 4pm - flexible hours being one of the benefits of working in IT - and arrived home in time to spend the evening playing with Grace.

After the nanny had bathed her and put her to bed, he'd cheerfully polished off the dinner I'd cooked for him the previous day and had an early night.

I could have woken him, of course, but a few days earlier, Grace had been taken ill at her new nursery school. They'd called to ask me to pick her up, but I'd been in a wretched meeting and had never got the message. Grace had cried for me for half the day before falling into an exhausted, red-cheeked sleep.

Still racked with guilt for not being there, I chastised myself for minding about her waking me and stumbled into the nursery, where I discovered she'd thrown up, in spectacular fashion, all over her cot. I cleaned her up, stripped and changed the sheets and put her back to bed.

An hour later, she was sick again. This time, I brought her into our bed. When she threw up for a third time at 5am, even Johnny woke up.

But while I stripped beds again, wiped up more vomit and carted another armful of sheets to the washing machine, he collapsed on the sofa and promptly went back to sleep.

Seething, I stalked into the kitchen and pulled some beef from the freezer. I might as well start preparing that night's dinner; I was too wide awake to go back to bed. I wouldn't have time to make anything that evening, since I'd promised my mother that I'd go over and help her fill her freezer.

My mobile rang. It wasn't even light outside, but the Asian office was halfway through its business day. I was tempted to fling the phone in the washing machine with the sheets, but I can't afford to lose my job. Johnny and I need two salaries just to keep a roof over our heads.

So I answered it, gritting my teeth and seasoning my stew, wishing I could have another life, any life but mine.

Aside from my husband and baby daughter, I have a 13-year-old son at boarding school who I miss desperately and drive to see as often as the school permits, a 94-year-old grandmother in the West Country who lives for my visits once a fortnight and an undomesticated, widowed mother.

There is an ex-husband who believes his schedule is far more important than mine and must always come first when we're divvying up our son's holidays, and a French nanny who seems to think my job is to facilitate her social life.

I have a job that makes no allowances for the fact I have children who don't always get sick with three weeks' advance notice.

The boarding school and nursery assume I wait around at home with nothing to do but attend conferences and plays and sports events on their schedule. No wonder I'm filled with a permanent nebulous, undirected rage that my life has become a Gordian knot of obligations, responsibilities, guilt, duties and expectations.

I can't even go for a walk in the park without factoring in the needs of half a dozen people. I resent that every second of my day is owned by someone else.

Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry with a world that still doesn't acknowledge how hard women work, in and out of the workplace. I'm angry with men for dumping the childrearing problem in our laps. I'm angry with women for refusing to admit it's too much, that we can't do everything all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband. But there are times I could cheerfully strangle him simply for having the luck to be born a man.

At 32, he's five years younger than me and, in many ways, very much a New Man. He talks about his feelings, rubs my feet, doesn't resent my earning capacity and worships the ground our daughter walks on.

But Johnny doesn't do vomit. Or nappies. Or snotty noses, chewing gum in hair, laundry, meal planning, name-tape sewing - in short, none of the dull, thankless micro-tasks that keep the family wheels oiled and running every day.

Nor did my first husband, an unreconstructed City lawyer. It's as if men think the XX chromosome somehow bestows a knack for, and a degree of pleasure in, wiping bottoms and clearing up sick.

In the days when a woman stayed home to raise a family while a man went out to work to put bread on the table, this division of labour was fair enough. But why these days, when women work just as hard as men outside the home, are they still responsible for pretty much everything that goes on in it?

How hard is it to learn to cook? (Boil the kettle, add pasta.) As that arch- chauvinist Jeremy Clarkson would say, it's not rocket science. But ask Johnny to cook peas and he'll forget to add water. I swear he does it on purpose so I don't ask again.

On one memorable occasion last year, he rang me while I was in France to inform me that the dog had been sick as if I could do something about it. Two hours later, he called again to explain that he'd locked himself out of the house, with Grace alone inside. Once again I gently pointed out that I was, in fact, in another country and he would have to solve this one himself.

But it's not Johnny I'm really angry with. He's a loving, supportive, wonderful man. Perhaps I wouldn't mind his domestic helplessness so much if I wasn't being torn in so many different directions all the time.

My job as a managing partner at a major advertising agency demands a huge amount of commitment, particularly in these tough economic times. Because I want to spend some time with my daughter lest she forgets who I am, I cram five days' work into four and take Friday afternoons off.

In theory, that is. In reality, I find myself on a conference call to Chicago as I try to prevent my daughter pushing six eggs, a fistful of blackberries and half a carton of juice into the DVD player.

I feel guilty that I'm not pulling my weight by being at the office - even though I work just as hard and long as anyone else - and I feel guilty because I'm not giving my daughter the 24/7, one- on- one time a fulltime mother would be able to.

My mother grew up in a wealthy family who had servants to do all the boring tasks such as cooking and cleaning. She had enough sense to send me on a cordon bleu cookery course for a year before I went up to Oxford, which means that I often end up cooking for her, too.

Not that I mind, which, as Johnny is quick to point out if I complain I'm overwhelmed, is part of the problem. Unlike a man, I just can't seem to find it in me to say 'No'.

I love my mother. I want to help her. But there are times I wonder if she grasps just how complicated my life is. She never had to juggle work with a family and husband. I know I've had fantastic opportunities that she's been denied, but in some ways, it was much simpler for her.

My generation of women aren't having it all - we're doing it all. It's a constant struggle to meet the demands of my various roles as wife, mother, daughter, colleague, lover, friend. I feel as if I short-change everyone all the time.

I never have a moment that's just mine. Someone always wants a piece of me. Yesterday, in the middle of a bikini wax, I had an urgent call from the office and had to orchestrate a crucial meeting on the other side of the world, biting my fists to stop yelping at the wrong moments.

Frequently, as I reach for a file from my bag in the midst of a presentation, a pair of baby pants or a lollipop falls out. It hardly helps my image as a cool, collected professional. I watch the smug glances of the men around the table and want to slap them.

Recently, the Children's Society published a report lambasting modern women for being too selfish to be good mothers.

Are they kidding? I'd like to see the authors spend a week in my shoes. Most of my days are a near-precipice experience. I'm so close to the edge that I'm in a semi-permanent state of panic. I have a constant list of things I have to do running through my head like a stock market ticker-tape.

What must it be like to live without the tyranny of the list? To sink into a bath and not be mentally composing tomorrow's agenda? What is it like to be a man and have nothing to think about but the task in hand?

No wonder the vast majority of our great scientists, thinkers and artists are men. Think how much room they must have in their heads without all the domestic clutter their wives are taking care of.

Am I angry? You haven't heard anything yet.

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