An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
Women the Future of Freedom
Buying and reading Ayaan’s new book (and posting about it) earlier today, reminded me of an article written by her for the American Enterprise Institute, which got published at the AEI website one month ago called Women the Future of Freedom.
As with all her brilliant articles, it provides for a great, inspiring and informative read. Please consider reading it and sharing your thoughts on it.
4 Responses to “Women the Future of Freedom”
It is a great read and I find that this quote sums it up well:
It’s interesting too how many people are now seeing the need for empowerment of women. The feminist movement of the 60′s and 70′s accomplished many things but it went astray in two ways: first, it strived to make women just like men instead of celebrating the differences and claiming power based on the inherent positive qualities of femininity, and second, the leaders of the movement abandoned their principles of opposing violence and subjugation of women when it was politically expedient. It looks to me that there may be signs that some women-and men- are now waking up to this and becoming motivated to begin a new phase of feminism.
C Stanley,
Your second point is stronger than your first. You are correct that too many feminists have looked the other way when horrific regimes around the world commit atrocities against women. To be fair, feminists pushed for the ouster of the Taliban before anybody else. And they HAVE in fact decried Islamic subjection of women. But that hasn’t prevented them from keeping alliances with groups that support those horrid regimes. Just as some top Christian conservative groups have remained mum over the Foley scandal for fear it would destroy their larger ambitions, some feminist organizations have steered clear of undermining fellow elements of the left-liberal coalition.
On the first point I disagree entirely. The feminist movement adjusted to the claim that they are trying to make men out of women a long time ago. By the late 1970s, women were celebrating childbirth (natural, of course!), nurturance and pacifism as distinctly feminine traits. In fact, one could argue that feminist groups went TOO far in this direction, claiming absolute moral superiority of women over men.
Elrod,
I see elements of correction within the movement at times, but I disagree that they went as far as you seem to think on issues of value of childbirth, and more importantly, childrearing. There’s still a very big divide between women who choose to take a hiatus from careers, or make adjustments to career ambitions, or even to forego careers in order to focus on parenting.
But yes, I can see your point about taking the celebration of femininity too far (I see elements of that in New Age religious movements, to be sure). It shouldn’t be about either gender being superior but it should be about promoting the best qualities of each gender and empowering individuals to embrace the positive and minimize the negative traits inherent in their gender roles.
Uh, I should have proofread: the last sentence of my first paragraph should have ended with the clause: “and those women who find other ways to balance family and career ambitions.”