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Crittenden, Danielle
writer and commentator
Date of birth:
April 20, 1963
Biography from Current
Biography (2003)
Copyright (c) by The H. W. Wilson Company. All rights
reserved.
In her magazine articles, op-ed pieces,
and, most prominently, her book What Our Mothers Didn't
Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman (1999),
the writer and commentator Danielle Crittenden has
maintained that while the feminist movement has brought
about many gains for women, it has also done women a
disservice, by creating unrealistic models for them to
emulate. According to Crittenden, feminists in the 1960s
and 1970s assumed erroneously that for the majority of
women, building a career when they were in their 20s
would bring more fulfillment, and would be a higher
priority during that stage of their lives than getting
married and having children. The feminists failed to
acknowledge, Crittenden contended, the fact that women
balancing careers and families often find that they
prefer to care for their infants themselves rather than
leave them in the care of others while they go to work;
the feminists also failed to tell women that postponing
marriage and childbearing for careers would make it more
difficult for them to find husbands and become mothers
in their 30s or 40s. In What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us,
Crittenden told David Gergen on the PBS television
program NewsHour (March 1, 1999, on-line), she asserted
that women "now feel almost as trapped in their
jobs as they did, or were told they did, in their
suburban ranch homes in the 1950's." "I think
there is a general sense that things have gone wrong . .
. ," she said to Gergen. "I think one of the
most damaging beliefs of the women's movement was a
sense of equality, meaning sameness with men--not just
equal before the law, equal politically, . . . but we're
not the same as men." Crittenden told Stephanie
Wilson Chapin in an undated interview for the Globe
Books Web site, "I can tell you what I'm going to
be telling [my daughter]. I would want her, at 21 years
old, to start thinking very seriously about marriage and
who she's going to marry. And then if she got married at
23 or 24 I'd be absolutely thrilled. If she got pregnant
a year or two after that, I think she would be extremely
clever, especially if she's ambitious." Crittenden
has written articles for such U.S. periodicals as the
New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post,
Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and National Review and
for the Canadian publications National Post and Saturday
Night. She has served as a panelist on the CNN
television series Take 5 and has commented on women's
issues for other U.S. and Canadian television and radio
shows as well. The November 1999 issue of Vanity Fair
featured her as one of the most important new thinkers
about women and the family. She is also the author of a
novel, Amanda.Bright'home (2003).
The daughter of Maxwell John Crittenden
and Yvonne Ann (Wilson) Crittenden, Danielle Crittenden
was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 20, 1963.
Following her parents' divorce, her mother married Peter
Worthington, a co-founder of and columnist for the
Toronto Sun. Her mother writes book reviews for that
newspaper, under the byline Yvonne Crittenden. Danielle
Crittenden began her career in journalism as a teenager,
with a column in the Toronto Sun. After she graduated
from high school, she traveled in Africa and China as a
freelance writer rather than attend college. In 1994 she
founded the Women's Quarterly, published by the
Independent Women's Forum; the group's mission,
according to its Web site, is "to advance the
American spirit of enterprise and self-reliance and to
support the principles of political freedom, economic
liberty, and personal responsibility among women."
She also continued to write for other periodicals.
The publication, in January 1999, of
What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes
the Modern Woman brought Crittenden much attention. In
that book she acknowledged the importance of the gains
won by the women's movement and the impossibility of
returning to a 1950s-type society, even if most people
wished to. Feminism has created problems, however, she
maintained, stemming from the idea that women can live
happily simultaneously as wives and mothers and as
working professionals. "Although very
well-intentioned and well-meaning in many ways,"
she told Chapin, her mother's generation--the first to
come of age during the rebirth of feminism in the U.S.
in the 1960s--"didn't convey to us that other
things in life [besides careers] are important." In
her book Crittenden asserted that what most contemporary
women want--"to have it all," meaning to be
married, have children, and have a job outside the
home--is difficult to attain simultaneously. "Women
who have 'had it all' . . . [accomplished that] in ways
that were the exact opposite of what we were told to
do," she told Chapin. "They married early, had
children in their 20s . . . and when their children were
in school . . . they moved into other things."
