Feminism and Divorce

[Kaninchen]

While WWII had an effect, I would still think the 60s ‘revolution’ was the turning point of the US forever changing for the worse. The 60s boomer era was pretty much the cut-off point from structured married to un-structred marriage. Remember the world has gone through many wars before WWII, and people yet still were able to retain some sense of family structure. We still have WWI, the Napoleonic Wars, the communist revolution, American revolution, Civil war, Korea, French revolution, Punic Wars, Cold War, Pagan Rome’s persecution of Christians, the Mongol expansions of Genghis Khan, etc. We really can’t single out one war as the sole arbitrare.

Despite having lived in the US (perhaps because!), I couldn’t really talk about the American experience, only the European. The Second World War was a devastating experience in Continental Europe and the UK, while not having the same set of experiences, was completely exhausted.

Your other examples, more or less relevant, left certainties intact or created new ones. The difference with the Second World war was that it was the great destroyer of certainties.

 

[a_cermak]

While WWII had an effect, I would still think the 60s ‘revolution’ was the turning point of the US forever changing for the worse. The 60s boomer era was pretty much the cut-off point from structured married to un-structred marriage. Remember the world has gone through many wars before WWII, and people yet still were able to retain some sense of family structure. We still have WWI, the Napoleonic Wars, the communist revolution, American revolution, Civil war, Korea, French revolution, Punic Wars, Cold War, Pagan Rome’s persecution of Christians, the Mongol expansions of Genghis Khan, etc. We really can’t single out one war as the sole arbitrare.

Sometimes, I think even the reformation could have been a spark for it also. But its bad effects would only later surface around the 20th century when the Anglican Church OKed birth control and later on most protestant communities OKed abortion.

But that sixties revolution (the epicenter put at 1959 by a recent author of a book of the same name), also led to a changing of the US for the better. It ended de juris segregation. It ended discrimination at jobs just on the basis of gender, race, or ethnicity. It ended poll taxes and other means of keeping certain people from voting. It started the ball rolling so we could have women on the ballot to be elected to the presidency or vice-presidency.

The sixties made my lifestyle (career woman in engineering, before than in civil service) possible. The 60’s made the future wide open for my daughter, nieces and all other young women and for that I’m exceedingly grateful.

I have nothing against women who choose to be home makers. I’m just glad its an option and not a duty.

 

[JimG]

But was the promotion of unlimited unmarried sex at an early age something that was needed to end discrimination against women and minorities? They weren’t demanding sex, they were demanding jobs and equal employment rights.

 

[Kaninchen]

But was the promotion of unlimited unmarried sex at an early age something that was needed to end discrimination against women and minorities? They weren’t demanding sex, they were demanding jobs and equal employment rights.

Indeed. In fact the ‘Women’s Liberation Movement’ of the late '60s/early '70’s (the beginnings of modern radical feminism) was a product of a discovery by radical women at the time that women needed a separate ‘liberation’ movement because radical men were no different from non-radical men - they saw women as sex-provision-objects who made coffee.

So ‘radical’ feminism had its origins in a refusal of promiscuous heterosexual sex and hasn’t, as far as I’m aware, varied in that.

Of course, what feminists view as ‘radical feminism’ and what Catholic Conservatives view as ‘radical feminism’ might well be entirely different things! Probably works the other way around, most feminists would probably regard CAF as a ‘Christian Taliban HQ’.

 

[Benadam]

I think women were responding to men who had forgotten the meaning of life structured in the bonds of matrimony… As that population of men grew the indignation grew in the hearts of wives and daughters. There are two bonds that structure human society. Society structured by the response to life generated within the environment it provides. The maternal bond, law that all animal society forms to. The matrimonial bond, vow that is chosen and spoken. Requires the upper faculties. The former is the environment Cain was born in the latter Seth.

The rising of the maternal bond as the matrimonial bond deteriorates. The bond chosen by a man and a woman usurped by a bond that is chosen only by a woman.

These bonds are the foundation of all human society. Right now the husband/ father has been written out of right to choose because the right to choose who is allowed to be born is entirely in the woman’s hands. The maternal bond has risen to be queen on the throne. ‘I possess’ …this is what Cain means and Eve said when he was born. This is the law of that unspoken unchosen bond.

Man would be helpless to stop the maternal bond from overwhelming and snuffing out human society structured by the exercise of freedom. The Mother of God describes a maternal bond too.

I have a feeling Adam chose to not generate offspring untill the environment that produced Cain was purged. Until the maternity provided by Eve would produce a male in the image of his father. Seth, raised in the bonds that manifest Man’s freedom. The original feminist movement and it’s resolution. There’s nothing new under the sun.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I didn’t think you Catholics were too keen on ‘modernism’ in the first place, never mind postmodernism!

