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by Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D. [source unknown] It is accepted fact that "the truth will set us free." The converse is also true –– falsehoods enslave and myths destroy. Now before you smile and say those comments are just too simplistic and too obvious to have any great consequence, let's look at some historical facts: The people that Hitler enticed with his myths of Aryan supremacy were not ignorant people – but they bought into myths that ultimately plunged all of Europe into war and that war nearly annihilated European Jewry.We could lengthen this list easily, but these few examples should document the idea that falsehoods and myths lead, inevitably, to enslavement and death. Today, we focus on one of the greatest mythmakers of all time – Feminism. For feminist thinkers, traditional marriage is the ultimate oppressor of women; the biggest obstacle to the realization of an egalitarian society is patriarchy and the social order that supports it, particularly marriage and religion. So, at the top of their agenda over the past several decades have been efforts to undermine marriage, family, religion and masculinity. For instance: Abortion on Demand: Since the central aspect of women's liberation is so-called "free love" – sexual activity that is unconstrained and without consequences — they declared that abortion on demand is a basic human right and they made abortion an essential and sacred element of their life's creed. The abortion activists became both effective street fighters and skillful backroom strategists; they defend the 45 million murders of unborn lives by abortionists. Federally Mandated Day Care: Feminists demand that childcare arrangements be federally funded so that the rearing of children can be turned over to childcare providers and thus not be burdensome or interfere with a woman's career aspirations. The suppression of the overwhelming evidence about the attachment, behavioral, emotional and health risks associated with the overuse of day care amounts to statutory child abuse, but such is the power of the feminist special interests. Feminists are at the forefront of those who are trying to convince the world that "father and mother" are just words – that all a child needs are both male and female influences and that any man and woman can provide a child's nurturing and guidance needs. Sexual Orientation Special Agenda: Feminists are determined to mainstream lesbian and homosexual lifestyles. Anti-Masculinity: At the recent U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, the theme was the role of men and boys in achieving gender equity. There was considerable emphasis on teaching young boys to be more "sensitive" and less "aggressive." Characteristics that are stereotypically "male" were clearly undesirable and consistently portrayed in a negative light. According to Betty Friedan, the mother of the feminist movement, women are victims. Being female means having delusions and false values and being forced to find fulfillment and identity through husbands and children. Friedan worked nine hours a day – declaring that being a wife and mother was "not going to interfere with what I regarded as my real life." Not surprisingly, Friedan's three children had to undergo therapy to deal with what was called "the emotional fallout." Gloria Steinem was the beauty queen of the feminist movement. Steinem coined two phrases – "reproductive freedom" and "pro-choice" – bringing a brilliant sense of marketing to a movement that glossed over the realities of promiscuity and abortion and propelled so-called "sexual freedom" into the mainstream. Steinem famously declared that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Known for her bawdy diatribes, Germaine Greer preached that sexual liberation is the path to fulfillment. Greer has had "several" abortions – which left her unable to have children. She was married – briefly – for three weeks, during which time, she brags, she cheated on her husband seven times. Andrea Dworkin and Katherine Mckinnon made the ridiculous assertion that "marital sexual relations are a form of rape." Some feminists considered this bold leadership. What a hideous idea – to distort the God-given capacity of a man and woman to love each other and produce new life by describing it as rape. The list could go on. Not all of these women are well-known, but their ideology has played a significant role in betraying the very ones it is purported to benefit – women and children – and it has been instrumental in producing massive damage to both the culture and families. The good news is that after 40 years, we are beginning to see a new generation of women question the feminist heresy that has produced so much devastation to families. The whole feminist movement began to unravel with the idea that inhibiting sexual desire is a bad thing and it completely came unglued when it began to focus so intensely on promoting lesbianism. The Liberal British anthropologist J.D. Unwin, a popular writer in the '30s who was a follower of Sigmund Freud and a friend of the Huxleys, believed that people are healthier with free sexual expression. He set out to prove that point by studying every civilization in human history for which records survive. He conducted extensive studies of 86 societies in the 1920s. What he found surprised him. He found the total opposite of what he expected to find. He found powerful evidence that the traditional monogamous nuclear family is an essential key to social vitality. He found that when parameters around sexual expression were loosened – that when sex outside the confines of marriage became the norm – there wasn't a flowering of human civilization and a burst of creativity and productivity like he had expected to find – indeed as he wanted to find. Instead, what he found was the exact opposite – that after a generation or so of sexual license a culture falls apart and implodes – cultures like the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians. The United States is following that pattern. We have been conducting a generation-long social experiment in America. For 30-40 years, we've been saying that sex is recreation and commitment is unnecessary and that it is nobody's business who somebody sleeps with as long as "nobody gets hurt." The problem is: Plenty of people get hurt – men, women and children – and all of society is damaged. Last fall [2003], a new study came out called "Hardwired to Connect." The study was a joint effort by three groups – the Dartmouth University Medical School, the YMCA of America and the Institute for American Values. These organizations studied a mountain of data and came up with three major conclusions. • First, human beings are hardwired to connect with each other.What struck me about these three findings is that all three are tenets that feminism has tried to destroy. A whole generation of young women has grown up being told that they don't need a man and many are actively hostile toward all men. Women have been told that they don't need to "bend the knee" to anyone – including God; that they are sufficient unto themselves and independent of everyone else. And, feminists have tried to instill the idea that gender is a social construct and that all of us need to get in touch with both our masculine and feminine sides. All across our culture, we can see the results of an ideology that has attempted to destroy all of these hardwired connections. What has happened to a movement that was supposed to make it possible for women to "have it all"? You can see both the positive and negative outcomes in a 78-page report I wrote: Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century. It contains 100 years of data about women's well-being in the United States. The most significant finding in that study is about the prevalence and problems of single-mother households. When there is no father in the home, there's trouble. Regardless how heroic that mother is, the absence of the father in the home is a loss that has dramatic and serious impact on both boys and girls. Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study of the impact on boys ages 12-22 when there is no father living in the home with the boy. What they found is astounding. When boys that age grow up without a father in the home, they are 300 times more likely to get into trouble with the law than are boys whose fathers are in the home. Not having a father in the home is the single most important variable when it comes to a boy getting into trouble with the law. Father absence is a more significant predictor than ethnicity, poverty, religion or socio-economic group. Duke University just finished a study on fathers and daughters. They found that girls who lose their fathers from the home before their 6th birthday are five times more likely to become promiscuous before their 16th birthday than if the father is there until they are at least age 6. And, if a girl loses her father from the home after age 6, she is twice as likely to become promiscuous. Adlai Stevenson said, "The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning – not the end." But, we didn't stop this revolution at its beginning – and we are living in the midst of cultural disintegration all around us. Will we be able to do anything now? At the end of the revolution? One thing is clear – no nation can long endure without strong, healthy families founded on the inviolable institution of marriage – the union of one man and one women committed to each other for a lifetime. Home / General Interest |