The Ugliness of Seventies-Style Feminism

In a recent “Review” section containing a variety of lifestyle content, the Wall Street Journal chose to give front page real estate to a short essay by Erica Jong, the author and pioneer of a certain feminist sexual frankness.  The piece in question was an attack on attachment parenting (which has features such as babies sleeping in the bed with mother and father) and environmentalism (of the type which would urge the use of cloth diapers).  Jong’s critique is broad and encompasses more than advertised.  For example, at one point she expresses her frustration with Gisele Bundchen’s  declaration that all women should breastfeed.

Of course Jong is upset.  She is from a generation that eagerly embraced things like bottle-feeding and formula so as to gain a degree of freedom from the immediate needs of the infant.  The important thing, from the ideological perspective, was that the child not get in the way of the aspirations of the mother.

Her attitude is summed up nicely here:

Women feel not only that they must be ever-present for their children but also that they must breast-feed, make their own baby food, and eschew disposable diapers.  It’s a prison for mothers, and it represents as much of a backlash against women’s freedom as the right-to-life movement (italics mine).

Jong repeats the tired old libel that the REAL reason for the existence of the right-to-life movement is that SOME people want to keep women down, keep them penned up in a kitchen or chained to a vacuum cleaner.  It could never be that such people have some greater concern for, I don’t know, the right of an unborn child not to be arbitrarily killed.  Nah.

The type of feminism on display is one which believes completely in doing what comes naturally when it comes to sex, but not with regard to reproduction or the nurture of children.  To the extent that people such as Angelina Jolie or Gisele Bundchen (both singled out for criticism by Jong) represent a backlash against such callous attitudes, I say rage on.

 

Comments

[GL]

It all comes down to whether one considers children a blessing from God or a burden or even a curse. It's that simple. My wife breastfed all four of our children for a total of 73 months (that's a little more than six years or an average of a little more than a year-and-a-half each). Did doing so imprison her or provide her with a profound blessing? She would say the latter. It all depends on how you receive what God sends your way.

[Margaret]

It's only a prison if you can think of better things to do than be wholly wrapped up in your miraculous baby. I never could think of a single thing better.

[Another Margaret]

I breastfed my children until they got teeth (9 to 12 months.) Men don't know what they're missing:-)

Seriously, Erica Jong had a point. Not wanting children is a very good reason not to have any, and this is now a choice for women. Wanting to have children and a career is also a choice. Women can pump milk at work and can choose non-Neanderthal husbands who have the emotional sophistication to help with child-rearing. And women can still choose, as I have done, to stay home and home educate their children. Because I chose this path willingly, freely, and without pressure, I chose it as a feminist. It's my vocation. I don't expect every other women in the world to make the same choice, and I don't expect Erica Jong, a Touchstone editor, or myself to presume to make a choice for any other woman.

[Michael Bauman (not Dr.)]

....and MY will for ME is the SUPREME AUTHORITY!!!!

Of course I would NOT PRESUME to critize any CHOICE anyone makes because after all CHOICE is what makes us free, right?

No, no, no. The only choice is to do God's will or our own. "All we like sheep have gone astray everyone to his own way..."

If we seriously don't believe it is possible to discern God's will, then what is the basis of our faith except for a cold and bloodless deism that relegates God and humanity to eternal separation despite the Incranation. God wishes nothing more than for us to be in conscious communion with Him, to share in His life.

Is it really that hard to say that a life that is purposely barren, lived only within the parameters of self, rejecting the service of others, castrating men and masculinizing women is not in acord with God's will.

[GL]

"In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

[Another Margaret]

Michael Bauman, please don't confuse yourself with God. Women don't need to be told they have to do YOUR will. Each of us can ascertain for ourselves what God's will is. And we don't have to agree with you!

[GL]

St. John Chrysostom wrote of those who use contraception, "What then? Do you contemn the gift of God [fertility and children], and fight with His laws? What is a curse [infertility and childlessness], do you seek as though it were a blessing?"

I think the good saint's words pretty well sum up the attitude expressed by Ms. Jong.

[Michael Bauman (not Dr.)]

...another Margaret: Belive me, I know I am not God, not in my own life, least of all in yours. No confusion on my part. I realize that I am dependent on God's grace for my life and that His wish for me is abundant life, pressed down, running over. However, my own sinfulness cuts me off from realizing the great gifts I would otherwise have. Unfortunately, my sin (choosing to cut myself off from God) also effects everyone else.

