The following article was posted at the U.S. News and World Report Opinion Page this January written by Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog: This was posted in response to the True Woman Manifesto.
If you have not read the True Woman Manifesto: I encourage you to do so. The link is:
http://www.truewoman.com/assets/files/TW_Manifesto.pdf
Please read the article and the 2 sets of comments posted:
This little ditty about the True Woman Manifesto and so-called submissive feminists is wending its way around the Web, drawing choruses of excoriation from true, or progressive, feminists.
The article recounts a gathering earlier last October of 6,000 such women in Chicago:
The Associated Baptist Press explains the relationship of biblical womanhood to feminism, highlighting an ambitious initiative that arose from the meeting: a signature drive seeking 100,000 women to endorse its “True Woman Manifesto,” which, the ABP writes, aims “at sparking a counterrevolution to the feminist movement of the 1960s.”
To outside observers of the patriarchy movement, the starkness of the calls for gender hierarchy often seem amusingly outdated (not to mention historically misleading: feminist blogs Feministing and Pandagon have deftly dismantled some of the speakers’ Leave I t to Beaver idealizations of the 1950s as a time when women were universally protected).
The article’s headline reads as follows: “Women’s ‘Liberation’ Through Submission: An Evangelical Anti-Feminism Is Born.”
The only problem is, there’s nothing new about this movement or its followers. Anti-women women have existed since time immemorial. Another way of putting it is, women have been smart enough for decades to make their living by telling other women to stay home: witness Phyllis Schlafly (and her Eagle Forum), Beverly LaHaye (and her Concerned Women for America), and so on.
Why don’t men form groups to campaign against other men? Am I missing something? If any of you out there know of such a group, please post about it. Women don’t need to form a movement to stay home, make babies and submit to their husbands. That’s what most women did until a few decades ago. If there are those who want to continue on that path, fine! Just do it. But women have not always been allowed to work, or work in meaningful, high-paying jobs. That’s why the women’s movement was formed.
Meanwhile, can we set up a new gender for so-called True Women, so normal women don’t have to share anything in common with them?
I, for one, am one of many intelligent women who have not bought into the feminist agenda of the last 40 years. I do not blindly “stay home, make babies and submit to (my) husband.” In fact, I have a full-time career and a college degree. Your little snippet of a quote inaccurately portrays the true woman movement. We are wives and mothers who love our God-given role of nurturing our families and we invest ourselves in our families for their good while finding intense enjoyment and fulfillment in these roles.
While we empathize that at one time there might have been genuine need for some form of a woman’s movement that time is long past. The myth that women can have it all: full-time high-paying job and family is not the rewarding path it was cracked up to be even though I love my job. Too many times I am torn between family and work and miss out on occasions that mean more to me in the long run than a career.
The feminists are out of touch with many women’s interests and have politicized femininity. We are more concerned with our families than with our individual rights and the self-centered focus of feminism that calls for women’s rights to the exclusion of our families’ best interests.
What the radical feminist will never understand is that many women are deeply satisfied living within the biblical model of womanhood. This model is based upon a mutual, sacrificial love with submission a very small part of the picture.
The men and women involved in TW are humble and kindhearted. We are not angry or militant. You should do a little more research and get to know those involved before you dismiss this group. Just look at the tone of your articles. You would be better served by a softer, less vitriolic femininity.
MJ of IN
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We’re smarter than that..
Thankfully those with brains realize that the biblical verse of a woman’s submission to her husband includes the husbands submission, humility and love toward his wife. This second part, to me, has until recent times been manipulatively deleted and used to man’s advantage, thereby corrupting organized religion.
I wouldn’t be so concerned over this small movement as it has no legs. We are smarter and wiser today.
That being said, what upsets me more as a person of faith and a feminist, is today’s young women. Our culture is setting the feminist movement back decades with their shallowness, lack of self respect, and return to the dumb sex object role. Instead of focusing on education and worthwhile self-improvement, many (at least what’s seen in the mainstream) are obsessed with their physical self and throwing out the intellectual self. It is important to look and feel attractive, but it saddens me that many of today’s young women are degrading themselves, becoming Barbie doll objects who are more concerned with their outer appearance than their inner beauty….and their minds.
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I post both of these at this time in an effort to bring to light some of what is happening in the world today that continues to effect women.
The second commentor refers to her self as a “person of faith” I no longer know what this means. Does this mean she has faith in “something” or is she trying to say she believes in God/Christ and is being politically correct? Which ever it is I would like to address several of her comments. First of all her comment about True Woman itself…
“I wouldn’t be so concerned over this small movement as it has no legs. We are smarter and wiser today”
To this I will not state my opinion as my opinion has no more weight than her opinion. But The Word of God on the other hand has great weight.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places
Having said this,
I move on to the other point… she shows concern about what has happened to young women,“Our culture is setting the feminist movement back decades with their shallowness, lack of self respect, and return to the dumb sex object role. Instead of focusing on education and worthwhile self-improvement, many (at least what’s seen in the mainstream) are obsessed with their physical self and throwing out the intellectual self. It is important to look and feel attractive, but it saddens me that many of today’s young women are degrading themselves, becoming Barbie doll objects who are more concerned with their outer appearance than their inner beauty….and their minds.”
The culture is setting back the feminist movement by decades. How is this? Who is this culture person? Who gave “culture” all this power!!!!! The culture is formed by the citizens within. The culture in this case are the thousands of women who proudly hail themselves as feminist, progressive, enlightened and smarter. Than those poor “ignorant” women who are so misguided and lied to that they choose to be SAHM’s and put their careers on hold until there children are grown. Who are so weak they “buy into” this submission stuff…..
I too cry out for our young women.
Young women who have for the most part been forced to raise them selves as latch key children, or have been “institutionalized” through day care centers and baby sitters since they were weeks old. Being raised by Mothers that were raised by the feminist pioneers.
Let’s look at what some of the leaders of the feminist movement have to say about women:
Most women are one man away from welfare. ~Gloria Steinem This does not appear to be the least bit respectful of woman. The inference here is that if she does not have a man then she needs welfare?
And from MS Helen Gurley Brown herself… the author of Having it All and Sex and the Single Woman… and long time editor of Cosmo….. the feminist “bible” of sorts:
One of the paramount reasons for staying attractive is so you can have somebody to go to bed with”
How respectful and edifying is this….? She has just told young women all over the world if you aren’t attractive (live up to the latest object of Larry Flint, et al) then you will go to bed alone. Thus inferring you are a loser!!!!!
The message was: So you’re single. You can still have sex. You can have a great life. And if you marry, don’t just sponge off a man or be the gold-medal-winning mother. Don’t use men to get what you want in life – - get it for yourself.” Telling woman do whatever it takes to get anything you want. The end “your happiness” justifies the means. So to “get ahead” you do whatever it takes…which for thousands of women has meant abortion.
I would say that Cosmo was always a feminist magazine; it was before the movement really took shape. The early feminist movement felt I put a lot of emphasis on beauty, which was true Once again to the “person of faith” who thinks the culture has set feminism back decades….. the very issues you call shallow, lacking self respect and being sexual objects…. all of these are just as much by products of the feminist movement as environmental issues can be to a degree tied to our consumerism.
For any of you who think I do not see any validity in some activism by woman. I will simply say this; changes in some aspects of a woman’s day to day life needed change; however feminism is needed in 2009 as much as a labor union is…they have both morphed past their honest roots.
Ladies, I encourage you to take a look at this map outlining all of the women from across the world who have signed the True Woman Manifesto. Shout outs to all of you who have not signed. Please read and sign this manifesto!!!!
