By Jacob van Flossen
(Author, Return Of The Gods)
No equality in nature: Man and woman designed to complement not compete, to love & complete one another. Sex-roles vital to survival, motivation & fulfillment. Feminism: An attack on woman, on femininity; reflecting hatred and loathing for all things female; ultimately an attack on our capacity for happiness, even on life itself.
We have been accused of being "sexist." If by that it is intended to impute a belief in the importance of sexuality in human relationships, we gladly acknowledge the attribution. Consider reality:
Americans are bombarded with pleas for an egalitarian ethic. But there is no equality in nature. The concept of equality--the mathematical equation of two or more entities--has no place in a biological universe. No two apples on any tree are ever the same; nor two trees in the same orchard. No teacher will ever teach two pupils with the same complex of aptitudes, achievements, personalities or responses. Similarities, of course; recurring patterns, to be certain. But true equality--a precise equivalence of measurable traits--never!
The point is not that the differences are always significant or even definable. At times they are extraordinary; at times scarcely perceptible. Yet by what compulsion do we make the denial of human difference--the denial of that which makes each of us unique--an ultimate goal?
No one questions the concept of equal access to the Law; to a just and fair treatment for all in the Courts, before the bar of Justice. Though even here, a goal of perfect equality is not obtainable. For any experienced trial lawyer must admit, how a client is perceived will affect the judgment he faces; as each Judge or Juror's own perception will reflect the individuality of his nature.
In the field of human relations, in questions of success or failure, education, art or culture; the concept of equality is less than absurd. It is a malevolent delusion, contrived by those who either envy the achievements of others, or grasp at ways to demonstrate a wholly misdirected altruism. It is embraced for a great variety of the wrong reasons. To the extent that its advocates achieve an agenda, we lose a part of our character and freedom. In a leveling of traits, we assail that which makes each of us important.
What we have said, should be obvious. But let us make an essential distinction.
We do not criticize efforts to upgrade ability. That after all, is what education is about; to better prepare each person, rich or poor, white or black, male or female, to better meet the challenges, exploit the opportunities and fulfill the potential of his own life. Meaningful education, like meaningful altruism, must deal with the individual as an individual; recognizing his strengths and weaknesses, interests and problems, joys and sorrows.
A teacher who teaches according to a statistical abstract, will teach but little. Every child has distinct needs and distinct aptitudes. From genius to moron, from the malleable to the incorrigible, neatly constructed formal guidelines (promulgated by an educational bureaucracy, looking to means and averages) can only interfere with real learning. To better help a child, you must get to know that child as a particular being--one of a kind. It is no different in any other type of human relationship.
Thus far, we speak in generalities. But what are the most meaningful traits of the species? (We leave questions of an original creation, the soul, and theories of an hereafter, to the theologians. These are outside our scope.) But in the secular sense, the basics are easily determined.
Modern living involves a great constriction in the perception of distance, a vast extension in the variety of distractions--the gadgets and amusements of a technological age. On every side we are bemused or bedeviled by a parade of new experiences--items and concepts of which our forebears never dreamed.
Yet in all of this expansion of interest, the dominant needs remain unchanged. Our greatest pleasures; our joys, heartaches and frustrations, flow from those needs; and remain as they were before history was written.
In every age, man has required a place to rest. But as this comes to be achieved--at least in modern times--with some degree of permanence, it is seldom a daily preoccupation.
All must eat. And the provision and preparation of food have always been matters of absorbing interest; while the circumstances of its consumption have provided, through the generations, our most popular and utilitarian occasion for both social and ceremonial expression.
But as important as are safe shelter and a nourishing diet, they remain things of the moment. The dominant need for a surviving humanity--now as always--lies in our quest for sexual fulfillment; for the primal bond between man and woman. No matter how we exaggerate our taste for lesser pleasures--the accoutrements of an affluent leisure;--it takes but brief reflection to realize that these are as nothing compared to our need to mate; to find and express love--both mentally and physically.
Unfortunately, this simple biological reality has been clouded by an unholy diversion. Our sexuality in general, and woman's sexuality in particular, have been held hostage to the contrived pursuit of a compulsive egalitarian delusion.
