Gender attitudes in "I Want a Wife" and "Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha

¶ … wife" by Judy Brady and "Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha" by Anna Quindlen

The contrast in attitude between the essays "I want a wife" by Judy Brady and "Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha" by Anna Quindlen illustrates the difference between 1970s second wave feminism and contemporary feminist attitudes. Brady is angry at a society that denies full legal, economic, but especially social equality to women. She wants a 'wife' who will provide her with the same types of social support structures that wives have always given their husbands -- that presumably she gave to her husband while he was completing his degree. Men have assumed it is their right to be cared for by women, while Brady demands the same for all women.

When Brady says that she, even as a heterosexual married woman, 'wants a wife,' she also implies that, as this is logistically impossible. Her true meaning is that men must give something up in marriage, namely the demand to be waited upon hand and food, so women to enjoy real equality. Men must make sacrifices around the home and in society. Anna Quindlen, writing many years after Brady in 2001, also addresses the issue of mutual sacrifices for equality. But she states that women must make sacrifices as well, to enjoy the full benefits of the equality that they desire.

The purpose of Quindlen's essay is twofold. On one hand, she proudly defends the service of women in the military, noting how many women have served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Quindlen's essay is distinctly feminist in its agenda, when dealing with such issues, such as women's right to serve in combat. However, Quindlen asserts that on both the right and also the anti-war left, there is an uncomfortable silence about the gender disparity regarding national service: men must register for the draft and women do not have to do so. But many nations, including Israel, have gender-neutral requirements for national service. Quindlen states if women want social parity to men, they must be willing to serve like men do, and register with the national service. They cannot have it 'both ways' and in attempting to do so they hamper the advancement of women in the military who do choose to serve, and women's place in larger society. "All these military personnel, male and female alike, have come of age at a time when a significant level of parity was taken for granted. Yet they are supposed to accept that only males will be required to defend their country in a time of national emergency. This is insulting to men. And it is insulting to women. Caroline Forell, an expert on women's legal rights and a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, puts it bluntly: 'Failing to require this of women makes us lesser citizens'" (Quindlen 2001).

At first Brady's essay may seem an artifact of a time long past, when women had few opportunities for advancement. Yet her words forcefully remind the reader that the common image of the idyllic gender-divided household was profoundly inequitable. It was not that women did not work and serve, but rather their service and work -- at home, for men -- often went unacknowledged. "I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school" Brady writes (Brady 1971). In other words, during the era when women 'did not work' they were working, to help men get more lucrative careers, but not for themselves. Why should women fight in the military, Brady might playfully protest, in keeping with the tone of her article, when their income is only a fraction of a man's, even today? But at least women and men who serve in the military in a relatively more equitable America are honored, unlike the type of wife Brady likely was until her consciousness was raised. Brady's paradigmatic perfect wife is always taken for granted, and demands nothing in return. Quindlen's ideal woman is willing to give her service, but also demands a great deal of the country for which she is willing to die to protect.