How does gay marriage enter into this picture?

"Lots of people say that the move toward gay marriage and recognition of benefits for gay marriage is a reaffirmation of a traditional model and institution, that it’s a socially conservative move back toward marriage. I disagree, because I think it’s part of a disestablishment of marriage as an institution that limits women’s power based on the idea of one gender being dependent on another. The push toward gay marriage explodes those assumptions.

"That said, there are some who argue that by admitting a whole new group of people to an institution of marriage that we legally recognize, we’re reinforcing the ways that single people are left out of the benefits of that institution. I think that that’s a very valid point. What about creating legally recognized next-of-kin relationships, or co-parenting relationships that get some form of legal recognition? Between friends, between nonromantic or nonsexual partners? Or changing some of our laws around housing — there are all kinds of places in the country where there are laws against cohabitation by people who are not married to each other or related by blood. How do we make tax benefits apply to not just people who have entered this one legal institution, marriage?"

You present some pretty compelling reasons for women to delay marriage: Marriage still damages a woman’s professional stature, while her wages drop with every child she bears, for example. Can women take action to avoid these pitfalls in their own lives or are they too big to tackle alone?

"This gets to the heart of a larger question about how to address gender inequality, the question of collective action versus “lean in.” Is it that we need collective legislative and social policy revisions that protect equal pay, or is it that we need to change our own individual negotiating style or approach to workplaces? I have always been of the belief that we need both — and more. One of the things about marriage no longer being the expected model and path is that I think slowly it’s probably improving the institution. You’re seeing a more normalized acceptance of women as independent and equal beings, and that that in turn has benefits for people who were married young, in more traditional patterns. The path and scope of possibilities for adult women is changing so rapidly and so widely that it's becoming increasingly accepted that women are not simply unpaid domestic laborers."