Thus procreational needs of the species are divorced from the personalities of the would-be procreators. If the procreational intent is absent--as, of course, it often is in our day to day attractions--visibly present procreational traits, which would otherwise be considered essential, are downgraded into a conceptual non-existence.
Yet while functionally--in the grand design--procreational; our sexual natures are such, that none who reflect fully need ever doubt the overriding purpose. As we grow older, we tend (in supercilious rationalization) to scorn and ridicule the adolescent in his preoccupation with the more immediate aspects of the quest; to use the jaded sophistication of a more cynical perspective, to mock the spontaneity of youth. But in this we err! Nature can not leave the survival of her species to chance or formal education. In the passion of the flesh; in the teenaged longing to be mated--not the verbalized compensations of those who have suffered--we observe the true nature of our beings.
Men and women were not put on this earth to seek equality; but each, the other. It is in success in that quest--to be well and truly mated--that we know our greatest joy; in failure, our greatest sorrow. It is in that primal bond, not of equals but of complements--of the different sides of one procreational entity (whether or not it ever actually reproduces)--that each of us must find completion, and without which no one of us can be fulfilled. When we are asked to reject sexually determined roles--told that it is demeaning to be perceived as the objects of one another's sexuality--we are asked to deny the very essence of our being.
There has been a tendency, at times, to apologize for our sexual nature as though bestial or animalistic--as if our egos were such fragile things, we could not bear the thought of a commonality of trait with other species. But the procreational drive of an individual can stand no higher or lower on the scale of creation, than stands that individual. The mating frenzy of the moron, thug or blackguard, stands at one level; that of the parents of an Aristotle, Virgil or Leonardo, at quite another--although each may seek fulfillment in roughly the same manner.
We are endowed with sexual natures--as the believing must acknowledge--that we may participate in the ongoing rush of God's Creation. And you cannot separate the effect of that sexuality, upon the whole of one's personality, by an arbitrary reference to whether the conscious quest is procreation or the gratification of a lower, more immediate and personal, need. In the passion of youth--however often misdirected--we see the power and purpose of our Maker.
And yet, here as elsewhere, no two of us are ever the same. Appetites, tastes and propensities, vary as much in matters carnal, as they do in respect to every other human trait. Sometimes, before we rush to judge one another, we might pause to consider whether differences in conduct, which may sometimes offend, are more reflective of differing morals and philosophy, or the subtle variations in human physiology.
Speaking broadly, however feminists may protest, most women will concede that men--on average--have the greater need for an immediate outlet; while most men perceive in women, a greater need for permanent involvement. These phenomena are not good or bad. Learning to accept these and other manifestations of our differences--if and to the extent that one finds them in one's own life--may be vital to an appreciation of why the most important person in that life, acts as he or she does.
But so much for generalities!
Once one accepts the importance of our inherent sexuality, it becomes obvious that a society where men and women have lost a sense of common purpose--a purpose born of nature and necessity--is a society damaged to its very core. While one who speaks on human sexuality, in a political context, risks ridicule and disdain; in fact, there is no public issue in the affairs of these States more important to the happiness and, in truth, the very survival of our respective populations.
The egalitarian assault on traditional relationships has broadsided almost every aspect of human society. For analysis, we will focus on six categories--although these could be expanded into hundreds or reduced, ultimately, to only one:
1. The Public Perception Of Sex Roles.
2. Premarital Acquaintance And Courtship.
3. Marital Relationships.
4. Parental Roles.
5. Employment.
6. Education.
While there is necessarily a wide over-lap, and no way to isolate any factor with laboratory precision; these will give us a rude, but meaningful approach to the issues.
The conflict over the public perception of our sexuality involves every element, which we could consider under any other category. It is the battlefield of first impressions; but includes an attack on art and literature, education and language; even the games that children play, and the toys they have to play with.
Since the handling of sexual relationships and sexuality involves, indeed, the most important facets of any social order; we find ourselves in a war over almost every aspect of traditional culture.
It takes absurd forms: In movie and television dramas, where physically attractive women--they wouldn't dare use ugly ones;--where actually beautiful women are depicted with the upper body strength and full punching power of athletic men. In the elimination of distinctions in Police and Fire Departments, and in the admission to military academies. In the widely heralded test cases of very atypical girls trying to force their way onto high school football teams; and in the endless pulsations suggesting that competitive female athletics are fully comparable to male.
