In an attempt to explain why a generation of women born in the 1960s and 1970s are finding themselves living lives of solitude, a male friend emailed me All the Single Ladies, thinking I’d buy into the writer’s load of crap. The 39 year old single woman spends an endless amount of ink trying to convince herself and single women everywhere they are happy living empowered lives of solitude, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
This article is depressing and full of denial. Thanks to the 1960s Feminist movement which spawned theory of patriarchy, hatred of all things male, and re-engineered traditional gender roles, American culture from academia to business world led women could be all things to themselves: provider, wonder woman, and in some cases mothers without men in their lives. While some women may genuinely want to live alone, I believe most women, including the author, don't want to live in solitude or be independent women.
Unfortunately, this post sexual feminist revolution compelled women to enter the work force with this mindset they should not only compete with men but act like them, out earn them and convince themselves they don’t need them. The grand result of this revolution waged by the likes of Gloria Steinem, Kate Millet, Chris Weedon, Bell Hooks and other horrid, male hating women is a generation of barren, single women because the gender roles have been thrown into chaos. Since 1976, the percentage of women in their early 40s who have not given birth has nearly doubled and marriage is on the decline. As Atlantic Kate Bolick wrote “Gloria Steinem said, in the 1970s, “We’re becoming the men we wanted to marry.” I doubt even she realized the prescience of her words.
What’s worse is liberals perpetuate this super woman, feminist fiction by attempting to slay traditional gender roles. Washington Post reporter Ruth Marcus mocked Ann Romney as “stay at home mother” while glorifying Michelle Obama as pinnacle of womanhood for “raising a family and pursuing a career.” If any political party is engaging in a war on women, it’s Democrats. Women are intelligent creatures who can decide for themselves if they want to stay at home, work, be pro life or pro choice; we don’t need Democrats trying to live our lives for us.
During my senior year of college at Georgetown University, I was forced to take a feminist criticism seminar as part of my Honors English major and hated it. I and other women in the class couldn’t understand why we were required to re-evaluate the great works of DH Lawrence, Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw and others as male demons who exploited women. Of course this couldn’t be further from the truth books like Madame Bovary and plays like Romeo& Juliet gave women a voice reflective of the times in which they lived.
You can’t deconstruct these great literature and impose a twisted patriarchal narrative upon them, sorry women aren’t stupid. We also had to read lots of lesbian feminist theory for the seminar, which was even more hateful of men but curiously weren’t assigned any theory written by women who denounced this feminist jihad on the arts and every other aspect of life.
Thanks to the feminist movement this rise of woman has emasculated men to "being deadbeats or players" and is well on its way to making traditional gender roles in relationships and marriages obsolete. Because women think they can do it all, men expect them to and this has turned many men into Peter Pans, who delay commitment, refuse to man up, and demand women go Dutch on dates.
A Time article Women, Money & Power glorified the new Pan trend of stay at home dads and female bread winners. The writer notes “Danny graduated from the University of Michigan and took a job in finance, but he rebelled at the crushing hours. So in the mid-'90s, he left to become a stay-at-home dad to his two daughters.” My first reaction was how pathetic and Danny needs to man up.
I would argue the majority of women don’t like this role reversal and if they had guns held to their heads would admit it as much. Time writer Liza Mundy observed “One university vice president admitted that when she was dating, she took pains not to let men walk her to her car, for fear her BMW might make them feel inadequate.”
Women need to start making men feel inadequate and force them to act like men not boys again. In our quest for independence, women have made things far too easy and comfortable for men. Where women are failing is lying to ourselves about what we really want. This new paradigm where men depend upon women for economic stability is screwed up and doesn’t sound like female sexual freedom to me but a life of purgatory.
A male friend quipped recently during conversation on the topic “women make it too easy for men now and you don’t seem to have a need for us so why should we grow up.” The time has come for women who believe in traditional gender roles to give Peter Pan the heave hoe and tell him don’t come knocking again until you’re wearing your man shoes and pants. Don Draper of Mad Men certainly isn’t the perfect man but he knows what the definition of a man is, a provider who protects the homestead, doesn’t shrink from his responsibility and when needed tells a woman “this is the way is going to be done.” Let the revolution of woman begin anew!