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Stephanie Coontz Biography

Stephanie Coontz

Stephanie Coontz (born August 31, 1944) is an author, historian, and faculty member at Evergreen State College. She teaches history and family studies and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-2004. Coontz has authored and co-edited several books about the history of the family and marriage.

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Stephanie Coontz Quotes

The historical weight of gender inequality has tended to concentrate women in lower-paid jobs with fewer benefits and at the same time made them primarily responsible for care giving.

Fewer, Giving, Historical, Inequality, Jobs

The worst problems for children stem from parental conflict, before, during, and after divorce or within marriage.

Children, Divorce, Problem, Stem

The benefits of feminism have been unequally distributed, because the move toward gender equality and gender neutrality has been countered to a large extent by the increase in economic inequality.

Distributed, Economic Inequality, Feminism, Large, Moving, Neutrality

Families have always been in flux and often in crisis; they have never lived up to nostalgic notions about "the way things used tobe. " But that doesn't mean the malaise and anxiety people feel about modern families are delusions, that everything would be fine if we would only realize that the past was not all it's cracked up to be. . . . Even if things were not always right in families of the past, it seems clear that some things have newly gone wrong.

Mean, Past, People, Realize, Wrong

In industrial countries where male privilege is still firmly entrenched - in Spain, Italy, Japan, and South Korea, for example - women are delaying marriage longer than in America, and often resisting childbearing as well. They are less likely than American women to say that marriage is a good deal.

Countries, Country, Deal, Delaying, Privilege, Resisting

. . . what's been building since the 1980's is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That's what will last after this flurry on family values.

Crisis, Family, Flurry, Lasts, Politics, Social

A two-parent family based on love and commitment can be a wonderful thing, but historically speaking the "two-parent paradigm" has left an extraordinary amount of room for economic inequality, violence and male dominance.

Commitment, Economic Inequality, Family, Historically, Two, Wonderful

Extended families have never been the norm in America; the highest figure for extended-family households ever recorded in Americanhistory is 20 percent. Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditional" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1885, during the most intensive period of early industrialization. Many of these extended families, and most "producing" families of the time, depended on the labor of children; they were held together by dire necessity and sometimes by brute force.

America, Brute, Children, Dire, Myth, Together

Hollywood overstates both the romance of marriage and the prevalence of divorce. Celebrities have divorce rates that are atypical and higher than most couples. I suspect that in celebrity marriages, there are huge egos on both sides and they do seem to encourage unrealistic expectations about falling in love. The problem with our romantic culture is that you can love someone you don't respect and the marriage can run out of gas with that formula. Respect is essential - not just respecting your partner but being sure your partner equally respects you.

Couple, Equally, Falling In Love, Gas, Huge, Running

Putting women's traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It's the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike.

Family, Men, Money, Sexism, Women, Work

A significant minority of senior women I've interviewed say, 'Love the companionship, glad to live with him, but I spent my first marriage picking up after a man and I'm not going to do that anymore.

Glad, Interviewed, Live, Men, Minorities, Senior

We urgently need a debate about the best ways of supporting families in modern America, without blinders that prevent us from seeing the full extent of dependence and interdependence in American life. As long as we pretend that only poor or abnormal families need outside assistance, we will shortchange poor families, overcompensate rich ones, and fail to come up with effective policies for helping families in the middle.

America, Helping, Long, Supporting, Way

Singlehood is not longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it's the dessert - desirable, but no longer the main course.

Anymore, Course, Overcome, Overcoming, People, Single

The historical weight of gender inequality has tended to concentrate women in lower-paid jobs with fewer benefits, at the same time made them primarily responsible for care giving.

Care, Giving, Historical, Responsible, Weight, Women

The idea that academics should remain ''above the fray'' only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.

Giving, Ideas, Ideologues, License, Misuse, Remain

I think that divorce is a vital escape hatch for people stuck in marriage and it is not a sentence of doom either for adults or children. The community should develop better support systems for saving or restoring potentially healthy marriages. But we should also help people who decide to divorce have healthier partings.

Children, Divorce, Escape, People, Systems, Thinking

When parents are educated about how not to involve children in their conflicts and co-parent amicably, a lot of the ill effects of divorce can be alleviated. Divorce is always painful. But kids in a high-conflict marriage or low-conflict but contemptuous ones are often better off in the long run when the parent can disengage.

Children, Involve, Kids, Marriage, Painful, Running

Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary.

Beavers, Contrary, Documentaries, Documentary, Opinion, Popular