Human beings are not autonomous beings each of us free to forge our own course in life without consequence.

Whether we like it or not, each and every choice we make effects everyone else. Each and every choice we make either distances us from God or brings us closer to Him. When God condesended to take on our nature, He eternally linked each and everyone of us together in Him, whether we like it or acknowledge it.

In the hardness of my heart, I frankly don't care what you do with your life, unlike God. In the softness of my heart, what little there is, I care deeply when people reject life and the God who is its source, it makes me sad.

The notion that we are autonomous is false. It is eqully false to assume because I challenge that notion and its corollary that there is no standard of behavior which is normative and healthy for humans base on the way God created us, I am playing God, is just absurd.

God commands. If we submit to His love rather than the scattering of our own degraded will, passions and desires, each of us personally and in society with one another would be much better off.

Fortunately, God forgives even if human beings do not.

[Another Margaret]

Why assume, though, that a woman having a career is against God's wishes? I can think of many good and Godly reasons why a woman might follow any one of a number of paths. One of the problems I have with this site, when I occasionally dip into it, is that several posters seem to think there is only one moral path -- the one that they personally have decided is acceptable.

And GL, why assume that women should want to follow John Chrysostom? What about St. Catherine, a doctor -- and a childless woman -- of the Roman Catholic Church? Quite frankly, some of those saints were probably very conflicted about their own sexuality and had very peculiar and unhealthy ideas about women.

[GL]

"Why assume, though, that a woman having a career is against God's wishes?"

I've made no such assumptions. That's not the issue. The issue is should women view having and breast feeding children a prison or a blessing.

"I can think of many good and Godly reasons why a woman might follow any one of a number of paths."

True, to a point. Many paths may indeed be Godly ones, but not all. You may note that Ms. Jong compares women who advocate breast feeding (which is also heavily promoted by the National Institute of Health because of its benefits to mother and child, see http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/Breastfeeding.cfm) to those who advocate against abortion. That says volumes on how she views children.

"And GL, why assume that women should want to follow John Chrysostom?"

Because he was a devout man of God who was expounding the lessons of Holy Scripture and applied them to our daily lives.

"What about St. Catherine, a doctor -- and a childless woman -- of the Roman Catholic Church?"

St. Catherine took vows of virginity and was celibate. Is that what Erica Jong advocates?

"Quite frankly, some of those saints were probably very conflicted about their own sexuality and had very peculiar and unhealthy ideas about women."

Really? And why do you say that? Could it be because you reject their teachings and, so, feel it necessary to impugn their character?

[(another) Elizabeth]

There's a meditation here waiting to be written - perhaps Kamilla is up to it?

The idea is this: God the Father is the ultimate attached parent. He wants to be with us, to nurture us, to love us and meet our own individual needs; he wants us to remain close to him, nourishing us with his own body - except that we are never to wean. Just as a breastfeeding mother's milk constantly changes and adapts to be whatever the nursing infant requires at that time, so too does the medicine of immortality, served from the common cup, minister to each sinner. As an Orthodox priest prays following the consecration: "...distribute these gifts here offered, to all of us for good, according to the individual need of each."

Anyway. Thanks, Hunter, for your thoughts. Much to ponder there.

[Another Margaret]

"The issue is should women view having and breast feeding children a prison or a blessing."

Each woman needs to decide that for herself. This is not your decision to make for her. If a woman sees children as a prison, that's a very good reason for her not to have any.

"Really? And why do you say that? Could it be because you reject their teachings and, so, feel it necessary to impugn their character?"

When men attempt to condemn women to roles of their own (i.e., the mens') making, one can assume they have some level of discomfort with women. We've seen traditionalists being outed as sexually troubled (Catholic priests, fundamentalist ministers, traditional politicians) again and again and again.

[Christopher Hathaway]

except that we are never to wean

I understand your point, but I would rather say that there is a way in which we are weaned, or will be weaned. St. Paul talks about those who are still not ready for meat, but only consume milk. I think God wants us to grow beyond mere spiritual infancy and become full partners, junior partners, with him. This may only be fully achieved for us after the Resurrection. But that Jesus calls us "friends" indicates a relationship beyond motherhood.

[David Gray]

>When men attempt to condemn women to roles of their own (i.e., the mens') making,

What you should be concerned about is when they are of God's making...

[The original Margaret]

Show me a woman who sees breastfeeding and mothering as a prison, and I'll show you a woman with fundamental problems in her character or psychology. A "prison?" A PRISON, to nurse your baby!? Come now, what kind of dysfunctionality have we here? THis is your baby we're talking about.

