Modern Feminism vs. Biblical Feminism
In America, the organized feminist movement started in the early 1900s with the idea of suffrage or the right of women to vote, which was granted after a long battle on August 26, 1920, with the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. The movement then set its goal on overall equality, particularly as it applied to work and pay. So far so good, every Bible believer agrees. It’s important to recognize and honor the progress that was made in those days and the noble women who fought those battles. But righteousness has a dangerous habit of turning into self-righteousness.
Back in the ’50s our society regarded women as objects of grace and refinement, nurturers with an amazing sense of intuition; Grace Kelly and Katherine Hepburn were the cultural icons who portrayed the model feminine role. Men worked hard to earn the attention and affection of the ladies they sought to attract by courting them over the course of time, and it was the gentlemen who were most admired.
The problem was that the feminist movement had no braking mechanism. By the early 1960s the secular ideology of Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood became widely influential, and their new target became abortion and marriage. According to Sanger, marriage is a “degenerate institution” and sexual modesty is “obscene prudery.” Feminist organizations subsequently began throwing out everything that resembled traditional morality and values, as their unbending allegiance to self-gratification took hold.
During the ’60s and ’70s popular feminists began publishing material that targeted men and marriage as the root of women’s social oppression. It started in 1963 with the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and Anna Quindlen, who portrayed marriage as legal concentration camps. In 1970 Kate Millett, in Sexual Politics, concluded that heterosexual sex was nothing more than a power struggle; in 1971 Ellen Peck, in The Baby Trap, described childrearing as a social constraint to women. In 1972 Kathrin Perutz, author of Marriage Is Hell, identified marriage as prison, and in 1973 Jill Johnson, Lesbian Nation, claimed that heterosexual women were traitors. By the mid-1980s liberal professors pushing Women’s Studies courses sympathetic to these views were blowing through our academic ranks like a Pacific tidal wave.
It was then that terms like “sexual identity” and “sexual liberation” began to emerge as the movement’s goals moved from equality with men to male likeness. The National Organization for Women (NOW) was still fighting and winning cases which brought equality and dignity to women in the ’70s, but that was about to change. The leading feminist organizations along with the liberal media would soon embrace everything that is value free in our society, while dismissing motherhood, marriage, and morality as hindrances. By the turn of the century, mainstream culture had replaced the likes of Kelly and Hepburn with the mindless, sex-craved American idols Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Courtship had been replaced with “hooking up,” and childrearing took a back seat to the corner office. The television show Modern Family finally came to the rescue by revealing the true state of America’s stay-at-home moms.
Before I go on, I must admit I’m a bit biased here. Let me explain. My mother and father immigrated to America from Cuba in 1962. My father, a medical doctor, was unable to practice in America because he wasn’t a citizen and was therefore reduced to performing minor procedures until he was eligible for citizenship five years later. On the year he proudly became a U.S. citizen, they were parents to me and my two brothers, and Mom was pregnant with my younger sister. It was then that my father suffered a fatal heart attack leaving Mom pregnant with three young boys, broke, and stranded in a foreign country where she scarcely knew the language.
Mom refused to rely on short skirts and high heels or a government paycheck for that matter, preferring to retain her dignity and her children’s respect. Additionally, she never looked to another man for financial support. She believed in a woman’s superior ingenuity and intelligence along with a strong devotion to family, and therefore set out to provide for those she was inherently devoted to. Mom worked tirelessly in real estate, simultaneously instilling in us the great promise of the American dream and the family values that drove her. Through those tough times our young family never lacked a thing as she balanced the need to work with the importance of motherhood, always prioritizing the latter.
Talking to Mom today about her achievements, you rarely hear a hint of her successful business deals, as her sense of accomplishment and pride rests squarely in her children’s success as adults. My sister (who also happens to be a very beautiful woman), at my mother’s urging, likewise resisted the temptation to rely on her sexual appeal, understanding that her mind and God-given feminine splendor held far more promise in her quest for human fulfillment. Having understood that her worth comes from the knowledge that she is a unique child of a loving God, she didn’t reject her femininity; she simply lacked the insecurity to flaunt it for male attention. She understood that God had placed in her exceptional gifts, and once those gifts connected with her divine calling, success was imminent.
