Tag Archives: Feminist

Commentary

Can a person be a feminist and still believe in marriage?

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Here’s a research paper written in 2003 from the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

Marriage is good for men, women, children–and society. Because of this simple fact, President George W. Bush has proposed a new pilot program to promote healthy marriage. Despite demonstrated evidence in every major social policy area of the need to rebuild a strong and healthy culture of marriage, President Bush’s new marriage initiative is still opposed by the extreme wing of feminism that sees no good in marriage or in unity between men and women, and between mothers and fathers.

Moderate, mainstream feminists have long rejected this animus against marriage; the vast majority of such feminists either are married or intend to marry. Mainstream feminists are focused on a worthy concern: removing obstacles to the advancement of women in all walks of life.

Radical feminists, however, while embracing this mainstream goal–even hiding behind it–go much further: They seek to undermine the nuclear family of married father, mother, and children, which they label the “patriarchal family.” As feminist leader Betty Friedan has warned, this anti-marriage agenda places radical feminists profoundly at odds with the family aspirations of mainstream feminists and most other American women.

The next part of the paper quotes from leading third-wave feminists who oppose marriage.

Here are some of the recent ones:

In her 1996 book In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age, Judith Stacey, Professor of Gender Studies and Sociology at the University of Southern California, consigned traditional marriage to the dustbin of history.36 Stacey contended that “Inequity and coercion…always lay at the vortex of that supposedly voluntary `compassionate marriage’ of the traditional nuclear family.”37 She welcomed the fact that traditional married-couple families (which she terms “The Family”) are being replaced by single-mother families (which she terms the postmodern “family of woman”):

Perhaps the postmodern “family of woman” will take the lead in burying The Family at long last. The [married nuclear] Family is a concept derived from faulty theoretical premises and an imperialistic logic, which even at its height never served the best interests of women, their children, or even many men…. The [nuclear married] family is dead. Long live our families!38

Stacey urged policymakers to abandon their concern with restoring marital commitment between mothers and fathers and instead “move forward toward the postmodern family regime,” characterized by single parenthood and transitory relationships.39

In 1996, Claudia Card, professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, continued the attack:

The legal rights of access that married partners have to each other’s persons, property, and lives makes it all but impossible for a spouse to defend herself (or himself), or to be protected against torture, rape, battery, stalking, mayhem, or murder by the other spouse…. Legal marriage thus enlists state support for conditions conducive to murder and mayhem.40

Other radical feminists suggested that a culture of self-sufficiency and high turnover in intimate relationships is the key to independence and protection from hostile home life. Activist Fran Peavey, in a 1997 Harvard article ironically titled “A Celebration of Love and Commitment,” suggested that “Instead of getting married for life, men and women (in whatever combination suits their sexual orientation) should sign up for a seven-year hitch. If they want to reenlist for another seven, they may, but after that, the marriage is over.”41 Also in 1997, radical feminist author Ashton Applewhite, in her book Cutting Loose–Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well proclaimed: “Women who end their marriages are far better off afterward.”42

Another feminist widely read during the 1990s was Barbara Ehrenreich, a former columnist with Time magazine who now writes for The Nation.43 Throughout her work, Ehrenreich extols single parenthood and disparages marriage. Divorce, she argues, produces “no lasting psychological damage” for children. What America needs is not fewer divorces but more “good divorces.”44 Rather than seeking to strengthen marriage, policymakers “should concentrate on improving the quality of divorce.”45 In general, Ehrenreich concludes that single parenthood presents no problems that cannot be solved by much larger government subsidies to single parents.46

Ehrenreich writes enthusiastically about efforts to move beyond the narrow limits of the nuclear married family toward more rational forms of human relationship:

There is a long and honorable tradition of “anti-family” thought. The French philosopher Charles Fourier taught that the family was a barrier to human progress; early feminists saw a degrading parallel between marriage and prostitution. More recently, the renowned British anthropologist Edmund Leach stated, “far from being the basis of the good society, the family with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all discontents.”47

While Ehrenreich recognizes that men and women are inevitably drawn to one another, she believes male-female relationships should be ad hoc, provisional, and transitory. She particularly disparages the idea of long-term marital commitment between fathers and mothers. In the future, children will be raised increasingly by communal groups of adults.48 These children apparently will fare far better than those raised within the tight constraints of the nuclear married family “with its deep impacted tensions.”49

The paper goes on to explain how these messages have entered into college textbooks. College textbooks used in classes where young women are expected to agree with the textbooks in order to get their good grades. This is what your children will learn. It’s not what you think feminism is that matters – it’s what they think feminism is. And what they think is what the textbooks tell them to think – or else they get drummed out of the university. This is where the 42% out-of-wedlock birth rate came from. And why our children are growing up without fathers, and growing further and further away from God. Marriage is bad (apparently) because husbands and their traditional roles are bad. So what men for? Sperm-donors and wallets. Men understand this and so we don’t marry.

