Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Feminism's New Idea


The rest of the world is now beginning to suspect that there’s some strange chemistry between women and the home. As feminism prodded women to leave the home altogether and disregard homemaking as a vocation, women found themselves strangely empty. For instance, Rebecca Walker, the daughter of the famous feminist author, Alice Walker, came out and wrote an article admitting,

“My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her.”

Rebecca’s young adulthood was a model of feminism. She had an abortion by age fourteen and now lives, unmarried, with her partner, Glenn. Yet as an adult, she’s found one of her greatest joys is raising her son, Tenzin:

“I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to deliver a very different message.

"I meet women in their 40’s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They've missed the opportunity and they're bereft.

“Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating….I don't want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent.”[i]

Rebecca's story isn't that new--her article was published last year. But I was reminded of it recently as I stumbled across another article on a similar "shocking" new development in the feminist movement. An online newspaper posted this just the other day:

“Michelle Obama gave up her highly-paid job to support her husband Barack through his presidency. When she stepped down from her $273,000-a-year job with the University of Chicago Hospitals to help her husband on the campaign trail, she was earning twice as much as the man who would become America’s first black President. Unlike one of our own recent first ladies….She wants, instead — feminists hold on to your hats — to be a mother, a wife and to support her husband in every way she can in his job as President.

Despite this, she has not been berated by furious post-feminist women as a traitor to her sex. Quite the opposite. She is, perhaps, the perfect example of a new kind of career woman who, instead of wanting it all for herself, wants it all for her family…. It’s not what Germaine Greer and her ilk had in mind for this generation of highly educated, successful, independent women. But it’s a lifestyle choice at the heart of a new theory expounded in Megan Basham’s book, Beside Every Successful Man."

The author of Beside Every Successful Man, who is described as a “dyed-in-wool feminist,” explained:

“‘What my friends had in common is that they left school planning to spend most of their adult years working in their chosen fields, and expecting always to derive a lot of satisfaction from their careers. ‘Several years ago, I started to notice that among many of us, as other areas of our lives expanded, the enjoyment we derived from our jobs began to shrink. Work began to seem more like an intrusion on our real lives than a vital part of it.’ She and her successful career girlfriends wanted to spend more time enjoying being mothers and wives."

She said that the biography, John Adams, inspired her to pursue this idea further:

“‘While everyone else was caught up by the relationship between Adams and Jefferson and Washington, I was fascinated by the relationship between Adams and his wife. He relied on her in almost every aspect of his work — and in the midst of the goal-setting and strategic planning they wrote each other intimate, teasing and tender love letters that revealed the sweet partnership they had in all things.’”[ii]

Now, ladies, I hate to break it to you--but that doesn't look a whole lot like feminism to me. It looks more like an expression of one of the oldest ideas in the book (the Good Book, that is.) Women finding influence and fulfillment supporting their husbands and working in the home is nothing new.

I must say, this last article has me feeling pretty psyched. The fact that today God’s design for womanhood is still ringing true, even with countless voices of opposition, speaks volumes of God and the amazingness of His plan. Knowing that women who probably don’t know or care what the Bible says about gender differences, have suddenly “discovered” happiness at home—it’s as they just stumbled across something knitted deep within their DNA long before culture or feminism held its sway. That’s pretty cool to me.


Other blogs on femininity:
"A Desperate Housewife To Be?" a post by Hännah Schlaudt
"It Was God Who Made Us Different" by Hannah Farver (with Elisabeth Elliot)
Radical Womanhood blog, by Carolyn McCulley
Joyfully Home by Jasmine Baucham
Girl Talk blog, by Carolyn Mahaney, Nicole Whitacre, Janelle Bradshaw, and Kristin Chesemore
Gender Blog
The Empowered Traditionalist blog