During her college years she declined every opportunity to exploit her good looks for an easy paycheck, which often meant balancing her schoolwork with two jobs. She has since graduated from the University of Miami with an architectural degree and is building an architectural firm. But make no mistake—both accomplished what they did by putting their family’s needs first, never hesitating to put their careers on hold, and both did it outside the modern-day stereotype. Their “empowerment” came from their intelligence rather than their cleavage, and they earned the respect of the men they dealt with along the way. While Mom struggled with the gender bias of the time, Annie faced a world in which women are commonly portrayed as free-wheeling sex objects with the consent of the so-called feminist movement. And while the movement may have made it comfortable for Miley Cyrus to masturbate on stage, for Annie and those women who choose a path of true feminine virtue, their struggle to overcome these postmodern stereotypes is just beginning.
Tammy Bruce, who was president of Los Angeles NOW from 1990 to 1996, explains in The Death of Right and Wrong, “In all the time at the local and national level of NOW there was a refusal to engage in direct action against pornography and prostitution. Pornography was determined to be a ‘free speech’ issue, and there was even discussion of how pornography and prostitution were simply other ‘career choices’ available to women.” When discussing the support NOW threw behind Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001, as the organization moved from protecting women from violence to protecting women of violence, Bruce notes; “It won't surprise you to learn that another message from Houston NOW’s coordinator, posted at around the same time reads, ‘Pledge (of Allegiance) declared unconstitutional—it’s about time.’ There was another posting referring members to a Catholic-bashing internet site. Giving emotional support to a mass murderer while cheering attacks on Christianity and on public mention of God is not my kind of feminism, but it does make perfect sense for the malignant narcissists who infest the feminist establishment today.”
My point is this: the feminist movement, which started with the idea of bringing social dignity to women, has, in the hands of liberals, become nothing more than organized men haters throwing their weight behind some of the most radical thinking in American counter culture, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and the radical gay and lesbian agenda. In their attempt to liberate women they have encouraged sexual “empowerment” while trapping women in a cycle of sexual musical chairs, leaving them to fend for themselves when sexual freedom turns into countless broken relationships, marriages, and unwanted pregnancies. Or more tragically, the life of Anna Nicole Smith, a mother who was not quite sure who fathered her baby. It’s not all bad—at her death they had it narrowed down to five guys. Now there’s one empowering life for you.
What was supposed to liberate evolved into what is today the complete acceptance of women portrayed everywhere as objects of men’s sexual desires. Shmuley Boteach puts it best as he exposes the complete disintegration of women’s character through the use of female sexual content in today’s popular culture in his book Hating Women when he writes: Why aren’t women going crazy with objection to this onslaught against their character? Well, it appears that they are way too busy trying to live up to the negative caricatures. Object to it? Why, they are running to Victoria’s Secret to purchase thongs worn over their jeans to become the stereotype. They think that by ‘doing what is expected of them’—wearing low cut blouses and skirts with big slits (even in the office)—they are perhaps gaining control over men. Little do they realize that men evaluate this behavior in a totally different way. They see it as women accepting their rightful place as the walking fulfillment of male desire.
To the liberal feminist, the sexual exploitation of the media and porn industry is liberation; to the clear-thinking person, the “suppression” of home life has given way to the bondage of sexual promiscuity and an “identity” which places its highest regard on the ability to entertain the starving eyes of men.
And while this sexual liberation may be “empowering” to the women who buy into their newly found freedom, it truly represents a triumph for men who are now free to use women like disposable razors, discarding them for a newer model at the first sign of a few wrinkles. A search under the word “abstinence” on NOW’s website reveals countless articles condemning the idea of abstinence education for our young girls. Put in the word “marriage” and you are bombarded with articles supporting same-sex marriage. And while the site hauls President Bush over the coals as the enemy of women, the organization was quick to turn a blind eye to Clinton’s multiple sexual harassment accusations while he and Monica Lewinsky were holding down the Oval Office. How can one dodge harassment charges, humiliate his wife publicly, lie about coercing a young intern, and still receive the feminine Good Housekeeping seal of approval? One word: abortion.
Despite the widespread evidence to the contrary, liberals adamantly refuse to acknowledge the benefit full-time motherhood has on child development, opting to promote daycare as an equally beneficial alternative. The divorced, daycare-happy career woman with the baby-seat BMW is the new heroin while the stay-at-home mom is sent to isolated confinement by the prison warden formerly known as her husband. To these radical feminists denial is a river flowing through Egypt.