Do you ever wonder why we have things like no-fault divorce, abortion, co-habitation, hooking-up, in vitro fertilization, socialism, welfare, and so on? It’s because of feminism. Feminism is anti-marriage. Should women now complain about men not being willing to marry and commit? Of course not. So long as women support feminism, by voting for feminists like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, then marriage will decline. If women don’t like men and don’t care about what men want and think men are evil then they should not expect men to accept their traditional roles as protectors and providers and moral/spiritual leaders. Don’t complain that there are no men around who will marry you. Of course there aren’t – because ideas have consequences. Feminism has consequences.

News

New study finds that feminism does not empower women in relationships

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From the Daily Caller. (H/T Kelli)

Excerpt:

“Girl power” might have brought women and girls victories in academics and sports but, as a recent book out of the University of Texas reports, an unintended consequence of women’s success has given men a leg up in the game of love.

Based on research published in their new book,“Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying,” Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, sociologists from the University of Texas at Austin, have found that with women becoming more educated and professionally successful than ever, it has become extremely difficult for them to find a committed man.

Financially secure and with less incentive to marry, more and more young women are playing the field longer and lowering the value of women in general — leaving their sisters, (usually older and hearing the tick-tock of their biological clocks) out in the cold.

If he can get to the “business” with just one or two dinners with Martha, why would he commit to 20 dates and “maybe” Mary?

Regnerus told The Daily Caller that in the sexual economy women act almost like a cartel. At one time the price of sex was extremely high, but with the demise of the shotgun wedding, the invention of “the pill” and a population of willing women, the “price” of sex has plummeted.

“People’s individual choices matter in part because they contribute to collective norms, collective possibilities,” Regnerus said. “So this is why I say there is no such thing as truly discrete sex because it becomes a data point in what you expect from women or from men in subsequent relationships.”

According to Regnerus, it is largely women who decide the going rate for sex.

“So if you think of a collective of men and a collective of women, the men come to learn what is expected of them in order to access sex, because they want it a little bit more than women …Women have to decide, more than men, how much it is worth so to speak … but she is not deciding alone,” he said.

In this model, phenomena such as the “one-night stand” act to lower the price for all and as women get older the value becomes more consequential.

“When you are say 27, 32, I assume most women wouldn’t want to give it up just for dinner,” Regnerus said. “They are at a different life phase where they want to cut the crap and say, ‘If this is going nowhere, then goodbye.’ But the problem is they are being under-bid and men are reaching further down the age range.”

The article goes on to cite Jennifer Roback Morse and Carrie Lukas, who are two of my favorite women in the whole world when it comes to this issue. I have read Dr. Morse’s “Love and Economics” and “Smart Sex” and Mrs. Lukas’ book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism”, and I highly, highly recommend them all to men and women. Carolyn Graglia’s “Domestic Tranquility” and George Gilder’s “Men and Marriage” also pretty good, with lots of insights on how feminism changes the dynamics of marriage.

Related posts

    News

    How the government forces Christians to affirm homosexuality

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    Here’s the first story from Life Site News.

    Excerpt:

    It is illegal in Britain for guesthouse keepers to refuse to allow two homosexual men to share a bed in their homes, according to a ruling by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in a test case sponsored by the country’s leading homosexualist lobby group.

    Peter and Hazelmary Bull, devout Christians who own a guesthouse in a popular holiday resort in Cornwall, were ordered by the EHRC to pay a fine of £1,800 each to Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, two men who had booked a room in September 2008.

    The Bulls explained to the Commission that they have a long-standing policy of refusing double rooms to any unmarried couple, no matter what their “orientation,” at the Chymorvah Private Hotel in Marazion near Penzance.

    Mrs. Bull commented after the hearing, saying she and her husband were “disappointed” with the result.

    “Our double-bed policy was based on our sincere beliefs about marriage, not hostility to anybody. It was applied equally and consistently to unmarried heterosexual couples and homosexual couples, as the judge accepted,” she told media.

    “We are trying to live and work in accordance with our Christian faith. As a result we have been sued and ordered to pay £3,600. But many Christians have given us gifts, so thanks to them we will be able to pay the damages.”

    She added, “I do feel that Christianity is being marginalized in Britain. The same laws used against us have been used to shut down faith-based adoption agencies. Much is said about ‘equality and diversity’ but it seems some people are more equal than others.”

