Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 30, 1993 TAG: 9310300038
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BECKY HEPLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"I'm so proud of the fact it's getting a broader exposure among my peers," she said. "It's been well-received, despite its controversial nature."
In a publishing field dominated by dry prose and captive student audiences, the club's selection is a tribute to a lively subject matter and its straightforward treatment.
Allen came by her interest in families early. Right after graduating from the University of Connecticut, she was a VISTA - Volunteers in Service to America - volunteer at a senior-citizen center, which sparked an interest in gerontology issues. She went to graduate school at Syracuse, where a class project to conduct a family history got her interested in family patterns.
Allen taught in Texas before coming to Tech five years ago. She is an associate professor for family studies.
Her book has just reached another milestone of sorts, going into its second printing after selling the first printing's 3,000 books.
"It's not Jackie Collins, but it's something," Allen said.
In more ways than one. Allen, along with Kristine Baber of the University of New Hampshire, uses a feminist perspective to examine women's places in families. It is their claim that women both founder and flourish within the confines of the family.
"The research is pretty clear," Allen said. "You rank people by who feels happiest, most satisfied with their life; and the results show married men first, then single women, then married women and ending with single men."
Don't get the idea that the book lambastes men and traditional lifestyles. Overall, there is a hopeful tone that women can have a reasonable and sane life that balances family and career without cutting short opportunities and pleasures. It does mean some changes in the way we think about families, but the authors see that as a possibility.
One of the first things that must change, according to the book, is the public misperception about what "feminism" is and its implications. "Too often people think feminism is against males, but that's not it at all," Allen said. "It's about being for females, and the people they love, like men and children."
Even if the thinking doesn't change, Allen doesn't see the family lifestyle disappearing just because it can have a negative impact on women. "Regardless of the problems women face in the family, family life is still important for them," she said.
The book illuminates the dark episodes of being a woman. Women report being the victims of intimate violence three times more often than men, and 28 percent of the murders of women are committed by husbands or boyfriends. Fifty-seven percent of all women 16 years and older work outside the home, yet women predominantly have the major share of home-making and care-giving chores.
The care-giving role especially has serious implications because it's not just children for whom women are caring. Women will spend more time caring for elderly parents or ill spouses than for small children, the book says.
The book points out that both paid and domestic work are stratified by gender, and each affects the other. This situation is exacerbated by a lack of federal policy. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have any kind of support program to help working women with children.
The book ends with a positive proposal for change:
"What is needed is not rejection of contemporary change but the development of creative strategies to encourage diverse groups to build bridges of understanding and common ground."
These strategies include economic autonomy, relational equality and choice, reproductive freedom and lifelong education.
by CNB