Where the movement went so wrong was that instead of promoting women’s unique qualities, such as their incredible sense of intuition and grace, or portraying women as peacemakers with superior communication skills, it suggested that in order for women to be equal they must be less like ladies and more like men. For centuries, women were the balancing force of nature, teaching men love and compassion and the true pleasure of a lifelong sensual friendship. The traditional biblical view makes a clear distinction while noting that the two in marriage become one complete individual as their unique qualities combine to complement each other. Now, instead of decrying men’s promiscuous and rash behavior, angry feminists teach young girls to emulate men, as the most recent studies indicate they are having extra-marital affairs at a similar rate. A quick glance at the latest reality show will find the modern-day women cursing and behaving as vile as the men they formerly held to a higher standard. To the leftwing cultural terrorists, this may be socially accepted progress, but to the traditionalist who has a grasp of the mass implications, the car is in reverse.
In their unobstructed quest to remake our society, gender feminists have set out to blur the lines that distinguish men from women. Rather than celebrate our uniqueness the new thought-police have taken up censoring anything that has a trace of distinction to ensure women get access to jobs formerly held by men, even at the expense of our public safety. The most notorious example is the way in which fire departments across the country have lowered their standards of admission to avoid sexual discrimination lawsuits from irritated feminists.
Because men have far more upper-body strength, admission tests required firefighters to carry the weight of the average person down various flights of stairs in the event they had to evacuate the victims of a burning building. But in many districts those standards now allow applicants to drag the victim out of the building. John Stossel confronted leading feminist Gloria Steinem with the dilemma; her response portrays the kind of liberal lunacy we’re up against: “It’s better to drag them out because there’s less smoke down there. We were probably killing people by carrying them out at that height.” She then went on to say sex differences shouldn’t even be researched. That’s right, the scientific data that makes clear distinctions between the sexes should be disregarded because it’s discriminatory, even though so much of that knowledge may help treat some of our worst pathological problems. This of course is the same Gloria Steinem who said, “Woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
But it doesn’t stop there. In the left’s attempt to re-educate America, they have recruited their sugar daddy, the federal government, and subsequently introduced an educational agenda that seeks to feminize our boys and silence even a whisper of young masculine testosterone. Kate O’ Beirne throws up a series of red flags in Women Who Make the World Worse: We parents of boys have meekly allowed gender warriors to treat our sons like unindicted co-conspirators in history’s gender crimes, while parents of girls permit their daughters to be patronized as helpless victims of a phantom, crippling sex bias in America’s schools. Classrooms have been turned into feminist re-education camps to stamp out sex differences and smother the natural attributes and aspirations of girls and boys. When Gloria Steinem, who has raised neither, declared, ‘We badly need to raise boys more like we raise girls,’ she summed up the feminist conviction that boys’ gender identity had to be radically re-formed. And the feminist reeducation project in our schools is determined to ‘free’ young girls from their natural feminine traits. Our schools and universities are battlefields in a determined feminist campaign of intimidation, and students and scholarships have been the casualty.
As Arnold would say, they want to turn our boys into girly men. O’Beirne cites the feminists’ unapologetic attack on the virtues of full-time motherhood, which was exemplified when presidential candidate John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, wrongly stated that Laura Bush never had a “real job.” I guess a career as a schoolteacher isn’t quite as accomplished as career-marrying rich men.
O’Beirne meticulously documents the radical misconceptions the left is propagating and thoroughly debunks the pillars of their deceptive arguments. She covers everything from the left’s deliberate attempt to undermine marriage to the wage disparity misconception, to the damage sexual equality is having on our military. She notes, “Women…who condemn the social pressures that once inhibited women’s ambitions in favor of staying home, now engage in a relentless propaganda campaign that dismisses the needs of children and ignores the natural desires of mothers. Under the banner of ‘choice’ for women, they censor uncomfortable facts that inform women and leave many deeply regretful about the uninformed choices they’ve made.”
The author goes on to cite studies that reveal male happiness as consistent since the ’60s while women’s overall happiness is in substantial decline. Now that they’ve made other women as miserable as they are, I can only hope these closet lesbians who call themselves feminists will call a truce, but that might mean having to find a “real job.” Of course that would also leave us with the serious problem of discovering other ways to misappropriate our tax dollars.
The Heritage Foundation got it right: “Radical feminists claim that marriage foments domestic violence against women. Yet domestic violence is most common in the transitory, cohabitational relationships that feminists have long celebrated as replacements for traditional marriage. Never-married mothers are more than twice as likely to suffer from domestic violence as mothers who are or have been married.” Not only does marriage foster less abuse for women but for children as well, along with less crime, less depression, less addiction, and overall better health.
