Whenever I talk to young women about feminism, it usually falls on deaf ears. To most of them, feminism was just some movement when women burned their bras and fought for women’s rights. The details escape them. But what these women know, or think they know, is that they owe their lives to the women (i.e., feminists) who came before them. After all, that’s what they’ve been told over and over and over again.
It's a lie. Technology, labor-saving devices, and reliable birth control are what liberated women from the taxing work of child care and household maintenance. It was men, not feminists, who invented these things.
Together, they gave women what they’ve always needed: time. The more time women had as a result of having fewer babies and modern conveniences, the more they began to enter the workforce. The more they joined the workforce, the more men began taking on an active role at home. It was a logical progression that would have happened with or without feminism.
Indeed, feminism is completely different from what young people have been led to believe. It is a radical political movement and ideology, though it has never been billed as such. Rather, it is sold as something any enlightened human being would embrace.
The assumption is that if it weren’t for feminists, women in America would be second-class citizens. They’d be stuck in secretarial jobs or at home doing the grunt work of caring for the house and kids while men got to lead exciting lives in the marketplace.
That many women got college degrees and worked outside the home before the 1960s goes unmentioned (yes, there are more today, but still). That men, once they marry, are also bound to family obligations and make sacrifices of a different sort goes unchallenged as well. For years, feminists have assured women it is they who’ve suffered the most.
To ameliorate this supposed problem, feminists insist that men and women become interchangeable beings. What one sex does, the other must do. Only then will we have true equality.
Yet after all this time, much to feminists’ chagrin, women still choose the caregiving professions at a much higher rate than men; and men still choose the STEM fields at a much higher rate than women. Women also still choose to be their children’s primary caregivers, while men choose to be their families’ primary breadwinners. This is true even in Scandinavian countries, where gender equality is considered the norm.
Still, the push for equality hasn’t been all for naught. While feminists continue to bang their heads against the wall trying to get the sexes to conform to their unrealistic ideals, marriage and relationships have suffered. Feminists assured women their efforts would result in more satisfying, equitable marriages — but that has not happened. Instead, one of three things takes place:
1. Women postpone marriage indefinitely and move in and out of intense romantic relationships or even live with their boyfriends. Eventually, their clocks start ticking, and many decide they better hurry up and get married to provide a stable home for their yet-to-be-born children. Trouble is, they can’t find a man who’s willing to commit.
2. Marriage becomes a competitive sport. The complementary nature of marriage — in which two people work together, as equals, toward the same goal but with an appreciation for the unique qualities each gender brings to the table — has been obliterated. Today, husbands and wives are locked in a battle about who does more on the home front and how they’re going to get everything done. That’s not a marriage. That’s war.
3. No-fault divorce, which feminists wholeheartedly support, makes ending one’s marriage a piece of cake. Just check the “irreconcilable differences” box and pack your bags.
So I’ll ask: Do you still think women are indebted to feminism?
