It was only when I became a Christian that I slowly began to see not only the Godly purpose and high calling in parenting and marriage, but the beauty and sense of teamwork, bonding and belonging God’s teaching on the family instilled—if only we let it!
Previous to becoming a Christian in Christ, I had kicked against the goads of being wife to my husband, and mother to my kids, due to an unsettling sense of having fallen short, even though they loved me and I dearly loved them.
I was simply imbued with an “ought” that I allowed to dictate my worth; an “ought” that I was not living up to because I had chosen to be at home with my kids.
This “ought” was the brainchild of the cultural and contextual worldview into which I had been born, raised and encouraged: the Women’s Liberation Movement.
This movement of “liberating” women from the enemy—men and childrearing, was not the same, I realized years later, as Women’s Rights. I didn’t know to make that distinction back then, because the distinction, in my world anyway, was never made: it wasn’t made in my home, public education or university experience.
Therefore, all of the progress in procuring the legal rights that women require to be equal with men got mixed up with the “Women’s Lib” movement. So if a person was not on board with every tenet of Women’s Lib, they were accused of being "male chauvinists,” or “against” women’s rights, or—for women specifically—looked down upon as “doormats.”
But the Women’s Lib movement is a far cry from Women’s Rights.
Because one of the rights a woman has, and “ought” to be able to have, is that of being a mom and wife, and to enjoy and take satisfaction in the living out of that choice—something the Women’s Lib movement, in my lifetime, attempted to (and succeeded) in taking away from me, if only for a short time.
The Women’s Lib movement took it upon themselves to declare to young girls and women everywhere:
“You do not have a right to want to ‘just’ be a mom and wife. And you certainly have no right to actually take pleasure in and receive a sense of accomplishment in the living out of that choice.”
The liberation movement adopted and denigrated the moniker “housewife” to shame any female who so chose that very calling: a mom and wife who does not “work” outside the home.
Thus, anything “traditionally” female was frowned upon: “staying home” with the kids; sewing one’s own clothes, cooking—even keeping a clean, organized living abode was deemed to be “below” any woman worth her salt.
To live this way was not only a "drudgery," but an insult and let-down to women everywhere.
As I grew older, it started to seem to me that the “Women’s Movement,” as it was now starting to be called, simply had a vendetta against men.
Again, I can’t emphasize enough the separating of women’s rights from women’s liberation. All women benefit when they gain rights, but many women lose and are disadvantaged when they buy into “liberation.”
Case in point:
Take the situation today where women find themselves just as much, if not more, as sexual objects as ever before. We can thank the Women’s Lib movement for this lack of progress—even regression—for telling women that birth control would liberate them sexually and they could now have sex before and outside of marriage, with as many partners as they wish. They could now be equal to men in this regard.
Hmmm, funny how it is still primarily the woman who is sexualized and preyed upon by men. In the “sexual revolution,” the woman is still the loser.
A woman liberated has been given the go-ahead—under the guise of equality—to give sex away, with very non-liberating consequences: unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, broken hearts and physical violation by men who used them, and the very objectification that the Women’s Lib movement claimed to be against.
This same promiscuous autonomy leads to the enabling thinking that justifies sexual affairs outside of marriage as well, leading to divorce and broken homes.
Ironic how the Women’s Movement remains silent on this, except to continue to blame men, redirecting the fallout of what is largely the women’s liberation movement’s own doing.
A woman with sexual rights, on the other hand, would not give sex away, especially outside of marriage.
The Women’s Liberation movement, I believe, has set back the progress women have made through the gaining of rights, and will continue to impede progress as long as we confuse liberation with rights.
Women’s Liberation and Women’s Rights will always be at odds with each other, because in the former, someone has to lose, whereas in the latter, both women and men win.
As long as women’s rights is muddled by liberation, women everywhere will be undermined.
More posts yet to come on this...
Copyright Barb Harwood
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