Why is this happening? Because women born in the wake of feminism — women like Sandberg, Slaughter, and me — have been subtly striving all our lives to prove that we have picked up the torch that feminism provided. That we haven’t failed the mothers and grandmothers who made our ambitions possible. And yet, in a deep and profound way, we are failing. Because feminism wasn’t supposed to make us feel guilty, or prod us into constant competitions over who is raising better children, organizing more cooperative marriages, or getting less sleep. It was supposed to make us free — to give us not only choices but the ability to make these choices without constantly feeling that we’d somehow gotten it wrong.

from “Why Do Successful Women Feel So Guilty?” by Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College