I know this comes as a surprise to many readers, but I am a great disappointment to feminists everywhere.
That’s because I’m not a corporate president. I’m not an elected politician. I’m not a research scientist. I’m not a powerful voice in, well, anything. I’m merely a happily married housewife who takes joy in domestic life. I’ve failed to carry the banner of womanhood forward. Oh the horror of it all.
In this, I’m not alone. Millions of women all over the country have failed because they’ve adopted the role feminists would least like them to have: content wives and mothers, raising a generation of God-fearing children and creating a peaceful, loving haven for their hard-working husbands.
You see, in the absence of real barriers of oppression and subjugation, feminists have turned on the one group of people who most strongly violate their perceived goal of universal victimhood: Housewives. Feminists’ most dripping contempt is not reserved for men, but for women who refuse to go along with their agenda.
Sabrina L. Schaeffer, about as strong a woman as I can imagine, had the following to say about former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt:
She describes herself as a women’s activist and is viewed as a champion for women’s rights. But this begs the question: women’s right to what? For Feldt, the feminist movement has seen only limited success. She acknowledges … that women are in a stronger position today than ever before in history. … And yet Feldt laments the fact that full parity hasn’t been achieved in ‘work, politics or even in negotiating those personal relationships.’ She admonishes that while ‘the doors have been opened by many brave women who came before us,’ women ‘have to have the courage to stand in our power and walk through those open doors with intention to make the changes we say we want.’
“So, what are those changes we want? Is it for each and every girl – or at least as many as the little boys – to burn with a desire to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a workaholic Wall Street investment banker or president of the United States? Is that what we women want? Or, perhaps, is it only what some women want all other women to want?
“With few – if any – institutional barriers still in place, Feldt has been forced to find something else to blame for gender differences. Feldt is angry at women who have failed to make the choices she thinks they should make. [Italics in original.]
(To this I’ll add, it’s pretty funny for a baby-murderer to lecture women on what they should want. Just saying.)
There’s an interesting post by Hadley Bennett in which he examines the apparent obsession a Salon writer named Emily Matchar and her friends have with domesticity. “Feminists will deny and deny and deny that they’re full of seething rage and contempt for the choices of women to stay-at-home, despite the fact that these women consented,” he notes.
Entitled “Why I can’t stop reading Mormon housewife blogs,” the Salon writer admits: “I’m a young, feminist atheist who can’t bake a cupcake. Why am I addicted to the shiny, happy lives of these women?”
Matchar tries to explain her fascination: “[T]o use a word that makes me cringe, these blogs are weirdly ‘uplifting.’ … Their lives seem adorable and old-fashioned and comforting.” She admits this “seems practically subversive to someone like me, weaned on an endless media parade of fretful stories about ‘work-life balance’ and soaring divorce rates and the perils of marrying too young/too old/too whatever.”
Matchar then dismisses the women whose blogs she enjoys as “young Mormon women, who face immense cultural pressure to stay home with children rather than pursue a career.”
Does Matchar think these women would prefer to be corporate presidents working 16 hour days? As easy as it is to blame Mormonism for the “cultural pressure” for women to stay home and raise their families, these domestic blogs express a concept feminists simply won’t grasp: a majority of women like being home with their kids.
The lure of domesticity is as old as mankind, and both men and women who have arranged to put their home lives first are happy in their choices.
Working outside the home – the stuff men have done for millennia – is hard. (Working inside the home is hard, too, but that’s another issue.) Many men don’t work because they love their jobs. They work because they are motivated by a deep biological drive to provide for their families. When men risk death on a daily basis (miners, firefighters, soldiers, etc.) to bring home a paycheck, they do so because they are fulfilling what they see as their role in life.
They make the living, then return home to the person who is making the living worthwhile.
Men who adopt these traditional roles find satisfaction and enjoyment. The hard work they do outside the home is balanced by the peace and comfort provided by their family.
But hard-working feminists who do not have a domestic support base often find their work lives become sterile and unfulfilling. There is no balance. Everyone needs to relax amidst peace and tranquility. Work is not, or shouldn’t be, the be-all and end-all of life. (As someone so famously observed, “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal.”)
Instead, feminists like Gloria Feldt think the height of feminism is to work 80 hours a week at the office, hook up with an assortment of random men and kill your baby every other year or so.
There’s an underlying thread of envy amidst Matchar’s contempt, as she bravely admits. “[T]he basic messages expressed in these blogs – family is wonderful, life is meant to be enjoyed, celebrate the small things – are still lovely,” she writes. “And if they help women like me envision a life in which marriage and motherhood could potentially be something other than a miserable, soul-destroying trap, I say, ‘Right on.'”
They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Consider a variation on this definition: Insanity is to know the truth, admire the truth, state the truth … and then deny the truth. Matchar’s final observation is a perfect example of the insanity of feminism.
Ms. Matchar, don’t just envy. Do it. Be it. Join us. Make your life meaningful for a change.
Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact [email protected].
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