One waits, with trepidation, for the predictable outcome of this subliminal attack upon our ancient culture; on our primordial sense of the greater physical skill of the male in combat. If this studied misconception had validity, there would be no reason for our centuries old deference to women; no reason not to treat a woman as a man; no reason, under the new ethos, why the man being punched out in the "sitcom," shouldn't block the punch, then break the jaw of his assailant.
We realize that the exponents of delusion, come often from the same group who believe that we can legislate away all violence in human relations. But both statistics, and the life-long experiences of each of us, expose their folly. It is as much in the nature of boys to fight, as it is of girls to love--though we do not mean to imply that boys can not be equally loving, or girls as feisty. We speak of the needs or proclivities for an outward, physical manifestation of the subject tendencies. And the best for which a realist may hope, is that the boys will fight only with those who can handle their aggression; and that the girls will love only those who will not take unfair advantage.
We see it also in the attack on the female form of occupational noun; in the insanity, which replaces descriptive terms such as "stewardess" and "waitress" with the demeaning "flight attendant" and "server"; in the effort to replace the designations "chairman" and "chairwoman," with "chairperson" or "chair"; in references to women in news items by their last name only, without the customary courtesies.
Yet the most significant challenge to our cultural roots, is over our perception of roles and role models.
Traditional sex-roles spring from age old perceptions of functional difference. Men were always seen as physically stronger, better equipped for actual combat. Of course, an accompanying supposition, that they were also braver, must be considered in context.
A muscular, one hundred eighty pound man, has far less to fear in combat with another muscular, one hundred eighty pound man, than would any normally constructed, one hundred and twenty pound woman. The comparison is not one that that woman need ever be ashamed of. And there is no way of knowing--given the realities of creation--whether any man would ever willingly accept the pangs of childbirth.
The general is not altered by the particular that some women are both larger and stronger than some men.
Traditionally, women have been seen as the more home centered--more responsive to the immediate needs of those they love;--more willing to drop everything in a perceived crisis (which our socially less perceptive sex might never see) to go to the aid of a child; or to do what was necessary to keep the family on an even keel.
On the other hand, there are many women--especially in these latter days--who have eschewed the responsibilities of marriage, including those related to the needs of small children, and fled to their own pursuits. While many men, both now and in the past, have been very close to young children.
Yet none of these qualifications or exceptions to old stereotypes diminishes the importance of sexually determined roles.
An army is far more than the sum of the arms, muscles and personal courage of its constituents. A family is more than a collection of individuals sharing a biological kinship and one household. It is the ingrained perception of a young man, that being a "man among men" is important--and in the traditional world, being a "man" has always included responsibility for women and children;--if he is to be worthy of a part in the sexual drama; which brings forth qualities that, in turn, challenge the mettle of his comrades, and set up an insatiable stirring for the "above and beyond"--for the superb!
The sense that a woman's major worth lies in being all that she can be for her family, not only brings out a little extra in the young homemaker. It sets in motion a chain of upward stirrings, from which all of us, male and female--playing in our mothers' shadows during those most impressionable years--learn about life and love; learn that the greatest pleasure lies in giving pleasure to those we care about.
The alternative to sex-roles in the military, or in the Police or any place where men traditionally act as protectors or pathfinders, is a group of individuals who at first feel only "under-appreciated." But egalitarianism is the seedbed for resentment, not self-sacrifice. Soon a career is no longer the pursuit of honor and glory--or anything that they imply. It is merely a job; subject to all of the same neurotic impulses as every other species of "modern living."
The alternative to sex-roles in the family is a me`nage of dissociating individuals, each pursuing a selfish purpose.
But, of course, we understate. The alternative to sex-roles in the family, is no family--and no future!
The umbrage of feminists towards traditional occupational designations may seem harmless--though it is the sort of foolishness, which long indulged, can rob a language of much of its depth and character. But it reveals more about the motivations of the movement.