Not too keen at all. But it’s not just a Catholic problem. Look at the effects of “modernism” and “postmodernism” around you. By “effects”, I mean something very specific, namely, the loss of “community” and reifying the Individual, Man, to the detriment of community, society, and worst of all, God.

If I am a “humanist”, Man is the center of the universe; particularly the Man presently typing this sentence. In all forms – Renaissance, Enlightenment, Haskala, Postmodernism – human-centered philosophy corrodes society and loosens the ties of community.

Compare the Reform movement to the Orthodox / Chasidic and Conservative movements: I live in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, which is primarily a Jewish neighborhood (I pass 4 synagogues on two streets alone on my way to church every Sunday, and my 2 1/2-year old attends pre-school at the JCC!). I attended a Reform Friday evening Shabbat service with a buddy of mine about 3 weeks ago. The Rabbi played a guitar to accompany the Cantor who sang contemporary Hebrew religious songs. The service followed no particular Siddur but was prepared ad hoc by the Rabbi and Cantor. Apart from the lighting of candles and recitation of the Shma, there was little of the service that would be recognizable to a Jew of 100 years ago. Now – the congregation: Average age in the room was, say 60. Maybe about 20 in the Sanctuary, tops; mostly grandparents. But where were their children and grandchildren? The answer is, they had either moved away, intermarried, or wanted nothing to do with Friday evening Shabbat service. Despite the upbeat guitar strumming, there was odd unsettling unease in the room.

Now, Friday evening at one of the Orthodox shuls (the inside of which I’ve only seen during food festivals and fund-raisers): Floods of people swarming down the street through the doors; women in long skirts, men in hats or kippos, payes, and tallis, donning tefillin as they enter. They all live in the neighborhood, as do their parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They gather together to socialize at the JCC, the Lubavitch center for lectures and klezmer concerts (Chasids), and the Yeshivos. They are a “community”.

In short if your worldview is centered on You and Your relationship with God, or how You can “use” God to “get” you things (or throw God out of the picture entirely), you will experience the anomie and disaffection that postmodernism brings. Having put Yourself at the center, you find that the center cannot hold, and you cannot then wonder why families are scattered, couples divorce, children are not raised properly, civility declines, rudeness increases, etc.

I think that the Second World War in Europe, in particular, led to what might be described as the shattering of certainties. Nothing in the ‘traditional certainties’ had worked to prevent the catastrophe and this, taken together with the truly awful reality of how the previous ‘alternative certainties’ (a vision of liberty and justice in a workers’ state) was turning out, called everything, certainly the certainty of certainties, into question.

Well put. Philosophical discussion of theodicy / the problem of evil was transformed by WWII. I think Susan Neiman summed it up pretty well in her recent book (review here)

ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1211

And believe me, my Bible is especially dog-eared around the books of Job and Koheles. But I think the loss of faith after WWII was misdirected. In other words, we had put our eggs in the wrong basket. The root of Modernism was empiricism or positivism, namely, the belief that Logic, Reason, and Science would eventually solve all the world’s problems. But they didn’t; and one man’s particular brand of logic, reason, and “science” has especially horrific results.

If the failure of Modernism has taught us anything, it’s that our faith should have been in God, not science, all along.

Baruch atah Adonai Elokeinu melech haolam, dayan ha’emet.

– N.

 

[Kaninchen]

Not too keen at all. But it’s not just a Catholic problem. . . . .

You know, when I read posts like yours, I’m taken back to my teens and a book I found absolutely wonderful at the time - Candide.

There’s a scene at the end where Pangloss, in true Panglossian style, explains to Candide how all their adventures and misadventures are linked and, without that, “you would not be here to-day, eating preserved citrons, and pistachio nuts.”

Which is followed by:

“That’s very well said, and may all be true,” said Candide; “but let’s cultivate our garden.”

 

[JimG]

So ‘radical’ feminism had its origins in a refusal of promiscuous heterosexual sex and hasn’t, as far as I’m aware, varied in that.

Judging by the results, there apparently aren’t many radical feminists left!

 

[Kaninchen]

Judging by the results, there apparently aren’t many radical feminists left!

I think they used to enjoy warring with one another than doing anything else!

Seriously, though, I think a lot of analysis here conflates whole sets of themes - it’s easier and politically more useful just to ‘round up the usual suspects’.

 

[JimG]

I think they used to enjoy warring with one another than doing anything else!

Seriously, though, I think a lot of analysis here conflates whole sets of themes - it’s easier and politically more useful just to ‘round up the usual suspects’.

