I had a conversation this week with someone who was insisting that feminism had made women much happier than in the 1950s and 1960s. So, I thought it might be a good idea to go digging around for some data, and then blog about it so I could find it again. Well, I found some nice survey data from the 2022 American Family Survey. That’s not too long ago! Let’s see what it says.
This is from the New York Post.
First, just some interesting points about how feminism was sold to women:
In February, we will mark the 60th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s “Feminine Mystique.” But given the state of modern feminism, it’s hard to imagine there will be much celebration.
Friedan’s work, which revealed women’s lack of fulfillment as homemakers, laid out the goals of second-wave feminism. Now that women had achieved the right to vote, own property and get an education (the first wave), Friedan and her cohorts argued that women should pursue higher education and careers as a way of achieving personal satisfaction. Others, like Germaine Greer, wrote that the sexual repression of women prevented them from becoming personally fulfilled. But thanks to the pill and changing mores about sex outside of marriage, women could finally achieve the freedom and happiness that had been available to men for millennia.
So, I see a few problems that feminism is supposed to solve. 1) being a stay at home wife and mom isn’t as fulfilling as having a job and putting your kids in daycare and public schools. 2) it’s not fulfilling to have sex with one man who commits to you for life – that’s boring. You need to have sex with a lot of different men, just like the tall, hot, bad boys are doing.
So that’s the offer that most women accepted, and that’s the view of the most powerful people in our society. We have massive government spending on social programs like daycare and public schools in order to make this plan “work out” to make women happier.
Now let’s see the survey data:
The American Family Survey recently asked: “All things considered, has feminism benefited American families?”
Only a little more than half (58.6%) of respondents said yes. What’s interesting, though, is the people who said yes also tend to be among the least happy and fulfilled. In survey after survey, it turns out that people who espouse a secular worldview, people who identify as liberals, and people who never attend religious services report the lowest levels of personal satisfaction, but they also report the highest levels of support for feminist ideals. Indeed, as feminism’s influence has grown over the past half century, women have become less happy.
How did we get to this point where men are expected to do more housework and child care, and women exchange being wives and mothers for working outside the home, and giving their kids to strangers to raise?
[M]any feminists would have been happy to dispense with traditional marriage altogether. If that happened, and women still did want to bear children (something many feminists did not encourage), well, someone was still going to have to support them. And so feminist leaders also demanded more government support for women.
When I was in grad school, and had a pet parrot at home, I could barely stand to leave the house. I would call home during breaks, or from the lab after classes. It’s not natural for people to leave their kids alone with strangers. I didn’t even like leaving my parrot with my older brother to go to class. Didn’t trust anyone to look after him. So, I can’t imagine how fathers and mothers can be happy about leaving young children with “child care workers” or “public school teachers”. They can’t be trusted, and they don’t reflect my values. So I can’t imagine how women could be happy to be separated from their young children.
And here’s another problem – promiscuity stinks:
In 1963, Betty Friedan was writing about “the problem that had no name.” But women’s problems in the 21st century can absolutely be named. More often, they are trying to raise children on their own, which can be exhausting even with financial resources. They are sexually liberated, but that often means they are going from one relationship to another without any sense of financial security or emotional stability.
One of the reasons why I sailed through high school and college with my chastity intact was because I knew that I wouldn’t like going all the way with a girl, and then she would just leave and I would never see her again. So I have no idea women think this is wonderful. I know that they only have eyes for tall, hot bad boys, but I don’t think those men should be emulated. If it doesn’t work for women, then they shouldn’t do it.
Men and women aren’t as different than people think. Nobody likes leaving their young children with strangers. Nobody likes being intimate with a person, and then not being able to even talk to them again when you want to. No wonder women are miserable. And as I blogged about before, it’s the progressive women who have the highest rates of mental illness and use of medication. The ones who took feminism seriously are the ones who are least happy.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Betty Fredian admitted decades later her life was all a lie. She claimed her ex husband used to hit her, but for the most part she would start the physical abuse. Betty Fredian used emotional manipulation to gain support.
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First-wave feminism was the only part that accomplished anything good. And the women who espoused that were pro-life and pro-family.
Every other wave since then has gone off the rails tragically–increasingly so.
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Yes!
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I honestly have to disagree that even first-wave feminism did anything good. Women getting the right to vote was an important step towards socialist politicians obtaining power in the United States.
Statistical analysis has strongly borne out that women vote strongly as a block, and have a greater tendency to vote for progressive candidates than men. This makes sense given the innate female desire to value guaranteed safety more than freedom. Seeing as women are always greater than 50% of the population due to higher male mortality rates, and combine with male feminists and men who are pandering to women to obtain political power (i.e. democrats), a population with female voters is virtually guaranteed to become more socialist over time.