The conservative simply understands what countless studies have confirmed, primarily that the highest level of self-fulfillment for women and men comes in the likes of the traditional family working under the framework of traditional values, all of which are grounded in the longstanding concepts of loyalty, honesty, self-restraint, and personal sacrifice. And that the full feminine experience is deeply rooted in motherhood along with an innate desire to nurture, love, and sacrifice for the children one is blessed with. While feminists vigorously fight to erode these beliefs, they are continually faced with the simple dichotomy that women do want to marry and have children rather than pursue a life of material accumulation, and that they do find more worth in delaying sexual gratification. Rather than honor that as a legitimate choice for women, liberals elected to dishonor such choices. Consequently dignity, the very thing the feminist movement was meant to establish, is the very thing it is now working to undermine.
Proverbs 31 Women vs. Modern Feminist
In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing. 1 Timothy 2:9 Feminism is a Biblical concept in which women, for the first time in human history, were regarded equal to men. The Bible provided the catalyst for their equality in the West long before women got equality anywhere else. Proverbs 31 describes the ideal feminist according to the Bible.
Proverbs 31 priorities
Modern Feminist's priorities
Reader, we must challenge the feminists’ assumption that physical beauty is the only means of attaining a sense of accomplishment for women; that a career is more fulfilling than family; that men are the villains; and that our identity is somehow found in our sexual experiences. As Christians, we know that the highest level of self-esteem and happiness comes from the realization that we are God’s creation, the apple of His eye, made in His image for a purpose greater than ourselves, which may or may not include a corner office.
Articles
The Biblical View of Women Kyle Butt, M.A.
5 Ways the Bible Supports Feminism Amy R. Buckley
Why Feminism and Christianity Can’t Mix Kristen Clark
Feminism: A Christian Perspective Sue Bohlin
Conservative Feminism is Not an Oxymoron Hannah Sternberg
Feminism Is Leaving A Wake Of Unhappy, Unmarried, And Childless Women In Its Path Amanda Prestigiacomo
Back in the ’50s our society regarded women as objects of grace and refinement, nurturers with an amazing sense of intuition; Grace Kelly and Katherine Hepburn were the cultural icons who portrayed the model feminine role. Men worked hard to earn the attention and affection of the ladies they sought to attract by courting them over the course of time, and it was the gentlemen who were most admired.
The problem was that the feminist movement had no braking mechanism. By the early 1960s the secular ideology of Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood became widely influential, and their new target became abortion and marriage. According to Sanger, marriage is a “degenerate institution” and sexual modesty is “obscene prudery.” Feminist organizations subsequently began throwing out everything that resembled traditional morality and values, as their unbending allegiance to self-gratification took hold.
During the ’60s and ’70s popular feminists began publishing material that targeted men and marriage as the root of women’s social oppression. It started in 1963 with the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and Anna Quindlen, who portrayed marriage as legal concentration camps. In 1970 Kate Millett, in Sexual Politics, concluded that heterosexual sex was nothing more than a power struggle; in 1971 Ellen Peck, in The Baby Trap, described childrearing as a social constraint to women. In 1972 Kathrin Perutz, author of Marriage Is Hell, identified marriage as prison, and in 1973 Jill Johnson, Lesbian Nation, claimed that heterosexual women were traitors. By the mid-1980s liberal professors pushing Women’s Studies courses sympathetic to these views were blowing through our academic ranks like a Pacific tidal wave.
It was then that terms like “sexual identity” and “sexual liberation” began to emerge as the movement’s goals moved from equality with men to male likeness. The National Organization for Women (NOW) was still fighting and winning cases which brought equality and dignity to women in the ’70s, but that was about to change. The leading feminist organizations along with the liberal media would soon embrace everything that is value free in our society, while dismissing motherhood, marriage, and morality as hindrances. By the turn of the century, mainstream culture had replaced the likes of Kelly and Hepburn with the mindless, sex-craved American idols Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Courtship had been replaced with “hooking up,” and childrearing took a back seat to the corner office. The television show Modern Family finally came to the rescue by revealing the true state of America’s stay-at-home moms.
