Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism [Hardcover]

F. Carolyn Graglia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1998

The principal targets of feminist fire in the on-going "gender wars" are not men but traditional wives and mothers, says a lawyer-turned-housewife in a powerful critique of contemporary feminism. With a profound understanding of the quandary of modern women, Carolyn Graglia shows that the cultural assault on marriage, motherhood, and traditional sexuality, rooted in the pursuit of economic and political power, has robbed women of their surest source of fulfillment.

Mrs. Graglia traces the origins of modern feminism to the post-war exaltation of marketplace achievement, which bred dissatisfaction with women's domestic roles. In a masterly analysis of seminal feminist texts, she reveals a conscious campaign of ostracism of the housewife as a childish "parasite". Turning to the feminist understanding of sexuality, now pervasive in our culture, she shows how it has distorted and impoverished sex by stripping it of its true significance. Finally, after exposing feminism's totalitarian impulse and its contribution to the "tangle of pathologies" that have left marriage and family life in tatters, she argues for a renewed appreciation of the transforming experience of motherhood and the value of the domestic vocation.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Graglia indicts feminism for the demise of the traditional family, the degradation of the homemaker, the spread of venereal disease, the growth of income disparity, and the defeat of the United States in Vietnam (no kidding). Graglia, who holds a law degree from Columbia University, believes that she is a better representative of the "average woman" than (disproportionately Jewish) feminists are. She recommends a movement to reform "no-fault" divorce laws to ensure financial security for full-time homemakers (although the old laws were notoriously ineffective), inspired by women who have been "awakened by transforming sexual experiences?including the child-bearing and nurturing that are the fruits of her sexual encounters." She observes, in passing, that the "sexual ministrations of [her] husband" do more to make her feel alive than does reading Supreme Court opinions. One person's account of the personal as political, this is not a necessary library purchase.?Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"If there is a book our culture has been needing for the last thirty years, Domestic Tranquility is it." -- Phyllis Schlafly

...makes a strong case that feminism has not increased the sum of human happiness... Mrs. Graglia offers a thinking woman's argument for putting family first. -- The Wall Street Journal, Lisa Schiffren

William Kristol (The Weekly Standard) calls the book "a stunningly bold and deep assault on the most powerful movement of our time-feminism. A genuinely thought-provoking book." Danielle Crittenden of The Women's Quarterly praises it as "a stunning indictment of the women's movement and its radical vision of female equality. Carolyn Graglia is a courageous thinker."

"Rarely does a book draw such a rave from one of our reviewers. And Dan Neyer is one of our hardest to please, so you can be sure he brought us to the edge of our seats. Why all the fuss? A few lines from Dan's exuberant 4-page analysis:

'F. Carolyn Graglia, a lawyer before she became a homemaker, makes an unassailable case against feminism.... [She] holds feminism up to the light and reveals it to be anti-female and anti-human....'

'Although Graglia never uses the term satanic to describe the feminists, she is unstinting in her condemnation of them. She makes it clear that female promiscuity, legalized abortion, increased male impotence, bureaucratic eunuchs, and increased homosexuality are all products of feminism. God bless her for writing this book. And as she asks in the book: Where are all the men? Why don't they oppose the feminists? Why is F. Carolyn Graglia the only person attacking them? It is partly because the feminists have so successfully gelded American males, and partly because males, through a misplaced notion of chivalry, do not believe in attacking women. But when women cease to be women they must be dealt with. Deep down the real reason the feminists hate men, Graglia tells us, is because men do not love them enough to challenge them when they misbehave. That is a very unpopular thing to say, but Graglia has the moral fortitude to say it, and say it very well.'

'Mrs. Graglia makes her points cannily. Her research includes sources who don't share her traditional views, so the book packs a double wallop. Perhaps more importantly, Mrs. Graglia doesn't leave us hanging. She shows us how to begin anew to respect and support both the woman who undertakes a traditional role and the man who makes it possible for her to do so. It all adds up to the most stinging indictment of feminism ever written.'" -- Conservative Book Club, Featured Alternate Main Selection

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Spence Publishing Company (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965320863
• ISBN-13: 978-0965320863
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #520,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've read this decade., April 13, 1998

By 

Judith K. Warner (Rohrersville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism (Hardcover)

