Sultan Abu Lteif

Women Should Reject Feminism
Male/Female Roles, 2005
"We've Gone the Wrong Way, Baby: Time for Women to Go Home," www.etherzone.com, May 21, 2003.
Copyright © 2003 by Ether Zone. Reproduced by permission.
In the following viewpoint Resa LaRu Kirkland argues that feminism has had a devastating effect on women and children. Prior to the women's liberation movement in the 1960s, according to the author, men respected women for their tenderness. However, Kirkland argues that by encouraging women to leave their homes and join the workforce, feminism stripped women of this tenderness and thus of the respect they once received from men. In addition, Kirkland contends, when women went to work, they abandoned their children to nannies and day care. As a result, in her opinion, children today are more violent than they were before the feminist movement. Kirkland maintains that women should resist feminist ideals and devote themselves to their families. Kirkland is a military historian and columnist for Ether Zone, an online alternative news source.
As you read, consider the following questions:
  1- According to Kirkland, why did mothers in the 1960s begin taking the easy way out?
  2- In the author's opinion, what did feminists demand in the twentieth century?
  3- What is the goal of feminism, as stated by Kirkland?

  I'm ashamed to be a woman. I feel less for it ... like I don't quite measure up. Now understand, men have never made me feel less. No, this inferiority complex began about 35 years ago with a little thing called Feminism. Feminism has made me ashamed of my sex—as a group and individually.
  There was a time when women deserved respect—because we are mothers, because of our natural softness and tender feelings, because we have been the ones who raised up righteous leaders of good nations for centuries now. We dropped the ball on that most vital role, not men. Consequently, we don't deserve the respect that men—yes men—have bestowed upon us any... [continues]

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