    According to Judge Rutherford’s ruling the crucial factor in the decision was the fact that Hall and Preddy were in a legal civil partnership. Under recently passed equalities laws, civil partners must be treated the same as couples in natural marriages.

    Judge Rutherford acknowledged that the Bulls had good reason to want to preclude what they regarded as immoral sexual activity in their home, but commented, “Whatever may have been the position in past centuries it is no longer the case that our laws must, or should automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position.”

    I think that some well-meaning Christians do get tricked into voting for the Labour party, because it sounds so good to “help the poor” and “bring our troops home”. But it can lead to results like this “Human Rights” inquisition.

    But wait! There’s more from Life Site News.

    Excerpt:

    In yet another instance of the growing conflict between believing Christian professionals and the homosexualist movement in Britain, a Christian psychotherapist who helps individuals overcome homosexual inclinations may be “struck off,” or barred from practicing her profession.

    Lesley Pilkington was the object of a sting operation by undercover journalist Patrick Strudwick, who approached her to ask her for help with his sexuality. He had told Pilkington that he wanted to leave the homosexual lifestyle and she informed him that she only worked within a Christian counseling framework.

    Strudwick, who went to two counseling sessions with Pilkington and published the transcript of the meetings in The Independent newspaper, was awarded journalist of the year by the homosexualist organization Stonewall for the sting. After the sessions, he lodged a complaint to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy alleging that Pilkington had failed to respect the “fixed nature” of his homosexuality.

    Pilkington, who is scheduled to appear before a professional conduct panel January 20 and faces losing her accreditation with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, said, “He told me he was looking for a treatment for being gay.

    “He said he was depressed and unhappy and would I give him some therapy. I told him I only work using a Christian biblical framework and he said that was exactly what he wanted.”

    Commenting on the case, Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said, “Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to ‘turn’ a consenting homosexual?”

    “If, for whatever reasons – moral, religious, personal – a homosexual man wants to have help to cure this, he should be allowed to seek treatment. I’m not being critical about homosexuality at all, but if we have people who want to change, why should they be prevented from that happening?” Helmer continued.

    The Christian Legal Centre, which is handling Pilkington’s defense, said, “Those offering counselling for men and women wanting to change their homosexual behaviour have been increasingly targeted by the homosexual lobby, many of whom do not accept that people can change their behaviour.”

    Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of the Christian Legal Centre said, “Lesley is a wonderful Christian counsellor who has practised for many years with an unblemished record.”

    “It is shocking that she was targeted, lied to and misrepresented by this homosexual activist and even worse that her professional body consider her actions worthy of investigation.

    “It seems that what the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy object to is Lesley Pilkington holding the professional and personal view that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation.”

    The person responsible for the Humanist Inquisition is none other than famous Harriet Harman.

    Excerpt:

    Social mobility is actually the antithesis of equality, because if people are able to progress higher up the social and income ladder it follows that others will be left behind.

    Social mobility inevitably rests upon a meritocracy in which people are rewarded for what they have achieved. This is the only fair system. Imposing ‘equality’ – which is really a kind of ‘identicality’, a belief that everyone must end up in exactly the same place – is monumentally unfair.

    It amounts to institutionalised discrimination based on the highly subjective and ideological prejudices of those in power to decide just who deserves to be privileged and who to be discriminated against.

    Accordingly, any moves to apply it are inevitably deeply coercive and in the end unattainable – as was proved so appallingly under Soviet communism. For the British government to introduce this Orwellian agenda is not just sinister – it is positively unhinged.

    The person said to be behind this is that middle-class paragon, the Equalities Minister Harriet Harman, who is said to have convinced her Cabinet colleagues of the need to enshrine the class war in law.

    In a speech this weekend, she will hail this move as a step towards ‘a new social order’.

    ‘We want to do more than just provide escape routes out of poverty for a talented few. We want to tackle the class divide,’ she will say.

    This is but the latest bit of cack-handed injustice from Harman, an ultra-feminist gender warrior who has spent much of her political career trying to institutionalise injustice against men and privilege women on the basis of ‘sexual equality’.

    The moral of the story is… don’t vote for left-wing parties if you want to have the freedom to not celebrate views that you disagree with on moral grounds.

    Raising influential children matters

    I distinctly remember the disagreement I got from some commenters when I posted the Amy Chua story about effective parenting. Well consider this story about the U.S. Supreme Court and this story about the co-founder of Facebook. These stories demonstrate why I suggest that Christian parents ought to push their children a little harder in school, so that they get into positions of influence, e.g. – Supreme Court judges and founders of major Internet companies. We need to be able to put our children into positions of influence so that we can counter things like this. It does no good to sit back and complain when we are not doing all we could be doing!