We should no more yield to this hateful characterization of loving service than we would yield to approving the choices of a man who walks away from the prison of supporting a family. Life and morality are more than the individual creature's default preference settings.

If a woman's choices, whatever they be, must be accepted unquestioningly by all, why shouldn't men's choices also get carte blanche enshrinement? As a woman, what I dislike about my tribe is the spoiled refusal to be held accountable, spiritually or intellectually or at any level, to anyone, on any issue, big or small--the fierce defense of the right to be shallow and insipid.

[Another Margaret]

Original Margaret, you're exhibiting a self-aggrandizing belief -- that you get to decide what another woman's choices "should" be. Thankfully we don't live in a fundamentalist theocracy.

[Sibyl]

Our choices, for our own sake and the sake of those connected to us, must be guided by God's Moral Law...refusing fornication, adultery and thus abortion.

Ms. Jong does not wish to abide in the sanctuary and freedom of God's Word/Law because her unregenerate mind does not see and value God or His Word as does the Psalmist of Psalm 19 and 119, sweeter than a honeycomb, a light for our path, the way of salvation, blessing, peace and eternal life.
No argument will ever convince her...only the Holy Spirit can reveal the Risen Lord and turn her heart.

[The original Margaret]

As CS Lewis pointed out in The Abolition of Man, there is no moral or ethical arguing with someone who has stepped outside the Tao. They cannot go from observed fact, or the truth or falsity of a proposition, to whether an action should or should not be done. Should has no meaning outside the Tao.

But this nullity applies to all moral precepts, including whether one should murder or steal. Life outside the Tao is not only dehumanized, but dangerous.

Note, no self-aggrandizement here--I did not make up the Tao, and I bow to its authority.

[Benighted Savage]

Note, no self-aggrandizement here--I did not make up the Tao, and I bow to its authority.

"Oh bother," said Pooh.

Perhaps it would be better to say that Another Margeret's solipsisms carry no moral force, divine or natural, than to make inscrutable pronouncements about the Tao.

[Another Margaret]

"They cannot go from observed fact, or the truth or falsity of a proposition, to whether an action should or should not be done. Should has no meaning outside the Tao."

We're not talking about factual truth here. We're talking about ethical opinions. Why assume your own are so holy and other women's are not. Sorry. That sort of judgment is self-aggrandizing.

[GL]

"Each woman needs to decide that for herself. This is not your decision to make for her."

Did I propose any legislation to mandate breastfeeding or childbearing? No one here as proposed denying women the legal right to decide. What I've done, rather, is the criticize Ms. Jong in particular and the general attitude that she expressed that breastfeeding is a prison.

"If a woman sees children as a prison, that's a very good reason for her not to have any."

It's even a better reason for her to change her vision of children.

"When men attempt to condemn women to roles of their own (i.e., the mens') making, one can assume they have some level of discomfort with women. We've seen traditionalists being outed as sexually troubled (Catholic priests, fundamentalist ministers, traditional politicians) again and again and again."

We're all fallen, traditionalist and progressives, believers and atheists. I could name any number of progressives and atheists who are sexually troubled. The role of mother and nurturer is not a role of man's making; it is a role gifted to many women by God. When women like Ms. Jong say what she has, one can assune that they have some level of discomfort with their own natures.

[Kamilla]

Very well said, GL.

It is not a male-made "role" to have the very great privilege of bearing and nurturing the next generation! This is a gift to us from our Creator, who knows how to give all good things. If we ask for a piece of bread will he give us a rock?

It is a sign of how far we have fallen as a culture that a woman such as Jong is not universally laughed to scorn for seeking to deny her very nature, claiming it is a prison to which mere males want to condemn her.

We can only pray that some other mother's child will take pity on her and wipe the drool from her chin, bathe her and change her diapers because, in her dotage, she will be in a prison of aloneness of her own making.

[Christopher Hathaway]

"But women will be saved through the bearing of children"

The act of bringing one particular child into the world not only permanently removed the stain from woman had since Eve's deception, it would remove the stain from the enture human race. There is nothing more glorious in all creation, next to the sacrifice of Christ, than the birth of him from a woman who thought it no burden.

