Can the Traditional Family Survive Feminism?

I think there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. I would
propose that you could back this up from the 1950s, to the
1940s. WWII ushered in Rosie the Riveter, and an explosion
of women into the workplace out of necessity. When the
war was over, soldiers returned and married the women, many
of whom stopped working.

But the elixir of female self-sufficiency had been tasted. A
woman's place wasn't necessarily in the home. Feminism
may have been a reaction to the Playboy forum. Based on
their wartime experience, American women already knew
that they needed men like fish needed bicycles. The journey
back into the workplace followed a new path. Rather than
necessity, the human need for self-actualization, along with
the time-saving household appliances you mentioned,
propelled bored housewives into careers, and feminism
became their justification.

Yes, I agree. The reality is that we got where we are now because of a zillion little choices that have been freely made by hundreds of millions of American men and women in the last 50 or 60 years. And the vast majority of those choices were probably made by people who had never read any of the "feminist" books that were written.

If all of these folks were such big fans of Betty Friedan, how come it's never been terribly fashionable to look like her?

People are not made of clay. Only the utopians think that a society can be sculpted with books.

How about this for experiment... government enforces laws that make people keep their promises. When a man says that he will love, honor, and cherish his wife to be till death do he part, then the government, backed by private institutions and peers force that man to keep his promises--else be punished severely.

If he doesn't like that promise, then he doesn't make it. Perhaps he tries out "love, honor, and cherish til he decides to change his mind." And if his fiancee walks out of the marriage ceremony because of it, that's her choice too. If she accepts it, and he does change his mind later, then she must accept the consequences as well.

If you make a promise, then keep it! If you can't keep it, then don't make it. The problem with most marriages today is that the couples simply do not understand their vows; or they believe that any interpretation of them is relative and acceptable.

Here's what my wife asked me before we got married. She said to me, "will you promise to love, honor, and cherish me so long as we both shall live?" And I said yes. And she said, "that promise is still in effect even if I go out and cheat on you and have babies with other men and leave you." And I said, "I know. That's what a covenent is, unlike a contract. If you cheat on me, that doesn't give me right to cheat on you. And of course the same goes for you too. And if you do, it doesn't mean that I'm going stay with you and pretend like nothing happened. It just means that I will never cheat on you in spite of your actions."

So we made our vows--covenently, not contractually. And because of that, if one of us does cheat on our vows, that person should get no special attention in the eyes of the law, and all benefits should remain with the one that kept his or her vows.

I'm a mother and an architect. I find fulfillment in both. No one has lied to me, and even if they had, it is up to me to use my intellect to direct the course of my own life.

Saying women have been lied to and misled is using the same "victim" mentality that many feminist use. It is is patronizing and insulting to women no matter who uses this rhetoric.

Women are smart enough to weigh the pros and cons of their various options and make choices. And the same as all other humans on the planet, if she makes a mistake she should take responsibility without playing victim and blaming it on someone who "lied" to her. What a cop out.

We really need to get over this protectionism and supplying women with ready made victim excuses. Each woman is an individual human. Like each of the other 6.3 billion individual humans she is capable of directing her own life, including, if need be, dealing with the consequences of any misjudgenments or errors.

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