The Notion

Nobel Prize Winner "Abandons" Family

posted by houppert on 10/15/2007 @ 1:22pm

Why is it that when a man leaves his wife and she retains custody of the kids we say, simply, "he is divorced?"

Yet when a woman, say Doris Lessing, leaves her husband and he retains custody of the kids we say "she abandoned her family?"

…just something to mull over as we read the New York Times tribute to Doris Lessing, the fabulous feminist writer and 87-year-old winner of the Nobel prize for Literature....Just something to consider, lest us feminists get too cocky and drift toward any you've-come-a-long-way-baby reflection on The Golden Notebook.

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