Before I go on, I must admit I’m a bit biased here. Let me explain. My mother and father immigrated to America from Cuba in 1962. My father, a medical doctor, was unable to practice in America because he wasn’t a citizen and was therefore reduced to performing minor procedures until he was eligible for citizenship five years later. On the year he proudly became a U.S. citizen, they were parents to me and my two brothers, and Mom was pregnant with my younger sister. It was then that my father suffered a fatal heart attack leaving Mom pregnant with three young boys, broke, and stranded in a foreign country where she scarcely knew the language.
Mom refused to rely on short skirts and high heels or a government paycheck for that matter, preferring to retain her dignity and her children’s respect. Additionally, she never looked to another man for financial support. She believed in a woman’s superior ingenuity and intelligence along with a strong devotion to family, and therefore set out to provide for those she was inherently devoted to. Mom worked tirelessly in real estate, simultaneously instilling in us the great promise of the American dream and the family values that drove her. Through those tough times our young family never lacked a thing as she balanced the need to work with the importance of motherhood, always prioritizing the latter.
Talking to Mom today about her achievements, you rarely hear a hint of her successful business deals, as her sense of accomplishment and pride rests squarely in her children’s success as adults. My sister (who also happens to be a very beautiful woman), at my mother’s urging, likewise resisted the temptation to rely on her sexual appeal, understanding that her mind and God-given feminine splendor held far more promise in her quest for human fulfillment. Having understood that her worth comes from the knowledge that she is a unique child of a loving God, she didn’t reject her femininity; she simply lacked the insecurity to flaunt it for male attention. She understood that God had placed in her exceptional gifts, and once those gifts connected with her divine calling, success was imminent.
During her college years she declined every opportunity to exploit her good looks for an easy paycheck, which often meant balancing her schoolwork with two jobs. She has since graduated from the University of Miami with an architectural degree and is building an architectural firm. But make no mistake—both accomplished what they did by putting their family’s needs first, never hesitating to put their careers on hold, and both did it outside the modern-day stereotype. Their “empowerment” came from their intelligence rather than their cleavage, and they earned the respect of the men they dealt with along the way. While Mom struggled with the gender bias of the time, Annie faced a world in which women are commonly portrayed as free-wheeling sex objects with the consent of the so-called feminist movement. And while the movement may have made it comfortable for Miley Cyrus to masturbate on stage, for Annie and those women who choose a path of true feminine virtue, their struggle to overcome these postmodern stereotypes is just beginning.
Tammy Bruce, who was president of Los Angeles NOW from 1990 to 1996, explains in The Death of Right and Wrong, “In all the time at the local and national level of NOW there was a refusal to engage in direct action against pornography and prostitution. Pornography was determined to be a ‘free speech’ issue, and there was even discussion of how pornography and prostitution were simply other ‘career choices’ available to women.” When discussing the support NOW threw behind Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001, as the organization moved from protecting women from violence to protecting women of violence, Bruce notes; “It won't surprise you to learn that another message from Houston NOW’s coordinator, posted at around the same time reads, ‘Pledge (of Allegiance) declared unconstitutional—it’s about time.’ There was another posting referring members to a Catholic-bashing internet site. Giving emotional support to a mass murderer while cheering attacks on Christianity and on public mention of God is not my kind of feminism, but it does make perfect sense for the malignant narcissists who infest the feminist establishment today.”
My point is this: the feminist movement, which started with the idea of bringing social dignity to women, has, in the hands of liberals, become nothing more than organized men haters throwing their weight behind some of the most radical thinking in American counter culture, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and the radical gay and lesbian agenda. In their attempt to liberate women they have encouraged sexual “empowerment” while trapping women in a cycle of sexual musical chairs, leaving them to fend for themselves when sexual freedom turns into countless broken relationships, marriages, and unwanted pregnancies. Or more tragically, the life of Anna Nicole Smith, a mother who was not quite sure who fathered her baby. It’s not all bad—at her death they had it narrowed down to five guys. Now there’s one empowering life for you.
What was supposed to liberate evolved into what is today the complete acceptance of women portrayed everywhere as objects of men’s sexual desires. Shmuley Boteach puts it best as he exposes the complete disintegration of women’s character through the use of female sexual content in today’s popular culture in his book Hating Women when he writes: Why aren’t women going crazy with objection to this onslaught against their character? Well, it appears that they are way too busy trying to live up to the negative caricatures. Object to it? Why, they are running to Victoria’s Secret to purchase thongs worn over their jeans to become the stereotype. They think that by ‘doing what is expected of them’—wearing low cut blouses and skirts with big slits (even in the office)—they are perhaps gaining control over men. Little do they realize that men evaluate this behavior in a totally different way. They see it as women accepting their rightful place as the walking fulfillment of male desire.
