When the contemporary feminist movement began, it helped many women to see that the sacrificial model was really designed by patriarchal men to keep women subordinated. It helped women distinguish between being a loving mother (which required the assertion of responsible selfhood and agency) and an anti-loving model which required that women repress all their own needs and desires to serve others. Some women were disturbed when feminist thinkers compelled everyone to acknowledge that the self-sacrificing woman was rarely genuinely loving, no matter how nurturing and caring her actions might
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