Has feminism made women better or happier? “The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy…Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness” (Phyllis Schlafly). Feminists have made men the enemy and see men as the oppressors who are keeping them from their full potential and ultimate happiness. After all, men used to be the ones who had most of the jobs, made the money and were in positions of authority. This looked so much better to women: to leave their family each day to seek the happiness that was eluding them. “Oppressive patriarchy” became the battle cry to convince women of their self-imposed victimhood and a search to settle the score, even if it meant walking into a harder, stress-filled life that most husbands were trying to protect their wives from.
In a recent article written by a female retired college professor, Victoria Brown tells of a time when she was screaming at her husband over all of the evils men bring into this world: “In the centuries of feminist movements that have washed up and away, good men have not once organized their own mass movement to change themselves and their sons or to attack the mean-spirited, teasing, punching thing that passes for male culture. Not once. B****. Don’t listen to me. Listen to each other. Talk to each other. Earn your power for once.”
So “good men have not once organized their own mass movement to change themselves…”? Judaism, Christianity, and many of the world’s religions were started by men and carried forward by men to help civilize the world. The Magna Carta, Democracy, and Bill of Rights are just a few of the most recent accomplishments of men making men and women better. Many wars were fought by organized men wanting righteousness: the Civil War to free the slaves and two World Wars to save the world from evil, tyrannical men. Modern day management has been organized by men to improve leaders and employees as team players. Christian colleges, as the seat of learning almost all developed by men for the benefit of men and women but now turned into costly, liberal bastions. Police forces, regulators, FBI – all organized by men to help men and women be fair and civilized towards one another.
One really has to ask, “Dr. Brown, is there really anything that women have organized to make women better as we see what an utter failure feminism is as it streaks towards greater extremes? Are women more gentle, more civil, more committed to faithfulness, and family? Has the free sex of feminism really achieved anything good for women but for a few moments of pleasure and massive heartaches and STD’s?” I have never seen women as mean-spirited as they are today, especially with those with whom they disagree.
No, Dr. Brown, feminism isn’t a women’s mass movement that has changed women for good or made them better and certainly no happier. Yes, women can now vote, have any job they want, get equal pay, and the insanity to abort their child at almost any stage of their unborn baby’s life. But take a look at the women’s marches, mean-spirited speeches, screaming, and dressing up in vagina costumes,then tell me if feminism has not set women back thousands of years in civilization. Feminism has made women far worse as it pushes selfishness while devaluing women’s bodies with immodesty, promiscuity, easy sex, and murdering or neglecting the lives of their own children. Mothers of old would be flabbergasted to see the modern feminist woman.
— Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife, Has Feminism Made Women Better or Happier? October 19, 2018
Has feminism made women better or happier? Yes, Mrs. Alexander, it has. It has made them more independent, better educated, more able to choose for themselves what roles they will play in society. It has freed them to reject the “protection” of men, should they choose to do so, and make their way in a world that is not confined to home and family. Feminism has given women both a voice and a role in their government, their religions, and their workplaces, judged by the same standards and paid at the same rates as the men beside whom they work. There is a long way to go before we achieve genuine equality–hence the protests and marches to which you object–but we value the gains we have made, and will continue to make. Feminism is about equality and choices, including the choice you have made to embrace home, family, and patriarchy. That used to be a fact of a woman’s life, not a choice.
Umm. Phyllis Schafly also insisted that there is no such thing as rape in marriage. That the very act of marrying a man means that a woman has given permission for sex whenever, wherever, solely on the husband’s terms (even if his wife has just given birth, even if his wife is ill.) Any woman who believes that is an enemy of women and an encourager of abuse.
What made Lori Alexander like this? She has no words of kindness for women, she has only criticisms and negative judgements. Women shouldn’t vote, in her view. Women shouldn’t go to college (though Lori herself did.) If asked, she’d no doubt say “I am only following the Lord”. . .but Jesus was, if anything, very accepting of women who stepped out of the conventional roles.
Well, feminism helped me. I was able to go to a good college. I was able to get a job where I have spent 23 years working through the ranks to a top position. My husband, also well educated, was able to start his own business that allowed him to be home in the daytime with our children – and he as a trained educator was WAY more suited for child rearing than I was. Our kids ate bright, well behaved, learned how to examine situations and make good decisions, and are equally comfortable interacting with people of both genders. I would say feminism has positively shaped my family. I am not nasty and wearing a vagina costume, but I can be if I want to be, and that is ok. (Lori needs to brush up on history- WWI particularly easily the most useless war on modern times.)