Letters

Feminism dead? (letter)

Contents - Sep 2002 - Buy a copy now Editorial: AD2000's Fighting Fund launched - Michael Gilchrist Is the self-destruction of Anglicanism to continue? - Nigel Zimmerman News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Vocations: Corpus Christi Seminary enrolments bounce back - Michael Gilchrist Promoting Catholic vocations in the Melbourne Archdiocese - Joanne Grainger CHURCH ATTENDANCE: The family, feminism and the declining role of fatherhood - Richard Egan The 1960s 'cultural revolution': from self-sacrifice to self-fulfillment - Fr Gregory Jordan The strange case of Father Damien and Robert Louis Stevenson - Fr F.E. Burns PE Australian Rosary CD wins international recognition - Colleen McGuiness-Howard John Paul II and World Youth Day in Toronto: an Anglican perspective - David Warren Letters: Church design (letter) - Greg Briscoe-Hough Letters: Renovations (letter) Letters: Abortion (letter) - Bob Denahy Letters: Seminaries (letter) - Andrew Sholl Letters: Media complaints (letter) - Michael Daniel Letters: Feminism dead? (letter) Letters: Teaching the faith (letter) - Kevin McBride Letters: Zero tolerance (letter) - J. Dekker Letters: Priestly 'uniform' (letter) - Philip Robinson Letters: Horse and cart (letter) - Arthur Negus Letters: Shakespeare (letter) - John Doherty Letters: Vatican II (letter) - Valentine Gallagher Books: Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: The Arians of the Fourth Century, by John Henry Newman - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: The Lost Shrine of Liskeard, by Claire Riche - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Christianity for Buddhists, by Frederick Farrar - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Think Piece: Religious, Ethical and Moral Values, by Sebastian Camilleri OFM - Mark Posa (reviewer) Marilen Studios: a Christian approach to business - Joe Padero Music: CD specials from AD Books Reflection: The Christian way to spiritual maturity - Fr Dennis W. Byrnes PP

While paging through the August 1992 issue of Reader's Digest, I chanced upon an article. The title was arresting: "The Feminist Betrayal". The author, Sally Quinn, asks: "Is it possible that feminism, as we have known it, is dead? I think so. Like communism in the former Soviet empire, the movement in its present form has outlasted its usefulness. The people who spoke for the feminist movement were never completely honest with women. They were hypocritical ...

"The movement was so intent on achieving the legitimate goal of equality in the office that it tried to regulate people's personal behaviour. And that's where the feminist movement ran into problems. What's happening now is that more and more women are falling away from 'feminism' because they feel it doesn't represent them or their problems."

This is indeed a timely realisation and a salutary revelation, all the more cogent because it comes from an honest and courageous woman. Says Quinn: "By trivialising the important issues in people's personal lives, dismissing what really goes on in the hearts and minds of women, the movement hurt itself and offered a target for its enemies."

This is what I candidly asserted at an important gathering - and I have been ostracised ever since!

Not much later, Margret Mills published her well-documented research and masterful study entitled, Woman, Why Are You Weeping? She was vehemently denounced and even threatened with dire consequences in a court of law. To this day nothing has been done! Yet another instance of the classic anomaly: "No prophet is ever acceptable in his/her own country."

Says Quinn, "For most women, equality and justice are at the head of any agenda. What most don't want is to be told how to live their personal lives. They feel betrayed and lied to because trying to live a politically correct personal life doesn't always work ... ".

"The truth is many women have come to see the feminist movement as anti-male, anti-child, anti-family and anti-feminine. And therefore it has nothing to do with us ... Most of us also have husbands, sons and brothers and fathers we love. We want them to be people who care about equality as much as we do."

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Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 15 No 8 (September 2002), p. 14