Borrowing from Betty Friedan's groundbreaking book The
Feminine Mystique (1963), Crittenden opened with a
critique of material found in many women's magazines,
and she used Friedan's central thesis as a jumping-off
point for presenting her observations. "In
Friedan's time, the problem was that too many people
failed to see that while women were women, they were
also human, and they were being denied the ability to
express and fulfill their human potential outside the
home. The modern problem with no name is, I believe,
exactly the reverse of the old one: While we now
recognize that women are human, we blind ourselves to
the fact that we are also women," Crittenden wrote,
as quoted by Okey Chigbo on the Next City Web site
(Summer 1999). She also argued that while women deserve
equal rights with men before the law and in the
workplace, the sexes should not be treated as if they
are virtually the same. "I think what we should
strive for is an equality of respect, to accept that we
have these differences," she told Gergen.
"That doesn't make us less equal as citizens, less
equal in what we do in our daily lives. And I think if
we can recapture some of that lost respect that we had
between the sexes, an acknowledgment of differences, . .
. we really do have these enormous opportunities. We are
the freest and most equal generation of women in
history. And I think so long as we are captive of
certain ideas or certain notions of having to be
precisely like men, having to work the same 50-hour
weeks, we are not going to be able to realize those
extraordinary opportunities."
Unlike most men, Crittenden believes,
most women long for committed relationships and children
to nurture and raise, and thus they should not be
chastised for putting family before work. In an op-ed
essay for the New York Times (July 21, 1999), she wrote,
"The first thought of most new mothers is not, 'How
quickly can I put this thing into day care?!' More often
it's the anxious, heartbreaking query, 'How long will I
be able to take off from work?' And even 'Do I have to
go back to work at all?'" In her book she proposed
that rather than making the tough choice between staying
home with their children and returning to established
careers, women should try to marry young (in their early
to mid-20s) and have children before embarking on their
careers.
What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us sparked
heated responses. In a review for the MIT newspaper the
Tech (March 19, 1999, on-line), Julia C. Lipman accused
Crittenden of "blaming feminism for everything from
stressed-out working mothers to gaunt high-fashion
models." Xavier Rush complained in Merge magazine
(March 1999, on-line), "The author continually
implies that a woman who stays single is incapable of
focusing on anything or anyone other than herself. She
writes that such a woman ends up 'extending the
introverted existence of a teenager deep into middle
age.' . . . What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us seeks to
scare young women into feeling they are no longer
appealing after age 30." Mary Beard, writing for
the London Times Literary Supplement (March 19, 1999),
took issue with the inclusion of the terms
"eludes" and "happiness" in
Crittenden's subtitle. "Feminism has offered (and
delivered) many things. . . . It has not (recently, at
least) promised happiness. Still less has it promised to
make easy the most difficult sexual and personal
decisions that we face. . . . To judge feminism a
failure because women are still unhappy is either a
crass misunderstanding, or a cheap misrepresentation of
a political stance that is much more complicated than
Crittenden chooses to allow."
Some reviewers defended the book. In one
mixed assessment, for the Alberta Report (March 8, 1999,
on-line), Nathan Greenfield wrote, "Danielle
Crittenden's highly controversial analysis of
post-feminist malaise contains more than a few nuggets
of realism and wisdom"; in another, for the New
York Times Book Review (January 31, 1999), Elizabeth
Gleick wrote, "Crittenden correctly hones in on
some nagging questions. Why are so many of these very
same accomplished women single and/or childless, not
necessarily by choice? Why does combining work and
motherhood continue to be so treacherous? Why is there
so much divorce?" Okey Chigbo maintained,
"Crittenden performs a necessary if thankless task;
she lays bare the real choices that women face when
making life's decisions, and in this she is more honest
than feminists. She argues that in pursuing
independence, some women have lost the ability to make
the compromises that help in finding and keeping a
mate." Elizabeth Powers wrote for Commentary (March
1999), "Her book is . . . constructed as a
systematic rebuttal of myths that, for most young women,
conservative and liberal alike, still count as gospel
truth: that sexual liberty is essential to women's
equality; that dependency is dangerous; that in a good
marriage, each partner remains a separate and distinct
individual; that women should have children when
convenient, but in no case should they permit their
children to define them or their lives. Crittenden's
demolition of these propositions is thorough, and
thoroughly satisfying. . . . Crittenden's 'essentialist'
view of the differences between men and women is
balanced by a realistic assessment of the many hitherto
undreamed-of possibilities modern life offers to those
in the middle class."
