20+ Stephanie Coontz Quotes On Education, Culture And Social Justice

Stephanie Coontz is a historian, professor, and author. She is the director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families and a professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College. She has written several books on the history of marriage and family life, including The Way We Never Were and The Way We Really Are. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Stephanie Coontz on education, life, culture.

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. — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

Nostalgia wouldn't begin to capture your sense of loss, ... The Way We Really Are Coming to Terms With America's Changing Families. — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

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

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. — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

Almost all scholarly research carries practical and political implications. Better that we should spell these out ourselves than leave that task to people with a vested interest in stressing only some of the implications and falsifying others. The idea that academics should remain "above the fray" only gives ideologues license to misuse our work. — Stephanie Coontz

... 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. — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

There is one group of people - social conservatives, religious conservatives - who honestly feel that women's place is in the home and that wives should submit to their husbands. — Stephanie Coontz

Women are told that we can have the most exciting, glamorous, demanding, rewarding careers ever but we also have to be constantly sexy and sexually interested, and when we have children we have to spend more time with our kids. Of course you can't really do all three of those things at once, so we feel this tremendous stress. — Stephanie Coontz

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

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. — Stephanie Coontz

There is a lack of collective support or social support for working people in America. We're told, "You can be, as an individual, anything you want to be, but it must be at something else's - or somebody else's - expense." — Stephanie Coontz

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. — Stephanie Coontz

Increasingly, men are realizing exactly that - that having an educated, economically independent partner reduces the pressure on them to be the sole provider. Many men are also beginning to understand that participating in housework and childcare can be rewarding. Women with higher education and/or earnings are so much less likely than other women to divorce, that by age 40, they are more likely to be married than any other group of women. — Stephanie Coontz

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

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. — Stephanie Coontz

Life Lessons by Stephanie Coontz

1. Stephanie Coontz's work emphasizes the importance of understanding the historical context of marriage and family dynamics, as well as how these dynamics have changed over time.
2. She also emphasizes the importance of understanding how gender roles and expectations have shifted over time, and how this has impacted the structure of families.
3. Finally, her work highlights the importance of recognizing the diversity of family structures that exist today and the need to respect and support them.