[cefarix]

Feminism arose because women did not like the way they were being treated. Society did actually stop valuing motherhood. It was an indirect result of society valuing doctors, physicists, CEOs, etc, yet restricting women from those same things. Only women can be mothers, and when women are restricted from those things society values, they become more defined only by being a parent, and when the value of women falls, so does the value of a woman being a parent.

To answer your question, of course a woman should be allowed to become a doctor, a physicist, or an athlete. Yes, she should be valued less if she chooses not to be a mother, just the same as a man should be valued less if he chooses not to be a father. She should not sacrifice her motherhood in pursuit of a career, just as a man should not sacrifice his fatherhood in pursuit of a career.

Because of the biological difference between a woman and a man, a woman must take much more time and effort away from other things in life to be a mother, whereas a man barely has to do any effort to have children. And so a natural division of labor occurs where the father takes on the role of a provider and the mother takes on the role of a nurturer. Since the father has more of a burden for providing, it is more important for him to become a doctor or such, but this is because that is how he fulfills his duties as a father.

You might say, why should a person be valued less if they choose not to be a parent? Well, all normal people have a sex, male or female. Why are we male or female if not to procreate with the opposite sex? Furthermore, any culture that values people not having children over people having children would have gone extinct.

[ezy]

You're not being very clear here, because it seems you've just said the precise opposite of what you posted previously in the first paragraph.

Initially, you said feminism arose because we started valuing other (more flamboyant?) occupations more than the more mundane, which essentially boiled down to motherhood in your post.

Now you're saying that, no, motherhood wasn't valued any less, but woman were discouraged from entering those more flamboyant occupations. This, in turn devalued motherhood through its association with people not involved in high status occupations, thus feminism arose as a reaction to the lessening of status.

This re-raises the question of why women were discouraged from entering high-status occupations initially. And as far as I can tell, you've completely closed your argument in a circle.