The Feminists Are Wrong.

Go to school. Get a good education. Pursue a career. Be independent. Prove to the world that you don’t need a man.

Burn your bra and shout hallelujah! You don’t even need a man to get pregnant anymore! You can do it all on your own!

These are the messages that we tell young girls. These are the messages that my girlfriends and I were told growing up. And there is some value in some of the statements.

But in an attempt to get out from the thumb that oppressed us and prevented us from owning property, voting, and having equal pay, have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

I was born in 1979. I will be 30 in May. My girlfriend’s ages range from 24-41. All of us have college under our belts, are professionals, and some even have advanced degrees. Most of us vote. Some of us own homes. Some of us are even in positions of upper management. But at the end of the day, when the hustle and bustle of the outside world passes, and it’s one girlfriend confiding in another, we all share the same sentiment:

We just want to get married and have babies.

Now before all the feminists gasp and start quoting Elizabeth B. Stanton and start yelling about the importance of a woman’s education, calm down. I get it. I was a product of a single parent home. I saw how my mother struggled on a secretary’s salary and child support from my Dad. (Yes, he was present, paid it on time, and remained a wonderful father after the divorce.) I currently live on my own, pay my own bills, and am fully responsible for myself.

But I wonder if in all this fight for equality the importance of family was lost. With us being so independent, I think men are sometimes intimidated and unsure of the role they are supposed to play. With the so-called “liberating freedom” of birth control was lost the respect for a woman’s chastity and the importance of reserving intimacy for the marriage bed.

Marriage itself seems to be more of an accessory in our life to the main event which is, of course, ourselves. We are more concerned with “sowing our wild oats” than we are committing ourselves to a relationship that is based on denial of self.

Those who finally do settle down are having smaller families, and divorce rates are up. Way up – up to fifty percent!

In Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice” the Bennett sisters are boy crazy. Hormones aside, their drive to find a husband comes down to one word: survival. If they did not marry, they were Spinsters that were subject to care by their families or communities. Physical touch was extremely limited, and marriages had to be approved by the parents. Women often married out of need rather than out of love.

In “Sex & the City”, the characters sleep with whom they want, when they want, and lead lives of so called “independence.” Yet with all their “independence,” three of the characters seek the same thing as the Bennett sisters: a husband to love them unconditionally.

So I wonder with all of our “advances” in society, how far have we really come?

I’m not suggesting that we return to the days of Jane Austin, but perhaps a society where family is valued and people are seen as a child of God would be a step in the right direction.

Something to ponder.