It is suggested that it is derogatory for a woman who sews to be a "seamstress," while a man who sews is a "seamster"; for a woman who cares for the food and beverage needs of passengers to be a "stewardess," while the man is a "steward"; for a woman who presides at a meeting to be a "Chairwoman," while a man would be a "Chairman." But why, and to whom?!
If man and woman are similarly employed, how is either diminished by a nomenclature, which recognizes not only the capacity of that employment, but the gender of the employed? It is no more demeaning for a woman to be a "waitress," than for a man to be a "waiter"; for a woman to be a "sculptress," than for a man to be a "sculptor"; for a woman to be an "aviatrix," than for a man to be an "aviator."
The imputation of derogation, in the coupling of sex with occupation, is in the mind of the feminist. It reflects a persistent loathing for all things feminine!
This is so obvious, it scarcely needs development. A Virginian, proud of his heritage, would never be offended at being labeled a "VIRGINIA statesman," or a "VIRGINIA educator," or a "Virginia host." And if his sister is proud of her femininity, she would insist upon being called a "HOSTESS!"
It is the self-contempt upon the part of the would be "spokespersons" for American Womanhood--more than anything ever done by man--which takes the light out of the eyes of so many partially educated young women. The feminist is anti-feminine. And in her assault on all that is decent and uplifting in the female character, has set up a bogus discipline--complete with literature and classroom--to systematically spread infection and poison to a new generation.
There are subtle variations to the message. But the perverted theme is that it is an emotional disease for a woman to love too deeply--to let herself become too physically or emotionally dependent on a mate;--that one can become as "addicted to love," as to a narcotic; and that a woman should always put herself first.
One feels pity for those who have never known real love--that sometimes bittersweet, yet always elevating passion;--which though it spring in part from a lust of the flesh, when once focalized upon a worthy object--for man no less than woman--means putting another BEFORE self; pity for those who have never found anyone whom they could bond to, in an ever growing physical and emotional dependence. The unloved and unloving, who propound these strange doctrines, might not understand; but it is in the very nature of life at the highest level, that love be an absorbing, dominant emotion.
The organized attack on sex-roles and sexuality--on love itself--has already taken a terrible toll. We see the harvest in a divorce rate that now destroys over half our marriages; in the vast number of children born out-of-wedlock; in millions raised in single parent homes, where they never experience--not even through the perception of others--the traditional inter- dependence of the sexes. And there can be little doubt, but that the new ethos plays a major role in the burgeoning rate of suicide.
Perhaps some are prone to forget their own youth. But certainly the most important thing in the life of the typical "teenager," male or female, is his or her emergent sexuality. When you diminish the importance of sexuality, and of sexually determined roles, you diminish the self-perceived importance of the individual adolescent.
Not every boy can be President; nor an astronaut or Major League ball player. Not every girl will be a Madame Curie, or even--Praise God--a Gloria Steinem or a Hillary Clinton. But nearly every boy can see himself as the loving husband to the right woman. And nearly every girl can see herself as the loving wife for a loving man. And the mere pursuit of such objects--with all of the waystops along the course to enjoy the simple pleasures of acquaintance and courtship--provide a purpose for living.
When you downgrade those pursuits which spring from the vitality of youth, you diminish the value of life!
If the assault on sex-roles in premarital acquaintance and courtship has not been so intense as in other areas, it has been equally insidious. The essence of courtship lies in a perception by those involved, of the overriding importance of the process. And whatever detracts from that perception, robs life's most romantic period of something of its joy. It also cannot fail to have the most deleterious effect on what will follow.
If seeking a mate is not seen as life's most important adventure, the whole concept of marriage is compromised.
Of course, those early stages of "acquaintance and courtship"--those first frolics of coming together--are probably the time when a young female is the least susceptible to the warped message of the feminist.
A pair of teenagers, joyously groping on a high school hayride, or playing kissing games at a fifteenth or sixteenth birthday party, are not in a mood to listen to some jaded harpy, with a perverted need to claim that sexuality is unimportant. It is often only after marriage and a couple of babies, when she is struggling with her weight, and her "true love" turns on Monday night football, after hogging the T.V., most of the weekend, that the "little woman" finally becomes vulnerable.