To the liberal feminist, the sexual exploitation of the media and porn industry is liberation; to the clear-thinking person, the “suppression” of home life has given way to the bondage of sexual promiscuity and an “identity” which places its highest regard on the ability to entertain the starving eyes of men.
And while this sexual liberation may be “empowering” to the women who buy into their newly found freedom, it truly represents a triumph for men who are now free to use women like disposable razors, discarding them for a newer model at the first sign of a few wrinkles. A search under the word “abstinence” on NOW’s website reveals countless articles condemning the idea of abstinence education for our young girls. Put in the word “marriage” and you are bombarded with articles supporting same-sex marriage. And while the site hauls President Bush over the coals as the enemy of women, the organization was quick to turn a blind eye to Clinton’s multiple sexual harassment accusations while he and Monica Lewinsky were holding down the Oval Office. How can one dodge harassment charges, humiliate his wife publicly, lie about coercing a young intern, and still receive the feminine Good Housekeeping seal of approval? One word: abortion.
Despite the widespread evidence to the contrary, liberals adamantly refuse to acknowledge the benefit full-time motherhood has on child development, opting to promote daycare as an equally beneficial alternative. The divorced, daycare-happy career woman with the baby-seat BMW is the new heroin while the stay-at-home mom is sent to isolated confinement by the prison warden formerly known as her husband. To these radical feminists denial is a river flowing through Egypt.
Where the movement went so wrong was that instead of promoting women’s unique qualities, such as their incredible sense of intuition and grace, or portraying women as peacemakers with superior communication skills, it suggested that in order for women to be equal they must be less like ladies and more like men. For centuries, women were the balancing force of nature, teaching men love and compassion and the true pleasure of a lifelong sensual friendship. The traditional biblical view makes a clear distinction while noting that the two in marriage become one complete individual as their unique qualities combine to complement each other. Now, instead of decrying men’s promiscuous and rash behavior, angry feminists teach young girls to emulate men, as the most recent studies indicate they are having extra-marital affairs at a similar rate. A quick glance at the latest reality show will find the modern-day women cursing and behaving as vile as the men they formerly held to a higher standard. To the leftwing cultural terrorists, this may be socially accepted progress, but to the traditionalist who has a grasp of the mass implications, the car is in reverse.
In their unobstructed quest to remake our society, gender feminists have set out to blur the lines that distinguish men from women. Rather than celebrate our uniqueness the new thought-police have taken up censoring anything that has a trace of distinction to ensure women get access to jobs formerly held by men, even at the expense of our public safety. The most notorious example is the way in which fire departments across the country have lowered their standards of admission to avoid sexual discrimination lawsuits from irritated feminists.
Because men have far more upper-body strength, admission tests required firefighters to carry the weight of the average person down various flights of stairs in the event they had to evacuate the victims of a burning building. But in many districts those standards now allow applicants to drag the victim out of the building. John Stossel confronted leading feminist Gloria Steinem with the dilemma; her response portrays the kind of liberal lunacy we’re up against: “It’s better to drag them out because there’s less smoke down there. We were probably killing people by carrying them out at that height.” She then went on to say sex differences shouldn’t even be researched. That’s right, the scientific data that makes clear distinctions between the sexes should be disregarded because it’s discriminatory, even though so much of that knowledge may help treat some of our worst pathological problems. This of course is the same Gloria Steinem who said, “Woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
But it doesn’t stop there. In the left’s attempt to re-educate America, they have recruited their sugar daddy, the federal government, and subsequently introduced an educational agenda that seeks to feminize our boys and silence even a whisper of young masculine testosterone. Kate O’ Beirne throws up a series of red flags in Women Who Make the World Worse: We parents of boys have meekly allowed gender warriors to treat our sons like unindicted co-conspirators in history’s gender crimes, while parents of girls permit their daughters to be patronized as helpless victims of a phantom, crippling sex bias in America’s schools. Classrooms have been turned into feminist re-education camps to stamp out sex differences and smother the natural attributes and aspirations of girls and boys. When Gloria Steinem, who has raised neither, declared, ‘We badly need to raise boys more like we raise girls,’ she summed up the feminist conviction that boys’ gender identity had to be radically re-formed. And the feminist reeducation project in our schools is determined to ‘free’ young girls from their natural feminine traits. Our schools and universities are battlefields in a determined feminist campaign of intimidation, and students and scholarships have been the casualty.