[GL]

If you're curious about how Ms. Jong's attitude toward child-rearing played out in real life, read what her daughter wrote at Growing Up With Ma Jong: Yes, she was hippy-dippy and career-obsessed, but she worked hard to give me choices. Here's a brief excerpt:

In the '80s my mother left my father. She got shoulder pads. She was made fun of in Spy magazine. She traveled the world. I lived in a town house with a hot pink door in New York City with my nanny Margaret and Sugo the houseman, who had a mole that had hair growing out of it. Mom made money, bought me expensive handbags and tried the best she could to relate to me. But she was famous, always touring, always working, always trying to cling to the New York Times best-seller list.

Famous people, who are often intensely driven workaholics, are typically not focused on their children. We saw each other, but my mother was filled with the fear of slipping into domestic life and sabotaging her own career. I think that much of my mother's ambivalence toward me and toward parenting in general was a response to my grandmother, who seemed to feel her children had destroyed any chance she had at a legacy as a painter.
Mother Madness

In the late '80s my mother found Mr. Right, a thrice-married divorce lawyer, and settled down. She got a Lexus, started yoga again (but this time with no grass) and shifted into middle age. She was now an Upper East Side doyenne, and she was afraid that bourgeois life would suck her in and transform her into something other than an artist. To my mother and grandmother, children were the death of a dream; they were the death of one's ambition.

[The original Margaret]

Another Margaret, let's concede your point that I'm judgmental and self-aggrandizing. On what basis do you judge that wrong?

[Another Margaret]

How amazingly uncreative and unimaginative does one have to be to be unable to assume that women and men cannot fill several different roles? What thought processes lead one to believe that one's own definitions of male and female roles are the only ones acceptable? How intellectually moribund does one have to be to be unable to imagine alternatives that work better for some women, men, and families? There are men who enjoy nurturing infants and children. There are women who offer services to the world in roles other than stay-at-home mom. I'm glad there are people who can think outside the box.

[Another Margaret]

"Another Margaret, let's concede your point that I'm judgmental and self-aggrandizing. On what basis do you judge that wrong?"

Original Margaret, you're asserting that there is one acceptable position -- your own. That's fine for YOU. By all means live by it, but let other women make their own choices.

[GL]

"How amazingly uncreative and unimaginative does one have to be to be unable to assume that women and men cannot fill several different roles? What thought processes lead one to believe that one's own definitions of male and female roles are the only ones acceptable? How intellectually moribund does one have to be to be unable to imagine alternatives that work better for some women, men, and families?"

And who here has said that women and men cannot fill several different roles or that their own definitions of male and female roles are the only ones acceptable or even to reject alternatives that work better for some women, men and families. I've, anyway, limited my comments to Ms. Jong's description of breastfeeding as a prison. The NIH, hardly a den of right-wing Christian fanaticism, has found through scientific study that breastfeeding is better for mother and child. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I take that to be a scientific fact. Yet, Ms. Jong views what science shows as best for mother and child to be a prison for the mother. Perhaps it is Ms. Jong who lacks imagination in failing to see the blessings and benefits of breastfeeding and perhaps that is because she placed her career above her daughter. Her daughter's own words seem to testify to that fact.

"There are men who enjoy nurturing infants and children."

True, and I think my children would say that I'm one such man, but I didn't, because I couldn't, breastfeed them.

"There are women who offer services to the world in roles other than stay-at-home mom. I'm glad there are people who can think outside the box."

Indeed, my wife worked full-time even after the birth of our first child and part-time until after the birth of our fourth child. Yet she still found time to breastfeed all of them. Perhaps you are the one who lacks imagination and fails to see outside the box, seeing only two opposing alternatives, being a good, nurturing mother or working at a career that demands so much of time and energy that there is nothing left for nurturing children.

[John Willard]

"How amazingly uncreative and unimaginative does one have to be to be unable to assume that women and men cannot fill several different roles? What thought processes lead one to believe that one's own definitions of male and female roles are the only ones acceptable? How intellectually moribund does one have to be to be unable to imagine alternatives that work better for some women, men, and families?"

How rude. Are the commenters on this blog these things because they disagree with your position? I would have expected more from a proponent general tolerance, except that crowd always seems so intolerant.

"Original Margaret, you're asserting that there is one acceptable position -- your own. That's fine for YOU. By all means live by it, but let other women make their own choices."

If you're not arguing that your position is the only acceptable one, then why are you arguing it at all? The argument is over whether women should use the will of God as the basis for their life choices or their own desires. Let's not, for the moment at least, try to discern what the will of God here is. Can you go at least that far with me? That, after all, was not Dr. Michael Bauman's original complaint with your original post, that you assume that what matters for your life is what you want. This is pretty clearly not the Christian position.

