Being a good mother does not call for the same qualities as being a good housewife; a dedication to keeping children clean and tidy may override an interest in their separate development as individuals.
Ann Oakley

Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.
Ann Oakley

Families are nothing other than the idolatry of duty.
Ann Oakley

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.
Ann Oakley

If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.
Ann Oakley

There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.
Ann Oakley