Yet we would be fair--and as candid as good taste will allow. Before we leave the subject of adolescent lust--which can be something quite different than true love, or even an enduring passion, although it can lead to both;--let us make one distinction, even if we offend some fellow traditionalists in so doing.
In view of inherent functional differences, with powerful psychological consequences--as well as the more subtle requirements for an eventual motherhood;--we can never totally abandon all moral distinctions between the sexes--the DOUBLE STANDARD, if you will, in human conduct. But considering the variety of means available to avoid conception, there is no longer any overriding societal need to enforce old strictures against female fulfillment before marriage.
We would defend the right of parents to raise their daughters to a higher standard--for even that right has come under attack in some circles. We respect the doctrines of the many religious bodies, which still require that women remain virgins for the men they marry. America was built on freedom of conscience and private morals. And these involve questions of morality and faith.
But nothing in these qualifications can justify a public censure for the girl who, taking the necessary precautions, does not stop with groping and petting. Men, young or old, individually or collectively, who defame and castigate their playmates, violate both the code of gentlemen and every standard of common fairness. And all else being equal, there is much in the context of the present to justify a less inhibited attitude among America's daughters.
The most serious theatre of combat (as to our perception of sex-roles and sexuality) involves the primary unit in any social order. In an ultimate sense, the psychological conflict is over the nature of the marital relationship.
Americans come from a great variety of backgrounds, ethnic and social. We have always had a multitude of different perceptions of marital prerogatives, duties and responsibilities. Yet once, there were broad fairly universal concepts, even with some exceptions:
The law, at least, recognized (as the very etymology demands) that "husbands" were supposed to husband; to head, lodge, support and protect their dependents. Wives had the primary responsibility to nurture and care for the young, and to be supportive of their mates. But beyond those fundamentals, there was infinite room for individual variation in how responsibility might be addressed. And most of us accepted that how our neighbors lived, within the confines of their own households, was their business, not ours!
There have always been many women who had to work outside the home. The salient difference from the present (where a combination of factors have almost made this the norm) is that the goal for most Americans--as they pulled their way up the ladder--was a level of material well-being, where a woman need work only for her husband and children; and, hopefully, at the higher levels, primarily to contribute beauty and contentment, rather than mere essentials, to the lives of each. And outside the field of entertainment, where the divorce rate was always, what it has since become in general; only men had "careers." Women, whether their work was by the hearth or far afield, had families.
Actually, the idea of a "career"--as opposed to simply a way to earn a living--is but another form of the "male strut"; a human analogy to the peacock's parade of plumage. If a man be unwed, his hope (at least subconsciously) is to attract a mate. If he be wed, the hope--and one time expectation--is that his wife and children will honor the parade.
What rational benefit--other than the financial--can there be in a "two career" family? Indeed, one may question even the financial motivation. A successful career generally requires the supporting services of a mate or lover; one there when needed--her own schedule built around the other's daily struggle;--the "career," in the traditional sense, being seen as the worldly expression of both.
The difference between clearly recognized purpose and responsibility, and a day by day confrontation as to the direction of the family--over who does which or what of that which must be done--is obvious. It is the difference between order and anarchy; between complements and rivals; the difference between a productive pride in doing the best job possible, in a life-long generation spanning pursuit, and the self-centered chase of independent satisfaction: The joy in what one can do for those one loves; or a vain quest for things of the moment.
A social order, where the measure of man or woman is how well one performs in a specific familial role--usually for the benefit of others, but always with the future in mind--brings out the best. The emphasis is on what one can DO, rather than on what one can GET. An alternative order, where husband and wife share what amounts functionally to the same role, is very different: A dispensation, where there is nothing unique in the individual struggle, and no reward greater or more enduring than the immediate fulfillment of the seeker. It is not surprising that such marriages usually end in divorce. Any lull in the bliss of the honeymoon, will almost certainly bring disaster.
In the most primitive economy, all men pursue one occupation, all women another. It is only where there is a division of labor that a society is able to ascend to a more complex level. The division of responsibility within a family confers a similar benefit.
And because sex-roles--however denied--are at the very core of our nature, they are essential to the self-esteem of every one among us.
