Rebuking the Anti-feminists Part I

The feminist movement's own anti-Christ, Phyllis Schlafly, and her niece and heir-apparent have written a new book which debuted this past month. I won't mention the title of the book on this blog because I will have nothing to do with promoting that hateful woman's written works. In their new book, Schlafly and Suzanne Venker write extensively on the feminist movement as they see it, and not only attempt to rebuke it, but then demand that the American people start coming to them (conservative women) for advice.

Clearly this is an attempt by Schlafly to help establish the career of the woman who will succeed her after she dies (which is likely to be soon, she's 86 now and not moving any faster according to reports). It is also a way for Schlafly to rant some more about the feminist movement, which she has always had an animosity toward. While she often claims to have "defeated" the feminist cause with her sabotage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 80s, she yet still finds reason to write a new book about the alleged evils of the movement every 10 years or so. Her last book about feminism was written in 2003.

In the book Schlafly and Venker attempt to make various arguments about why the feminist movement is supposedly bad and why it somehow hurts both women and men. They also use the book to repeat common misconceptions and deceptions about the movement that conservative have, via the mass media, been churning out for decades. Normally, I wouldn't pay this book any attention. There's also an article that's been written by a Radical Christian named Marcia Segelstein.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1332238

This article is a just a rehashing of what Schlafly and Venker have to say and it praises both women for "courageously" writing it. I have yet to understand how writing the book could be considered a courageous act. Normally I wouldn't pay it anymore attention than I would the book. But after reading the article I have to admit that the very fact that the incredibly false, and frankly outrageous, claims that both the book and the report make about feminism truly bother me to know end. I dislike the idea of these kinds of claims being out for the public to absorb without some kind of rebuttal in defense of feminism. So I am going to make that rebuttal here.

First off, the article tries to create a chasm between the first-wave feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the second-wave feminists who arose in the mid to late 20th century.

"In fact, those suffragettes were pro-family (not anti-male) and adamantly opposed to abortion (which existed, but was not legal), a cornerstone of today's feminist movement."

Once again, the anti-feminists have snuck in their deceptive little barbs that feminists are somehow anti-male and, of course, "anti-family." In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Trying to claim that feminists are anti-male is the same as trying to claim that the members of the Civil Rights Movement (which many Radical Christians such as Schlafly now try to emulate, despite being opposed to it in the past) were somehow anti-white, which is absurd. You might as well be saying that trying to protect children from abusive parents makes you anti-parents.

Feminism also does not attack the concept of the family. What it is opposed to is that there can be only one definition of the family and that that definition is somehow superior to all others. Feminists are not anti-family because if that were true then most feminists would neither marry nor have children. But we see that most who are part of the movement are married and have children just like anybody else. What feminism is against is patriarchal family, in which women are subjugated by the men, and children are "owned" like property and not persons.

Segelstein then goes on to drag Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem through the mud, that Schlafly and Venker also do in their new book, by pointing out their personal, proverbial dirty laundry. If this weren't awful and derogatory enough, the article (inspired by the book) then go on to say this:

"As Venker and Schlafly write, "Rather than try to cope and offer other women solutions for how to cope, Friedan manufactured a societal problem. She suggested society is to blame for the plight of the American housewife, who lived, she wrote, in a 'comfortable concentration camp.'""

What Schlafly and Venker are trying to assert throughout their entire book is that feminists are somehow self-centered people who take no pride in sacrificing through things such as motherhood. However, this preceding passage from Schlafly and Venker's new book reveals their own self-centered feelings.



It's outrageous that Venker and Schlafly try to claim that Betty was "manufacturing" a social problem. In the same paragraph they openly acknowledge that other women were suffering from the same problems that Friedan was. Later in the article, they are quoting describing much of the suffering that could be found in Steinem's childhood. And by definition a "social problem" is a problem that affects a multitude of people in a society. Therefore, it wasn't something that Friedan was manufacturing; many women were suffering.

Yet, Schlafly and Venker seem outraged that Friedan had the audacity to start a movement to solve the social problem, rather than simply "coping" with it. According to them, all women who are suffering from the types of marital and familial problems that Friedan was should simply have to "cope." This reveals just how cold, selfish, and cruel Schlafly, Venker, and others like them are. The fact that Schlafly and Venker could even write that in their book and think that it would come off sounding anything less than awful astounds me. Anyone suffering from a social problem must simply "cope," just as long as Schlafly and Venker don't have to hear about it or deal with it.

But none of this should be a surprise coming from Schlafly. Once a reporter asked her how she felt about women who's husbands abused them. Schlafly has advocated against domestic violence laws and believes women can too easily divorce their husbands over issues of domestic violence. She's even gone as far to say that men have a right to rape their wives. Anyway, Schlafly answered, or I should say didn't answer, the question by saying that her own husband treated her well and "let's me do what I want." At this moment, Schlafly's deep selfishness and cold personality is revealed. She doesn't even for a second think about other women who suffer from domestic violence. She can only think about herself and her own situation. In her mind, if a problem doesn't affect her or her friends, then it doesn't need to be dealt with. It for all intensive purposes does not exist as a problem and anyone who suffers from it simply has to "cope."