Kirsten Dunst: I feel like the feminine has been undervalued

The actress Kirsten Dunst ruffled a few feminist feathers by making the following comment in a magazine interview:

"I feel like the feminine has been a little undervalued," she says. "We all have to get our own jobs and make our own money, but staying at home, nurturing, being the mother, cooking – it’s a valuable thing my mum created. And sometimes, you need your knight in shining armour. I’m sorry. You need a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. That’s why relationships work..."

It's an interesting comment. We live in a liberal society which values, above all, individual autonomy. Therefore, women are instructed to aim for independence from men, particularly through careers. Motherhood then comes to be seen as a restriction on women (as a potential disadvantage). That leads to the idea that there should be one, unisex parental role that men and women share equally.

In her comment, Kirsten Dunst articulates some of the limitations of this liberal view. If autonomy is made the overriding good, then other things that we value are lost. For instance, Kirsten Dunst clearly values what her mother did for her as a mother and doesn't want it to be lost in the pursuit of female autonomy. She thinks too that heterosexual relationships are based on a distinction between the masculine and the feminine and that therefore it is better for men to retain something of the masculine role within relationships.

Kirsten Dunst