We pass over a growing tendency for political and social encroachment on the sanctity and autonomy of the family. It is a related problem. It has a kindred solution. But it involves questions outside the scope of this survey.
The attack on traditional sexuality has not spared the roles of parents. Analysis of the results may be divided into the direct and indirect; the latter including many of the consequences already discussed--including the shattered family and the single parent home--which can only create confusion as to functional relationships in a healthy society.
Since it was always through the family that inheritance--both material and cultural--was passed down through the generations, the phenomenon can be catastrophic. Of course, in the frantic pursuit of self advocated by some, there are not likely to be many cultural or material achievements to pass on.
Another indirect effect is in the increased employment of wives outside the home--essentially the next subtopic. Despite rationalizations (and the assurances of enthusiasts), the provision of day-care centers is no substitute for effective motherhood. And the incessant subliminal attack, in the media, on the self-respect of the full-time homemaker, takes a terrible toll on her ability to be an effective mother: a proud example for her daughters and a loving model for her sons.
But there is one aspect of the overall assault, which has directly challenged parental roles. Both in the media and in our schools, we are buffeted with endless variations of the absurd lie, that traditional child-rearing concepts only reflect the flawed attitudes of an ancient conspiracy.
It is of course no plot, that men and women should be perceived quite differently. The reality of those differences, is the reality of life. Yet because of those very differences, what should be seen as the obvious paranoia of the feminists, when continually dignified as serious insight, begins to have an effect on the more susceptible.
It may be observed, that while regular sexual fulfillment is the primary need for most men; their wives and sisters' quest is for security. And however it may be denied, the reasons are perfectly obvious.
There is, of course, nature's role in preparing them, instinctively, to guard their young. But girls grow up feeling less secure--more vulnerable--when they do not develop the upper body strength of boys, and emerge from the very physical world of childhood--that school of all our vital first impressions--feeling more dependent. Because almost every girl knows also that--however denied--she is functionally designed to be a mother, and that child bearing involves terrible vulnerability; that fundamental instinctive insecurity is further amplified. And those vague, often ill-defined, fears are always present.
While most of us have a strong desire to find love, and to feel loved; women appear to have the greater need for outward reassurance. And it can become a life-long pursuit.
The preadolescent male seeks adventure in play, hoping to achieve an heroic self-image--a MAN to be reckoned with. A pre-adolescent "tomboy" is often only beginning a life-long quest to be loved by men. An eventual switch to lace and ribbons, far from signaling basic psychological change, but reflects the physical reality that while her playmates hormones have suddenly given them stronger backs and broader shoulders, she has grown breasts and buttocks to stimulate desire and prepare for motherhood.
Women do not grow up feeling dependent on finding a man to love because WICKED men have brainwashed their mothers by false teaching; but because it is nature's way--the only way that either sex can be complete.
But it is this fundamental insecurity of woman, which is being exploited by the feminists and their allies--both here and elsewhere. They have not proposed a new, less dependent female ethic. Rather, in the mold of every other dehumanizing movement of the twentieth century, they propose a collective, societal resolution to an individual need: Legislation to savage the independence of the family; legions of associated busybodies, to reorient humanity; an endless array of "support groups" to do for the ever more dependent American woman, that for which she formerly looked to man--a sort of lesbian spiritual requital for the woman lured away from the demands of a normal heterosexual relationship.
But while few women actually "buy" the new dispensation, many are deeply troubled by the interminable discussion; their very insecurity leading them to believe that there must be a problem, or there could never be such clamor.
Only time will tell the damage done to children growing up in the shadow of this onslaught. No doubt some, raised in actual feminist households where traditional roles are deliberately confused, will rebel and become, in turn, the most hide-bound of traditionalists. But others may simply fail to reproduce; and the pain and misery of trying to live a lie will die with the first generation of its victims.
In other households, the injury will lie not so much in the attempted instillation of false doctrine, as in a lack of effective parental counsel. To what extent the basic instincts of the young men and women, who emerge from such foundations, may compensate for this deficiency, may tell us a lot more about what is ingrained and what is learned. Yet there is no question but that there remains a parental duty to help prepare children to play meaningful, sexually derived roles--and to play them with the joy and gusto, their Creator intended.