In her interview with Gergen, Crittenden
asserted, "A lot of [feminist] ideas have failed.
So whether it's to delay marriage, delay having
children, put everything into your career; . . . these
are ideas that we have grappled with and certainly
accepted growing up, only to find out that when you get
into your late 20s, 30s, you have put everything into
your work. . . . The sexual revolution, I think, has
been very hard on women, and made it also very hard [for
women] to find men who will commit." In a
discussion moderated by Kate O'Beirne for the National
Review (August 3, 1998), Crittenden said, "The new
rules today about sex between men and women are exactly
a result of what the 1970s were really all about. It is
free sex, it is sex without the constraints of marriage.
[Feminists] weren't able to wave away the dynamics of
sexual attraction, or female and male sexual power. All
they have done is to take away the protections so women
are now treated as unpaid prostitutes." She told
Chapin, "First we're saying we should just have a
series of sexual relationships with no commitment
attached. . . . Then we tell ourselves we should
postpone marriage because it is oppressive and
frightening. . . . We are taught that we have to grasp
at every straw and fight every issue, whether it's
clearing a dish from a table or changing our name. We're
taught that in marriage we're going to lose
ourselves."
According to Crittenden, an anti-male
attitude prevails as well. "One of the most rampant
forms of prejudice in our society I notice comes from
women toward men," she told Gergen. "It's
almost reflexive." When President Bill Clinton's
sexual liaison with the White House intern Monica
Lewinsky became public knowledge, she said, "I was
amazed at how many women just said, 'Well, he's acting
just like a man.' And I remember a lot of men saying to
me, 'Well, I don't act like that. That's a real sexist
remark.' And I think that's true, that we have demonized
men and mischaracterized them." Ironically, several
reviewers have accused Crittenden of doing so herself.
"Crittenden generalizes freely about the
unreliability, irresponsibility, and immaturity of
men," Andrew Hacker wrote for the New York Review
of Books (October 21, 1999). In the Nation (March 29,
1999), Kim Phillips-Fein wrote, "She sees men as
unappealing louts and cads who, despite their flaws, are
by a cruel trick of biology the sole ticket to female
happiness." Nathan Greenfield, too, took exception
to her views on men: "The author's take on the
pitiful marriage prospects available to women in their
30s (neurotic bachelors, sexual predators, newly
divorced men looking only for pleasure, embittered
cast-offs and elusive Peter Pans) seems to me . . .
exaggerated. It belongs in a Joan Rivers sketch, not in
a reasoned challenge to the errors of feminism. And to
say that nearly half of American men have used feminism
as an 'excuse for shirking the duties of fatherhood' is
quite offensive."
Crittenden has also been accused of
hypocrisy. Lipman, for example, reported, "Many
observers, including Betty Friedan, have pointed out
that Crittenden is a product of the very movement she
criticizes. . . . She writes that housekeepers and
nannies are 'cleaning up the domestic chaos that
feminism left in its wake,' but that doesn't stop her
from having a maid (or promoting private domestic help
as an alternative to state-sponsored day care)." In
the American Prospect (July/August 1999), Tara Zahra
noted, "Crittenden, who would like to be seen as
the soccer mom next door, has built a career out of
telling women their careers aren't important."
Crittenden has also been criticized for offering shoddy
and scanty data to support her claims. In regard to her
use of statistics, Zahra wrote, "She argues that
there is little evidence to support the notion that late
marriage produces happier results, conveniently ignoring
the fact that marrying young is a surefire way to
increase the statistical possibility of divorce."
Andrew Hacker, too, chided Crittenden for what he saw as
her lack of scientific rigor: "Instead of invoking
science, [Crittenden] draws on personal anecdotes,
conversations with friends, or simply impressions [she
has] formed. . . . [Her] arguments rest not on evidence
but on the hope that readers will feel [her]
observations ring true."
