Women’s Lives

Ruth Rosen’s Dec. 31 commentary on the women’s movement omits the crucial technological and scientific developments that made it possible: Myriad labor-saving devices nearly eliminated the value of upper-body strength that previously advantaged men in many livelihoods.

Medical science saved so many children’s and mother’s lives and gave women so much control over reproduction that the great majority of women in developed nations were freed from relentless childbearing in their fertile years.

Breakthroughs in communications and transportation allowed women to hold many kinds of jobs even while raising children. Without these changes in material conditions, women’s activism could not have taken the course that Rosen describes.

DONALD E. BROWN

Prof. Emeritus of Anthropology

UC Santa Barbara