When we turn, next, to those questions which pertain to the outside employment of married women, we begin--finally--to perceive why so small a group of feminist malcontents have had so great an audience.
In all their antics, they have of course had the backing of the organized left; those who seek to exploit the grievances, real or fancied, of any group. But here, other, quite different interests, have also been involved; interests which stand to benefit in very real terms from a fundamental change in family life.
There is no shortage of labor. On the contrary, much of this world, including these United States, suffer from a chronic unemployment. But the immediate problem to many businesses is where to find labor with the requisite skills, who will work for a wage as low or lower than the competition. And in this pursuit, more and more employer groups across the globe have turned to encouraging the reentry of the married woman into the labor market.
The idea really germinated in the experiences of two World Wars, when wives--their husbands called away to military service--proved that they could fill the void, and manage many a job previously handled only by men.
Corporate America can be rather callous to the less material, social consequences of its business decisions. And with the rise of giant conglomerates that have swallowed up so many of the older family enterprises, once so conspicuous, that indifference has been compounded.
And it was not only the immediate advantage in broadening the "labor pool," which led to a powerful, if sometimes subtle, support for a new dispensation. With more two income families, there has been a vast expansion in the consumer market--more appliances, more automobiles. And with the home now a far less tidy and tranquil place, lacking the full-time attention of a loving stewardess, a much greater expenditure in those directions where people hope, somehow, to obtain a substitute for the simple joys, formerly found at the family hearth.
There has also been a deal more eating out; and with the latter--although the medical profession may not have encouraged the trend--more illness related to stress and bad nutrition.
It should be obvious why the media and those politicians often associated with the business interest were in the forefront of the legal and social attack on "sexism," even though business may appear to the superficial, to be only another target of the feminist babble. However, it may be a significant statement of the true value of this social revolution--and the level of providence of the liberal business community that has given it credibility--that personal saving, as a percentage of total income, has contemporaneously declined.
It is ironic that the feminists, who have provided the shock troops for a changing perception that much of corporate America strongly desired, are still shouting about "equal pay for equal work"; when it was a general willingness of women to work for less, which provided the impetus to those who did so much behind the scenes, to make feminism work. But it is in the way that it was all brought to pass, that is our major point!
For centuries, outside labor was the curse of the peasant wife--as her family struggled to survive. It was the bitter harvest of other women, whose husbands were disabled. It was seldom, if ever, the choice of the affluent and successful; who could usually appreciate--even if they couldn't always enunciate--the rationale' of the values for which we speak.
Men who could afford to keep their wives at home, did so. Most women sought or hoped for men, who could protect them from that facet of life, where a woman had to sell her service.
And yet almost overnight, as history is reckoned; the molders of opinion--playing on the fundamental insecurity of woman, both as to material well-being and as to how she might be perceived--have shamed or enticed millions, even from the most affluent backgrounds, into thinking in terms of careers and jobs rather than hearth and home.
It is a disgrace, that so many men have welcomed this relief from the responsibility to provide and protect; have been so glad to benefit financially from their wives' labor; so content to see dependency shift from their shoulders to that of a collective. But the greater tragedy is for the children, who will never know the rich life that was their heritage; where intelligent, bright and vivacious young women made their sole career, the happiness of mates and offspring.
In education, we see a promotion of the same delusion: The same collection of forces, with the addition of those who merchandise education, using a marketing technique, which again plays primarily on woman's insecurity. And the victims come in all ages.
As college enrollment faltered, it became convenient to convince women, who had curtailed their educations to marry, that community status now depended on obtaining a more advanced diploma! It also became expedient for other enterprises to replace "sexist" literature and textbooks. And how useful for overly dependent feminists--lacking the scholarship to teach in serious disciplines--to put together courses in "Women's Studies," to better spread their poison. Yet how ludicrous for the Federal Government of the United States to deliberately encourage this gross but wholesale distortion of the educational process!
The tragedy may be cumulative. The pretty and popular coed, on a major University campus, may choose to ignore the pseudo-intellectual harpies. The subliminal message will still do damage. In the absence of direct refutation--and few on any faculty, on even fewer campuses, will even challenge the feminists;--many of their values will be taken for granted. But even if all are totally rejected, the young woman is being subtly prepared to blame any unhappiness that she may ever know on man, his nature and his instincts.