As a Libertarian, I’m skeptical of democratic processes altogether, but I would say that if democratic elections are to be used at all, the right to vote needs to be limited to those that are both net taxpayers (i.e. actually pay taxes when considering how many benefits they receive compared to what they pay out), and subject to the military draft. In other words, if you vote for higher taxes, YOU will be paying the higher taxes. If you vote to go to war, YOU will be fighting in the war. Neither of these are a certainty for men, but are virtually a non-certainty for most women.
No doubt such a suggestion would result in feminist riots, but I struggle to see how anyone can objectively look at such a system and not realize that it’s far more just than what we have now. How exactly is it fair that people who pay no taxes whatsoever (again, consider net taxpaying, not just whether or not taxes are technically deducted) can vote to raise the taxes of those that do? How exactly is it fair that people who are not subject to the draft, can vote for wars that may subject others to the draft? If you are going to vote, you ought to have skin in the game.
TLDR:
Giving women the right to vote has helped rocket the country towards socialism and totalitarian government and thus, even first wave feminism was not a societal good.
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Hello, My2C. When I say I agree with 1st wave feminism, I’m thinking of allowing women to do any degree, get any job they can get on the merits, and make their own way in life without having to marry. Imagine if you were a woman born with something that men don’t like to look at, like being very tall, or cleft palate or something cosmetic. I want to live in a world where women don’t have to get married in order to live out a Christian life. They should be able to be patriotic and self-sufficient and look after other people, even if men don’t see their good character.
Regarding your arguments about voting in exchange for willingness to be drafted, I agree. I think women should have the choice about whether they can be drafted in exchange for being allowed to vote. That doesn’t mean ground combat, but it would mean that they would have to serve in non-combat roles. Although I certainly think that there are some combat roles that women excel at, like Martha McSally who was an A-10 squadron leader and killed enemies on the battlefield.
After reading your arguments on conditional voting, I agree with you that right to vote should be conditional somehow. Maybe only people who are married with children, or who are net taxpayers. I had never thought of that latter one. I also don’t like birthright citizenship or welfare programs of any kind.
I have many, many disagreements with libertarianism. Especially on social policy and foreign policy. To me, libertarianism causes many of the problems that its proponents disagree with verbally, such as big government and war. They do this by destroying the family and isolationism / pacificism, as a matter of policy. I’m speaking about the libertarian party platform, with I call the “LiGBerTarian party”. Hahaha! you don’t have to agree!
I hope you are not upset that I only partly agree with you.
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I always welcome disagreement, so don’t hesitate to disagree. I do agree with you that women should not be legally barred from having jobs or owning property if they choose to do so, but I’ve found that in general, this isn’t what people are talking about when they speak of First Wave Feminism. Central to First Wave Feminism is women’s right to vote, and while even many conservatives celebrate this as a good thing, I think it’s done more harm overall.
I think when it comes to voting, the important question is whether or not the person voting actually has skin in the game. If you have nothing to lose personally, but could potentially force other people to give up their property and/or lives for your benefit, it’s no surprise that you’ll vote for higher taxes, wars, and other government actions that could have high costs.
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It’s peer-reviewed:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/250093
I hope you like that paper!
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“…Giving women the right to vote has helped rocket the country towards socialism and totalitarian government…”
Satan should be relieved to be off the hook for those two evils.
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Are you seriously using “the Devil made me do it” defense?
Are you disputing the fact that giving the women the right to vote has made the government more socialist and totalitarian given the fact that women as a block overwhelmingly vote more progressive? (Please note Wintery’s peer reviewed source provided above).
Further, even if I grant that the devil himself has mind control powers that force women to vote this way, what would you propose to rectify the problem?
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So, I can’t imagine how fathers and mothers can be happy about leaving young children with “child care workers” or “public school teachers”. They can’t be trusted, and they don’t reflect my values. So I can’t imagine how women could be happy to be separated from their young children.
Most parents demonstrably do not care about their children except as some sort of occasionally useful status symbol. They certainly do not care about their children’s emotional wellbeing, the quality of the “education” they receive, or even their safety. Otherwise they would not be turning them over to pedophilic strangers who weaponize them against their own parents. That parents continue to abandon their children to these dangerous and destructive institutions (daycare centers and government schools) even when they not only do not hide, but actually flaunt their awfulness tells us where these parents real priorities are (hint: everything BUT their children).
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