divorce

Welcome to the latest installment of Ms. Opinionated, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.

Dear Ms. Opinionated,

I am recently divorced, though I have been on my own (with my children) for three very long difficult years. 

My life began in 1995 — the year I turned eight and became a divorced kid. 

 

The pairing of women's suffrage and Prohibition always seemed to me like another quirky historical coupling, an example of the same group of people simultaneously favoring a critical common-sense idea (universal suffrage) and an unbelievably naïve, moralistic solution to society's problems (Prohibition).

We’re going to leave the 19th century soon, but not before we’ve covered a certain breed of independent woman literary icon. At a time when divorce was the height of scandal, Louise Mallard and Nora Helmer were literary characters who looked to a better life without their husbands. And they suffered terribly for it. Let’s explore the rise of representations of women learning to live their lives far from being under a man’s thumb.

OK, Gretchen Bonaduce and Danielle from Real Housewives of NJ are both maybe a little psycho, but can we get a little bit of love for these two plucky divorcees trying to pick themselves up and move on with their lives? No?