She is also being conditioned to feel guilty, if she wants the traditional life of her mother or grandmother.
In the guise of promoting a "non-sexist" America, we are being viciously divided on sexual lines.
While profoundly different, woman's role in Western society was never really seen as inferior to man's before the feminist assault came to be accorded intellectual respectability.
Wretched in their paranoia and perceptually delusional, a small band of soured emotional cripples--urged on by the greedy and malicious, and bent upon drawing the human prospect down to their own purposeless perspective--began an attack on the youthful vivacity, love and enthusiasm of America's daughters; and seeing their lot as inherently inferior, rushed out in a blind neurotic fervor, to create the very reality they feigned to scorn.
Declining to be "sex objects" for those, who from puberty had sought always to be the "sex objects" of women; they surrendered one of the most profound advantages in all of nature, while greatly limiting their own capacity for normal human pleasure.
By making the standard, acceptance into fields--such as the military and those occupations, which deal with the public safety--once reserved for men; they have invited comparison in terms of a measure whereby their very structure has left them ever at a disadvantage.
Embracing careers outside of home and marriage, they have sought an independence without meaning--leading to a greater dependence upon strangers, on an impersonal collective--while wholly failing to perceive that the traditional male career served much the function of the peacock's strut--our poor, human compensation, for not being so readily taken as love objects by the once gentler sex as they by us.
Engrossed in pursuits without purpose, feminists have eschewed the traditional supportive role, which sustained man at a far higher level of performance than would otherwise have been possible; and which converted the symbolic strut of youth into a meaningful, generation spanning, commitment to family. But in this process of transforming our upward momentum into a living for the moment self-indulgence, they have failed to demonstrate any unique ability in the new worldly yet artificial life-style--or anything with long-term social value comparable in any way to the excellence once demonstrated by their female ancestors. While the whole approach has denigrated the roles of wife and mother, for which their sex alone has been equipped by nature--and which must remain always, their one clear area of marked superiority.
Geraldine Ferraro would never have been better than a very ordinary Vice President. But she had that within her loins which enabled her to do what no male President ever could--or ever would;--and with it, she should have had the compassion and empathy to be a major factor in the lives of her husband and children. If instead of putting her not inconsiderable intelligence and vitality into a pursuit of the tawdry but pedestrian, she had directed her talent and energy for the benefit of family, who can say what great things might not have been achieved.
In a mixture of anti-male enthusiasm with a psychology which holds that if one but think positively, she can overcome any inadequacy; the feminist has embraced a coarse assertiveness, which assumes that others must always indulge the assertress in long conversational diatribes against real or hypothetical detractors--those who doubt the theories or worth of the protagonist. Often, this is only harmlessly offensive. But in some situations, it involves conduct that only a saint would tolerate from another man. And only a residual femininity, which she may scorn in herself, will prevent that protagonist from obtaining the more physical reaction that any man would expect.
Yet in no instance is there equality! In each case, the feminist has forced a comparison where the woman is on a less than equal level. Scorning a traditional rough equivalence, where either sex was seen as the superior in its own areas; they have embraced a world in which theirs can only be viewed as the inferior!
The movement was born not in reason, but in discontent--not of the many, but of the few. It has grown in the contrived manipulations of a whole raft of special interests and sometimes sinister forces. It will not bear critical examination! But political cowards and a shallow media have allowed it to foist a monumental delusion upon tens of millions of American women;--liberated from dependence on the men they formerly loved and married (who asked only their loyalty and support);--now delivered, bound in neurotic dependence, to a new impersonal collective, which demands only their blind subservience; hostage to our acceptance of an egalitarian madness.
It is time that it was dealt with by those with integrity and insight!
We cannot speak for our fair sisters. But we know that in our love of woman, we derive both purpose and understanding. It is the one pure, elevating thread, that recalls us from a preoccupation with the trivial, and causes us to aspire to be all that we can be! It is the inspiration for honor; the source of each man's spiritual renewal.
As no one can separate sex-roles or sexuality from the very essence of existence, the political attack upon our sexuality becomes indeed an attack on life.