[Margaret]

Okay, again, let me resubmit my question, recast. How do you go from "I don't like it when people state positively that breastfeeding is not a prison," to "Thou shalt not make judgements of value and thou art bad for doing so." You believe you are free from shall and should. But you sneak it in the back door by imposing your dictum of "no valuations allowed" on others.

[Margaret]

GL, if you had read my previous posts, you would understand that women can provide breast milk without actively nursing their babies. A woman can pump milk, which can be given to her baby by, for example, her husband. Women also have the option of not having children.

John Willard, I am arguing, as I've said before, that staying at home and breastfeeding is ONE option, but neither the ONLY option nor, necessarily, the Christian position.

Other Margaret, you have clearly misunderstood my position. See the previous sentence.

[c matt]

We're not talking about factual truth here. We're talking about ethical opinions

Seems an ethical opinion should be based upon factual truth, or the opinion will not be worth much. Just sayin'.

[Margaret]

"Seems an ethical opinion should be based upon factual truth, or the opinion will not be worth much. Just sayin'."

People differ a great deal in their ethical opinions, and there may be many truths behind the formulation of an opinion that are prioritized differently. We'd live in a very intolerant and conflicted world if well all started claiming only our own opinions were "truth" and should therefore be followed by everybody else.

[Michael Bauman (not Dr.)]

...but if all we have are opinions we have no ethics at all. If we are unable or unwilling, as Christians, to even attempt to understand God's standard, what's the point?

If we are unable or unwilling to conform ourselves to God's revealed standard (and thereby the culture), what's the point?

Notice, the action starts with ourselves, not our neighbors.

However when public commentators such as Ms. Jong make statements that are so egregiously outside of any rational Christian anthropology, we are bound to publically call folks attention to the error are we not?

[Margaret]

The point is we don't all hold the same opinions. Not all of us are Christians, and there is tremendous diversity of opinion within the Christian community. When we claim that our own opinions need to be accepted by others, we start treading on other peoples' rights. There are extremists who believe women shouldn't have access to contraception or shouldn't be allowed to work outside the home or that same-sex relationships should be criminalized. That's fine if they want to implement their ideas within their own lives. Too often, they try to force their ideas down the throats of others and quite a few then violate their own principals in their own lives. They should do the opposite. As a Christian, I don't see the little snippet of Ms. Jong's views displayed above as anti-Christian in any way. She's stressing that women have options. I agree, although I personally chose the life of a homeschooling mother. I have a truly wonderful, gentle, and enlightened husband who could do the same job as well as I could. If I had not wanted to make the choice I did, I probably wouldn't be very good at it, in which case my children would be better off with my husband staying home and me being the bread winner. That's working with reality. There is nothing unChristian about finding creative choices that work. We should be capable of thinking outside the same tired, old boxes.

[Benighted Savage]

People differ a great deal in their ethical opinions, and there may be many truths behind the formulation of an opinion that are prioritized differently. We'd live in a very intolerant and conflicted world if well all started claiming only our own opinions were "truth" and should therefore be followed by everybody else.

Margaret, what do you think about the Prof. David Epstein case? Prof. Epstein and his daughter apparently decided to "think" outside of the box and have a 3-year incestuous relationship (apparently this began after the daughter turned 18 years of age, and so the police are saying this is consensual incest). Are the prosecutors who charged Epstein and the Manhattan judge who arraigned him on a count of felony incest being intolerant and judgemental? Am I a bigot because I agree with the Bible, and the State of NY, and believe that incest is NOT a licit option?

[Margaret]

Benighted Savage, what does this have to do with breastfeeding or staying home with babies?

[Benighted Savage]

Benighted Savage, what does this have to do with breastfeeding or staying home with babies?

Aside from questions of what amounts to good or bad behavior, not much. However, I might also ask what your following argument has "to do with breastfeeding or staying home with babies":

"When we claim that our own opinions need to be accepted by others, we start treading on other peoples' rights. There are extremists who believe women shouldn't have access to contraception or shouldn't be allowed to work outside the home or that same-sex relationships should be criminalized. That's fine if they want to implement their ideas within their own lives. Too often, they try to force their ideas down the throats of others and quite a few then violate their own principals in their own lives. They should do the opposite."

Here and elsewhere you've been addressing more general questions: the relationship between morality and law, between religion and the commendability and licit character of behavior. Thus my question about the Prof. Epstein case, which you are free to answer or ignore.