For The Ladies Only

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For The Ladies Only
by Linda A. Prussen-Razzano, Dallas Bureau Chief

January 20, 2003

"Candidly Yours"

Linda A. Prussen-Razzano Let me candidly admit I was surprised by the reaction I received to one of my recent columns, entitled, "Mel Gibson and the Vast Right Wing." I received a number of e-mails, reply e-mails, and more from folks as far away as Hawaii. It appears that my personal philosophy on life, and how I allowed that philosophy to translate into action, resonated with like-minded individuals across the country.

Please allow me to share another, one that is more personal and intimate than perhaps most columnists permit.

I thoroughly reject modern feminism. I reject it on several levels, for a number of reasons, but the primary reason is its underlying message of worthlessness.

Worthlessness? Yes. Instead of elevating women, it dehumanizes and trivializes them on the most basic, intrinsic level.

I happen to believe that every single person begins this journey with a lifetime of opportunities. They are wonderfully original, their very uniqueness conveying upon them a treasured status: individual. No other woman in the history of this world is made just like me, with my genes, my experiences, my thoughts, my potential. I believe that because I am uniquely individual, I should not share the most intimate part of myself with anyone undeserving of such an honor. I believe that I deserve to be loved, to be cherished, to be respected. Likewise, I expect that anyone who would honor me with his gift deserves my love, my respect, and my highest esteem.

I believe that this gift should only be exchanged when we, my love and I, have made a firm, obvious commitment to each other. I believe that children should be joyfully accepted as an extension of our mutual love and respect for each other, with both willfully embracing the responsibilities that accompany the guiding of this new life through a startling, exciting, and, at times, troublesome world. I believe that my wants and needs are secondary to those of my children, who, precious innocent individuals, require my love, protection, and guidance.

I know, having lived these beliefs, that I am able to sleep in bed at night next to a man I am proud to call husband, have two beautiful children who have formed lasting, loving bonds with both parents, and am resting in a comfortable home that will be ours after only 288 more mortgage payments.

I look to the women around me, women who embraced the feminist mystique, who celebrated their "liberation" and mildly chastised me for my self-imposed frigidity. Some never married, reaching an age where children are no longer an option, dates are so rare as to be non-existent, and marriage an abandoned dream. Some enjoyed their liberation and found themselves with children, who they raised on their own, some doing well, others swallowed up in financial ruin, fighting with the fathers for piddly child-support checks. Others rejected the children and aborted them, recognizing that the fathers, so evident under the sheets and so absent above them, would never lift a finger to help raise them.

The bra-burning, sexual liberation, appreciate your appetite mantra of feminism was a lie, ladies. Some of you knew this early on, some discovered later, some still enjoy your freedom and think that I’m old fashioned. But we all know that knocking boots is a universe apart from making love, that bedding down with dogs only gets you fleas.

Perhaps you married, believing in a happily ever-after, and the ex-husband was a low-down dirty scum. If you freed yourself from that distasteful marriage, I applaud you. Whether you admit it or not, you believe, in part, some of my philosophy; that you deserve to be loved, to be cherished, to be respected. But for the girls who accept the lie that sex is equal to love, that you don’t need love and respect to be happy, the road ahead is full of crater-sized potholes and mammoth roadblocks.

What they are saying to themselves, and to the world, but particularly to men, is this: I don’t deserve to be loved, to be cherished, to be respected. I’m not special or unique or wonderful. I’ll share the most intimate part of myself with you just for the heck of it, for fun, for a night’s thrill.

Is it no wonder they will attract men who treat them as they expected to be treated? ***

Photo of Linda Prussen-Razzano courtesy of staff files