Some Enchanted Evening
by Jennifer King

January 11, 2001

"The Heretical Housewife"

Being a liberal requires little contemplation. After all, we are all programmed for it from birth. From the "parenting" magazines to "Teen Cosmo", TV and the public school system we are all educated - dare we say brainwashed - with liberal homilies. Liberalism is absorbed unthinkingly into the psyche, the "feel-good" emotional message overpowering the proven negative consequences of liberal actions.

However, once aware of the culture war, it is easy to spot the tireless and unchanging platitudes spouted by the Left. The message is always the same, and is rooted in the rebellion against Biblically mandated morality which started in the 1960's. This message has proven particularly harmful to women, but the women's magazines and the women's movement are still bravely touting it.

"Sex outside of marriage is good, good, good! Do it! Do it early! Do it often, and with as many perfect strangers as you can pick up! By the way, here are some exercise and fashion tips so that you'll look good in the bar when some guy sizes you up as a potential one night stand and in the buff later on when you take him home. And, here are some pointers on the STDs that you might encounter along the way..." "And, if you should happen to get pregnant, hey! No biggie - have an abortion, or just look at all the unwed mothers who are STARS!"

This is what "feminism" and "liberalism" has wrought for women. A thinking woman should compare eras. In previous decades, women were revered and actively courted for the honor of obtaining their hand in marriage. Their husbands usually stuck by them, through good times and bad. Together, they raised their families.

Today, young women don't even get taken out on dates. Instead, they go to frat parties or bars, where they "hook up" with some anonymous dude - have meaningless sex, usually fueled by alcohol or drugs, and stagger on home. "What was that guy's name?" Put another notch on the belt.

Who has benefited from this "free love" movement? Women? Or men? And the fact that both sexes feel free to leave their spouses in favor of a younger model or to "find themselves" has damaged a whole generation of American children.

Danielle Crittenden, the author of "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" (subtitle, "Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman") has chronicled the journey. In her interesting book, Crittenden researched women's magazines from the '70's when the incipient demise of men was heralded and celebrated. Who needed a man, anyway? Fast forward to the '90's, when the same women's mags are packed with tips on attracting and keeping men, and women in their late thirties are bombarded with "quizzes" on their romantic aptitudes and how they can modify their characters in order to get a husband, or at least a live-in.

Can we say, "irony"?

What feminism refuses to admit, (and what drives 40 year old women into plastic surgery clinics in order to compete with their 20 year old rivals), is basic human nature.

Humans crave intimacy, are happiest when married and most women have an innate desire to produce and raise a family. Committed "career" women usually eventually find loneliness at the end of a day when faced with another Lean Cuisine and the attentions of their cat. Doubling the irony, this is precisely when men their own age are the least interested in them, preferring instead more nubile attractions.

Women who've been career tracking then find themselves frantically searching for a mate with the clock ticking in the background. Or they adopt as a single parent. Or they need fertility treatments because their previous promiscuity has damaged their reproductive capabilities. Or, they remain unmarried and childless - some happily, some unhappily.

Either way, the Gospel of Limitless Sex has really not been "liberating" for women.

It's allowed men to behave irresponsibly and women have lost the power they carried back when men had to make an effort to please and to woo them. They've lost romance. They've lost that "enchanted evening". ***

© 2001 Jennifer King

COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN. All writers retain rights to their work.