21st Century Woman

This will most likely be an ongoing column as I'm trying to discover exactly what a 21st Century Woman is. I recently read an article by a woman talking about why she thinks women feel unfulfilled in their roles. She came to the conclusion that technology has removed women from the systems which helped define them. For example, our great-grandmothers had to have one day set aside for laundry, one for baking, one for sewing, etc... Their lives revolved around what exactly they needed to do to provide for their families. Moreover, they were the ones "in charge" of those sysems. If clothes weren't sewn, everybody went naked. Thus, according to the author, women felt more fulfilled because they were sure of their roles and their importance.
In our time we have washers and dryers, microwave ovens, grocery stores and Old Navy. Everything comes pre-packaged, pre-washed, and pre-cooked. According to the author this is the source of our angst and we would be happier reverting to simpler times in order to connect with the true nurturer inside.
I've been thinking about this a lot and I disagree. I don't think I have to give up technology in order to find fulfillment as a woman. I don't think I need to sew the clothes and grow the food just to be able to define myself as a woman. I think she missed the point. I think women, and men for that matter, are generally unhappy as a result of feeling a loss of control in their lives. We have a grocery store where we can buy the things they have decided to put there for us. We have no idea where most of our food comes from or the process it went through to get there. We send our children away in order to have them educated by someone else. We buy the clothes that somebody else says we should to be "in" with everybody else. We are constantly bombarded by messages from countless sources telling us what we should buy, where we should vacation, who we should vote for, and what we should watch on tv. What do we do ourselves?
As human beings we have an innate desire to be independent. You see this in children. It is offensive to my three year-old when I offer to help her with something she is trying to do on her own. She lets me know that my help is not only not wanted but even the offer was not appreciated. Somewhere we lose that. We forget to ask questions. We forget that we forget to ask questions. In fact, we become afraid to ask questions. We allow ourselves to float along and wonder why we feel an emptiness.
We don't have to give up our cell phones, we just need to THINK about why we have a cell phone. We need to think about what we put into our bodies. We need to think about who we want our children to become. We need to think and not be afraid to be active participants in our own lives. I believe women can find fulfullment by understanding the choices we have and then actively making those choices and acting upon them.