For a long time women have been questioning the roles that society imposed on them. We saw it in the novels of Edith Wharton in the early 1900’s about the restricted lives of women. We saw it in the fight for a woman’s right to vote (1917) which many women fought for and even died for.

It has taken women a long time, but finally in the 60’s women were able to break out of the mold that imposed a particular behavior on all women, and this allowed women to have more choices about how they wanted to live their lives.

With more choices, of course, have come new problems and new challenges and this has affected the previous more structured styles of domestic life ( such as man- woman relationships, past social expectations etc.) which will certainly take some time to address. Change is always difficult, but it will ultimately be liberating not only for women, but eventually for men and even for the society as a whole.

We are now in the process of identifying, one person at a time, what these new changes are going to be and how they are going to affect all of us.

Will women choose to work part time and stay home part time? Will some men choose to stay home while woman work? Will well- functioning and low cost day care centers be more prevalent? Will both men and women decide to work part time and live different, less material lifestyles? These questions will only be answered in the future as individuals live their lives and find out what works well and what doesn’t.

The ultimate hope for all woman (and for all men) is that their greater range of choices will bring about a greater chance of happiness and a more tranquil and better life. If our men and women are happier then our children too can look forward to a more loving and brighter future.