I do not entirely understand why the women to whom I am related give over so much of themselves to the care of others, or why I’ve inherited such a big dose of that impulse myself—the impulse to always mend and tend, to weave elaborate nets of care for others, even sometimes to my own detriment. Is such behavior learned? Inherited? Expected? Biologically predetermined? Conventional wisdom gives us only two explanations for this female tendency toward self-sacrifice, and neither satisfies me. We are either told that women are genetically hardwired to be caretakers, or we are told that women
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