http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.org/artman/publish/article_1746.shtml

The more I read non-feminist literature, the more I wonder why in succumbing
almost universally to radical feminist ideology, our society has let a group
of activist women ruin family life for everyone else by claiming expertise
where they have none: in homemaking and childrearing.

In her 1979 essay titled, "Why young women are more conservative," Gloria
Steinem, then single, stated that the reason young college women still
embraced traditional values was that they had not yet been married ("finding
out that it is not an equal partnership"), or held a job only to find
themselves stifled by "glass ceilings." She described marriage as
"becoming
legal chattel," and reminded us that "all women are [Playboy]
bunnies;"
a.k.a., exploited by men. [1] Her assumption was that the conservative
co-eds would come around in ten years and become feminist activists. (How
interesting that 26 years later, the numbers of young conservative women are
going up!)

F. Carolyn Graglia makes a key point about Steinem and other radical
second-wave feminists such as Betty Friedan and Jessie Bernard. [2] Despite
their transformation of society from Pleasantville to chaos through
guilt-tripping housewives, vilifying marriage, and warehousing children in
day care, none of these women was happily married or a mother. Friedan was a
miserable wife. Their labeling of housewives as "parasites" [3] and other
melodramatic terms reflected more their own jealousy of happy marriages than
it did the majority viewpoint.

Their bullying has worked. Just as hearing, "If you don't drink, you're a
loser" has led many a teenager into trouble, people have conformed to
feminist rules to avoid being labeled abusive brutes or insane parasites.
Today's crime rates, welfare rolls, and adolescent discipline problems show
us the price of buying feminist theories on family. Additionally, as Suzanne
Venker points out in her book [4], if being a full-time career woman and
part-time mom is the ultimate in feminist fulfillment, then why are there
more women's self-help books than ever before? It is now politically
incorrect to identify as a mother instead of an accountant, make your
children first priority, or see your husband as a good provider; all because
a group of single women told us so.

It makes no sense that we place any stock in marriage and family theories
put forth by women who never married and never had families. The following
analogies underscore my point.

In college, I majored in psychology and never took an engineering course. I
know several engineers, but I never set foot in their classrooms or
employment settings. Now, imagine me publishing a book that disparages the
engineering profession. I rant that it's a terrible, stressful career full
of confusing calculations and puzzles. I declare, "Engineering takes the
life out of you. You are up all night figuring out the most trivial things
so that you can make some stupid invention. The average engineer exhausts
himself and lives off caffeine. Because no self-respecting person would do
this, I can safely say that all engineers are mentally ill."

Knowing my academic background, would you bother reading that book? If a
professor, would you make it required reading? A policymaker, would you use
it to organize for the elimination of engineering as an acceptable career?
No! Realistically, it would be laughed out of any publishing company before
even making it to the shelves.

Going further, some may say that because Betty Friedan was married
(referring to her home as a "comfortable concentration camp"), that her
writing typifies the feelings of all married women that they are afraid to
share. They may use that to shoot down my engineering analogy. This second
analogy addresses that.

I completed one semester of pre-medicine before changing my major. While
struggling through chemistry class, I admittedly felt jealous of fellow
students' success. However, if I wrote a book chronicling the unhappiness of
pre-med students and labeling them as imprisoned in their own coursework,
would you buy it? As with the engineering book, it probably would not go
far.

The only way I could speak credibly about engineering or pre-medicine would
be to survey large, random samples of college students only to find most of
the aforementioned majors miserable. That would make me a qualified
sociological researcher. However, one psychology student who assumes things
about pre-meds and engineers based on her own frustrations is not an
acceptable source. The famous feminist theorists did not do random-sample
research and conclude that the majority of married American mothers were
miserable. Rather, they assumed it based on their own experiences and those
of women at consciousness-raising sessions. Why are radical feminists exempt
from the rule of establishing credibility as a writer?

As I look at the results of radical feminism, I am sad to see skyrocketing
abortion rates, children growing up in day care without discipline, and
social work professors blaming it all on Ronald Reagan. Activists like
Friedan, Steinem, and Bernard have contributed to the decline of American
values, and for whatever reason, we adopted their ideas as fact. What
disturbs me most is that they have fought the things they never
experienced--traditional marriage and full-time motherhood-and won! However,
those with the relevant experience, Graglia and Venker (wives and mothers
who liked it), are written off as "right-wing extremists."

Just as engineering employers hire engineering and not psychology majors,
human service professors and social justice activists should take advice
about marriage and childrearing from those who know: wives and mothers.
Responsible social work professors, claiming to teach what works best for
families, would put F. Carolyn Graglia, Suzanne Venker, and qualified
professional researchers on their required reading lists, not Jessie Bernard
and Gloria Steinem. The same goes for anyone else who has the pull to make
an ideology into a societal norm. Wives and mothers know what is best for
marriages and families. Why don't we listen to them?


Marian Shah lives with her husband in New Jersey, and looks forward to being
a stay-at-home mom when God decides the time is right. She is a freelance
conservative writer.

--
Men are everywhere that matters!





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