As Arnold would say, they want to turn our boys into girly men. O’Beirne cites the feminists’ unapologetic attack on the virtues of full-time motherhood, which was exemplified when presidential candidate John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, wrongly stated that Laura Bush never had a “real job.” I guess a career as a schoolteacher isn’t quite as accomplished as career-marrying rich men.
O’Beirne meticulously documents the radical misconceptions the left is propagating and thoroughly debunks the pillars of their deceptive arguments. She covers everything from the left’s deliberate attempt to undermine marriage to the wage disparity misconception, to the damage sexual equality is having on our military. She notes, “Women…who condemn the social pressures that once inhibited women’s ambitions in favor of staying home, now engage in a relentless propaganda campaign that dismisses the needs of children and ignores the natural desires of mothers. Under the banner of ‘choice’ for women, they censor uncomfortable facts that inform women and leave many deeply regretful about the uninformed choices they’ve made.”
The author goes on to cite studies that reveal male happiness as consistent since the ’60s while women’s overall happiness is in substantial decline. Now that they’ve made other women as miserable as they are, I can only hope these closet lesbians who call themselves feminists will call a truce, but that might mean having to find a “real job.” Of course that would also leave us with the serious problem of discovering other ways to misappropriate our tax dollars.
The Heritage Foundation got it right: “Radical feminists claim that marriage foments domestic violence against women. Yet domestic violence is most common in the transitory, cohabitational relationships that feminists have long celebrated as replacements for traditional marriage. Never-married mothers are more than twice as likely to suffer from domestic violence as mothers who are or have been married.” Not only does marriage foster less abuse for women but for children as well, along with less crime, less depression, less addiction, and overall better health.
The conservative simply understands what countless studies have confirmed, primarily that the highest level of self-fulfillment for women and men comes in the likes of the traditional family working under the framework of traditional values, all of which are grounded in the longstanding concepts of loyalty, honesty, self-restraint, and personal sacrifice. And that the full feminine experience is deeply rooted in motherhood along with an innate desire to nurture, love, and sacrifice for the children one is blessed with. While feminists vigorously fight to erode these beliefs, they are continually faced with the simple dichotomy that women do want to marry and have children rather than pursue a life of material accumulation, and that they do find more worth in delaying sexual gratification. Rather than honor that as a legitimate choice for women, liberals elected to dishonor such choices. Consequently dignity, the very thing the feminist movement was meant to establish, is the very thing it is now working to undermine.
Proverbs 31 Women vs. Modern Feminist
In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing. 1 Timothy 2:9 Feminism is a Biblical concept in which women, for the first time in human history, were regarded equal to men. The Bible provided the catalyst for their equality in the West long before women got equality anywhere else. Proverbs 31 describes the ideal feminist according to the Bible.
Proverbs 31 priorities
- Faithful 11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.
- Resourceful, planner 16 She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
- Charitable 20 She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.
- Wise and knowledgeable 26 She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
- Skilled homemaker 27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
- Wise mother 28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.
- God-fearing 30 beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Modern Feminist's priorities
- Power (empowerment)
- Career
- Sexual identity (sexual gratification and exploration)
- Independence (from men and family)
- Physical appearance
- Role and gender similitude (erasing the lines that make men and women unique)
- Self-actualization (self-discovery)
Reader, we must challenge the feminists’ assumption that physical beauty is the only means of attaining a sense of accomplishment for women; that a career is more fulfilling than family; that men are the villains; and that our identity is somehow found in our sexual experiences. As Christians, we know that the highest level of self-esteem and happiness comes from the realization that we are God’s creation, the apple of His eye, made in His image for a purpose greater than ourselves, which may or may not include a corner office.
Articles
The Biblical View of Women Kyle Butt, M.A.
5 Ways the Bible Supports Feminism Amy R. Buckley
Why Feminism and Christianity Can’t Mix Kristen Clark
Feminism: A Christian Perspective Sue Bohlin
Conservative Feminism is Not an Oxymoron Hannah Sternberg
Feminism Is Leaving A Wake Of Unhappy, Unmarried, And Childless Women In Its Path Amanda Prestigiacomo