Carolyn Graglia was a lawyer before she had children, so she knows how to argue her case against feminism. She shows how its aim is to destroy the traditional woman who gets her satisfaction from taking care of her home and family. And she documents the devastation to children and society that has resulted. In a very moving way, Mrs. Graglia uses her own experiences and feelings to show how feminism violates women's nature. Women are different from men, as anyone knows who isn't blinded by ideology. But feminists have succeeded in changing society's view of women so that instead of nurturing and yielding, women are now expected to be just like men. She describes women's sexuality at length, taking issue with feminism's view that women should be casual and aggressive about sex. She shows how feminism is totalitarian at heart, because feminists cannot simply live their own lives the way they wish, but must impose their world view on everyone. Thus they hold up traditional women to contempt, and rearrange society's institutions to drive women out of the home. I was fascinated to read Mrs. Graglia's skewering of some feminist myths, such as the idea that women were not sexual beings until the last few decades. Her history of female sexuality alone would make the book worth reading. I am also fascinated by the little notice this book has received, as far as I am aware. It is so powerful that, were its subject anything but feminism, it would certainly be the subject of constant publicity, in the way that, say "The Bell Curve" was.

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! What an incredible book!, July 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism (Hardcover)

Having grown up in the 60's, I used to believe all of the feminist rhetoric regarding the so called oppression of women. It wasn't long though before I figured out that feminists were anything but, since their basic premise was "You are only good inasmuch as you are like a man." Carolyn Graglia courageously points this out in a masterful analysis of feminism. Thank goodness that someone of the female gender has finally had the guts to say what totalitarian feminists would love to have squelched! Notice the deafening silence regarding this book? It is an absolute must read for everyone who is ever so weary of militant feminism's poison promises. As I slog through yet another day as a nurse in Labor & Delivery (where the rooms are occupied by 14, 15 & 16 year olds no doubt very fulfilled by the practice of the uninhibited sexuality promoted by feminists, leavened with the sheer terror of a child not prepared for the experience of labor and delivery) I do my best to be an excellent nurse while trying to do the impossible: balance work, running a home and raising children. Although I am fortunate to have a devoted husband to share the work load, he too is overworked. Thanks to all of the feminist improvements in our society, we are taxed at a ridiculous rate while both of us work ourselves to death! Mrs. Graglia's book is not easy reading, but it is very worthwhile. I am especially pleased that she quoted directly from feminist writings which allow the reader to see for themselves just what feminists say and stand for. It is my ardent hope that Mrs. Graglia's book will serve as a catalyst for women who are tired of the poison apples that feminists tirelessly peddle. At long last, those of us who would much rather be at home with our precious children have someone to stand up for us, having been betrayed for far too long by feminists who purport to represent the best interests of women. With "friends" such as these, who indeed needs enemies? After enduring the "benefits" of feminism, all I can say is "It's about time someone of our gender had the guts to stand up to the vicious, virulent attacks against homemakers by feminists!" Thank you, thank you Carolyn Graglia.

42 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars As with feminism, sift out the good parts, September 21, 2002

By 

A. S. Templeton (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism (Hardcover)

Mrs. Graglia's work is an important shoulder-tap on mainstream feminist-dominated Western culture. It details the morally barren and intellectually dishonest bases of the mid-20th Century round of feminism only just now petering out.

The author now & then shares her personal taste in, er, conjugal relations, and occasionally employs vivid imagery to make a point. Most amateur reviewers cannot overcome their reactions and revulsions enough to stay with the narrative. For myself, I enjoyed the break from the rather turgid, stuffy writing style loaded with two-dollar words. My Oxford abridged dictionary doesn't even list "fungible"!

But the thesis is strong: modern feminism was a big factor in creating the child-hating, sexually perverse culture we live in today. Not surprising, really, since biographies and self-admissions reveal that today's feminism was founded by disgruntled corner cases with just those characteristics.

As a result, women actually have a harder time relating to other women, men and children, and have fewer choices today than they did in the mid-1950's, in that the woman choosing to be the core of her family is reviled and pressured to abandon her children and neglect her marriage.

Women who prefer to serve strangers in the marketplace are actually subsidized at the cost of traditional families, through "childcare" credits, anti-competitive affirmative action programs, corporate workplace inefficiencies etc. And as Mrs. Graglia notes but IMO does not sufficiently develop, modern (non-)mothering by working women requires the existence of a huge economic underclass of proxy-mothers, who are paid as little a possible for doing the untimately thankless job of making sure little Jill and Johnny don't kill themselves or feel totally abandoned.

Anyway, Domestic Tranquility is a valuable read for those wishing a balanced viewpoint. I enjoyed having my brain deprogrammed a bit, and now think I see the world better without the feminist distortions of the dominant culture.