Feminist Fantasies First Edition

In mid-1982, the women’s liberation movement, or feminism as it prefers to be called, suddenly became passé. The movement was born in the mid-1960s with the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and was fashionable in the media, in colleges, and in women’s magazines from 1972 to 1982.

In 1982, the tide turned, even in pro-feminist newspapers and magazines. An op-ed piece written by a feminist in the Chicago Tribune in October 1982 started out, "Let’s face it. The Revolution is over. I just turned 31 and all I want is a husband."

Feminists in their thirties began to admit candidly that they have "baby hunger." That’s the emotional trauma that comes over today’s liberated woman when she turns age 30 and realizes that the clock is ticking and her years of possible motherhood are slipping away.

The New York Times Magazine published a cover story written by a feminist on October 17, 1982, called "Voices From the Post-Feminist Generation." She told how one of her male friends asked her to get him a date with "a woman who’s not a feminist." She replied that she didn’t know any women who were not feminists. He told her she was wrong, and suggested that she inquire among younger women in their twenties.

So, this feminist writer in her thirties started interviewing smart young women in their twenties and she learned quite a lot. She discovered that, among women in their twenties, "feminism has become a dirty word." She discovered that young women in their twenties have concluded that feminists are "unhappy," "bitter," "angry," "tired," and "bored," and that the happy, enthusiastic, relaxed women are not feminists. The writer found that young women are especially turned off by feminism because of its "incredible bitterness." She admitted that "feminism had come to be strongly identified with lesbianism."

The Wall Street Journal ran a series of news stories about the disruption in corporations and law firms caused by the wave of pregnancies at the managerial and professional levels. Since more women hold high-level jobs, their time off for pregnancy has caused serious company disruptions. In the past eight years, the number of women over thirty having a child has almost doubled.

A study by the advertising firm of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne discovered that "the professional homemaker is a happy woman who feels good about herself and her ability to stick to her decision to remain at home, even under strong societal pressure to find an outside job." She is feminine and traditional; she is not feminist.

The ideology of feminism teaches that women have been mistreated since time began, and that even in America women are discriminated against by an oppressive male-dominated society. As a political movement, feminism teaches that a just society must mandate identical treatment for men and women in every phase of our lives, no matter how reasonable it is to treat them differently, and that gender must never be used as the criterion for any decision.

As an economic movement, feminism teaches that true fulfillment and liberation for women are in a paying job rather than in the confining, repetitious drudgery of the home, and that child care must not be allowed to interfere with a woman’s career. Feminism’s psychological outlook on life is basically negative; it teaches women that the odds are stacked so severely against them that they probably cannot succeed in whatever they attempt.

Feminism has nothing at all to do with being "feminine." Feminine means accentuating the womanly attributes that make women deliciously different from men. The feminine woman enjoys her right to be a woman. She has a positive outlook on life. She knows that she is a person with her own identity, and that she can seek fulfillment in the career of her choice, including that of traditional wife and mother.