MYSTIQUE OR MISTAKE? :

Feminist winners sing the blues (Suzanne Fields, April 15, 2002, TownHall)

The underlying theme of these complaints is that life is unfair to women. After four decades of successful feminism, the Man in this scenario still has the edge. He doesn't have to be so concerned about his looks or his biology (though power, money and testosterone don't hurt). To paraphrase Rousseau, a feminist may be born free, but she is everywhere in chains to the aging process. If anatomy is not destiny, it's a major contender in determining life's choices.

It's ironic that feminists whose mantra is "choice" have trouble understanding the meaning of the word as it applies to personal decisions. Choices have consequences. There are forks in the road and roads not taken. The sexual revolution and feminism multiplied choices, but didn't eliminate the need to choose.

Radical feminism proceeded from two patently absurd notions : (1) that we could completely re-engineer tens of thousands of years of human nature without experiencing any negative side effects; and (2) that men, who had "oppressed" women for all those thousands of years, were suddenly yielding up a co-equal share of power without getting anything in return. And so, several decades on, men have been able to shuck off a considerable share of the workload, can get their freak on without incurring any obligation, are not actually bound by marriage vows, have little or no responsibility for child rearing, and, thanks to gender-choice abortions will soon outnumber women in the electorate for the first time in human history. Meanwhile, women find themselves objectified and commodified as mere sexual goods, having to provide for themselves and maybe for children, developing the myriad stress-related health problems that used to be more typical of men, and about to be a political minority.

One wonders if the next great feminist leader won't be the one who leads the counter-revolution, as women seek to reconstruct the tattered institutions that had protected them for millennia, like marriage, family, etc.. In the same way that women have tended to support government programs that provide them with security--social security, Medicare, Medicaid, child care programs, etc,--we might expect to see growing numbers of women in favor of limits on abortion, government benefits for marriage, reform and tightening of divorce laws, and the like. The question then would be : will men, who tend to favor freedom over security, and who will by then be able to exercise the tyranny of a majority, be willing to cede back the freedoms they have been handed? If I were a woman, I wouldn't bet on the magnanimity of men, again...

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 16, 2002 9:36 AM