In addition, Crittenden has been charged
by some with being unrealistic. Sarah E. Hinlicky
pointed out for the National Review (February 8, 1999),
"There is much to recommend in her vision of
society made over with the best interests of women and
children in mind. But her prescriptions are easier to
articulate than to carry out. Early marriage may be a
practical solution--it may, in fact, even be the right
solution . . . but it is entirely contingent upon that
elusive thing called love." Others charged that she
gave short shrift to the financial pressures that force
many women to get jobs. In Maclean's (March 1, 1999),
after crediting Crittenden with "at times . . .
drawing vivid portraits of the problems women face--most
notably, the pressure on working mothers," Patricia
Chisholm wrote that Crittenden had been "peddling a
solution that is either unpalatable or unavailable to
most women: postponing work and career at least until
children are in school," and that she had been
"frustratingly vague" regarding situations in
which mothers must work to support their families. In
the opinion of Elizabeth Gleick, "The book's
greatest flaw is that Crittenden virtually ignores the
most significant change to have hit Americans in recent
decades: the changing nature of work itself."
According to Crittenden, Gleick explained, feminism has
created an unwinnable situation in which many women work
because they don't want to be dependent on their
husbands' incomes should their marriages fail, but in
which women's independence and work outside the home
contribute to the failure of many marriages. "But
surely another reason many women work today even if they
would rather stay at home is that no one, male or
female, can depend on a job for life any longer . . .
," Gleick wrote. "The world of work today,
just like the modern marriage, is one of constant
flux." For her part, Crittenden has contended that
the ever-changing working world makes it easier for
women to take several years off to raise their children.
"I think the economy today, the labor shortage
today, is much better for women, because it makes it
easier to go in and out of the work force. And it's also
not productive now, the way we're doing it, which is to
leave our careers often in our mid-30's, right when
we've invested all that time," she told Gergen.
Crittenden was a vocal critic of many of
the plans the Clinton administration labeled
"pro-family." In an opinion piece for the New
York Times (July 21, 1999), she criticized a Clinton
administration proposal to allow new parents to take six
months of paid leave: "By paying mothers to care
for their children for six months--but only six
months--the Government would be setting a new norm:
children are entitled to only as much of their mother's
time as the state is willing to pay for. After six
months, the job of child care belongs not to the family,
but to a day-care provider." She also disapproved
of on-site day-care facilities as a solution to the
child-care problem: "What sort of message does this
send to a new mother? 'Don't even think about taking
five minutes off for your new baby! You can tote it
along with your briefcase!'" In Saturday Night
(April 1996) she wrote, "The call for 'universal
child care' has become a mantra among women's groups, a
cure-all, and the yardstick by which they judge any
politician's commitment to women's freedom. While the
problem of child care is very real, and often a
nightmare, for working mothers it is not essentially the
problem. The government could announce tomorrow a system
of completely free daycare centres, each one headed by
Mary Poppins, and the problem wouldn't go away. For
despite three decades of reassurances to the contrary,
the woman who kisses her child's forehead each morning
before walking out the door to her office still harbours
the agonizing suspicion that what the child needs most
is her."
Crittenden's novel, Amanda.Bright'home,
about a career woman turned stay-at-home mother, was
serialized weekly on the Wall Street Journal's on-line
opinion page, OpinionJournal.com, in the summer of 2001;
the first novel to be serialized in that newspaper, it
was published in hardcover in May 2003. The book has
gotten a mixed critical reception.
In 1988 Crittenden married David Frum, a
journalist and former speechwriter for President George
W. Bush. (She uses her maiden name professionally.) The
couple live in Washington, D.C., with their son and two
daughters. -- K.E.D.Suggested Reading: Alberta Report
(on-line) Mar. 8, 1999; American Prospect p84+ July/Aug.
1999; Commentary p60+ Mar. 1999; Nation p25+ Mar. 29,
1999; National Review (on-line) June 15, 2001; New York
Times Book Review p9 Jan. 31, 1999; NewsHour (on-line)
Mar. 1, 1999Selected Books: What Our Mothers Didn't Tell
Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman, 1999;
Amanda.Bright'home, 2003
Profession: Columnists; Journalists;
Magazine editors; Political commentators; Authors;
Nonfiction writers; Editors; Broadcasters
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