Feminism: A Civil War Between Women?

The feminist movement has largely been portrayed as a battle of men against women. In “The American Left: From Liberalism to Despotism,” Dr. Slack explains that while there was intense opposition to the feminist movement, the opponents were not whom you might expect. He says,

I would submit that the myth of feminism is that it was a battle against men or a battle against the patriarchy. Rather, . . . it was a battle between what we’d call the sisterhood, or the radical feminists, and women who had traditional gender roles. . . . It was really a battle over what women would honor among themselves, between female elites and the old liberal middle class.  

Dr. Slack points out that in the 1960s and 70s, it was men who spearheaded feminist changes to legislation. Ronald Reagan, while serving as Governor of California, signed bills into law that legalized abortion and no-fault divorce. And it was men in Congress who passed the 1971 Comprehensive Child Development Bill, which would fund daycare centers, and pressed for the Equal Rights Amendment, which would end all constitutional distinctions based on sex.  

In other words, the patriarchy did not stand in the way of feminism; they championed it. The primary opposition came from women themselves. Why?  

At the time the majority of middle-class women, quite simply, thought that marriage and motherhood were good. What particularly incensed them, according to Dr. Slack, was the notion that marriage and motherhood made them inferior to the independent career woman. Women like Phyllis Schlafly thought that the traditional housewife should not be disparaged but remain the ideal for women, and she believed that raising and caring for the next generation of citizens was a noble calling.  

In the end, the feminists’ view of the ideal women—aided by support from government, big business, and the university—won out.   

But who fought this battle isn’t the only surprise. As Dr. Slack points out, the results we see today are often not the utopia that feminist leaders suggested it would be. Women are increasingly postponing or rejecting marriage and having children out of wedlock. The family has broken down. And in the midst of all this, women’s self-reported level of happiness has fallen off of a cliff.