Of course. This is the internet. Discussions are limited to 1,000 words. On a similar note, the average sound bite of a political speech on a news broadcast was something like 40 seconds in the 1960’s compared to 5 seconds today. Augustine and Aquinas would have a hard time getting their points across.

 

[Kaninchen]

Of course. This is the internet. Discussions are limited to 1,000 words. On a similar note, the average sound bite of a political speech on a news broadcast was something like 40 seconds in the 1960’s compared to 5 seconds today. Augustine and Aquinas would have a hard time getting their points across.

All gone the way of things like satisfactions (intellectual, physical, whatever) often being better for being delayed.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

You know, when I read posts like yours, I’m taken back to my teens and a book I found absolutely wonderful at the time - Candide.

There’s a scene at the end where Pangloss, in true Panglossian style, explains to Candide how all their adventures and misadventures are linked and, without that, “you would not be here to-day, eating preserved citrons, and pistachio nuts.”

Which is followed by:

“That’s very well said, and may all be true,” said Candide; “but let’s cultivate our garden.”

So, I guess I’m being compared either to Panglosse or Voltaire; which in either case can’t be a compliment!

In high school, they taught us that the “Panglosse” character was a satirical representation of Leibniz, who was the originator of the phrase: “Tout est pour le meiux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.” Although this sentiment may seem hard to swallow after the events of the 20th century, who are we to pretend to know the “greater plan” of the “True Judge”?

Doesn’t “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” seem a bit escapist? Maybe a bit selfish too? What about the communal garden, or our neighbors’ gardens, which often need cultivating?

 

[Kaninchen]

So, I guess I’m being compared either to Panglosse or Voltaire; which in either case can’t be a compliment!

In high school, they taught us that the “Panglosse” character was a satirical representation of Leibniz, who was the originator of the phrase: “Tout est pour le meiux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.” Although this sentiment may seem hard to swallow after the events of the 20th century, who are we to pretend to know the “greater plan” of the “True Judge”?

Doesn’t “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” seem a bit escapist? Maybe a bit selfish too? What about the communal garden, or our neighbors’ gardens, which often need cultivating?

What I meant was that explanations as to ‘why we are where we are’ may be well said, may well be very interesting, even ‘true’ (in some way) but ‘we are where we are’, we’re not ‘somewhere else’, some alternative ending to the story.

I’m a conservative (a European Conservative, not an American Conservative), not a ‘reactionary’. I don’t believe we can ‘go back’ - Europeans have ‘been there, done that’ in the past and it didn’t work, I think we’re stuck with the inevitability of change and making things ‘less bad’ rather than ‘better’. I also believe that saying things like ‘what we need to do is get people back to a God’ (however phrased), within the context I live in, begs a parallel to ‘what would happen if they called a war and nobody came?’

 

[edwest2]

Yes, a concerted effort by Radical Feminists led to a greater divorce rate and the disruption of the proper relationship between men and women. Let’s review:

1960 Introduction of the Birth Control Pill.

mid-1960s Betty Friedan writes The Feminine Mystique. She also refers to the family as a “comfortable concentration camp.”

1968 The turning point. The Catholic Church publishes Humani Generis. In this encyclical, the Pope tells the faithful, if you use artificial birth control, you will be more tempted to cheat on the love of your life, and to devalue the love of your life. The Church is aware that some people think The Pill will allow them to have sex without consequences.

Send in the Hippies. Free love! Sex with anyone. Down with the Establishment! Mom, dad, priests, nuns, they don’t know anything. We’ll burn this country down!

The Sexual Revolution was about sex, not love. Us Catholics were constantly told we were “sexually repressed.” A few of the Hippies started living with their girlfriends. They stopped listening to their parents.

1970s So-called Adult Bookstores appear everywhere. Porn is legal so it must be OK. Topless go-go bars are approved thanks to high priced lawyers going to court for the owners and arguing “freedom of expression.”

Adultery and fornication are now relabeled Swinging.

1973 It’s OK to kill the baby in the womb. Have compassion, we were told, for victims of rape and incest and for women who would die from back alley abortions. Even God was mentioned. “The most difficult decision a woman will ever have to make which is between her and her God.” Where is God in the equation now?

1978 Gloria Steinem of the National Organization for Women and publisher of Ms. magazine yells, “Sisters! Throw off the chains of your oppression!” Men are the eternal enemy now. The patriarchal culture has got to go. Men are called “male chauvenist pigs.” A sense of fear, mistrust and suspicion is given to every woman in the United States.

Which laid the groundwork for No-Fault Divorce to complete its sweep of the United States in the

1980s Porn on cable. I open the newspaper and it’s filled with classified ads: "No kids? $75 and you’re out. Call 800-DIVORCE.

Rising property values during this time forced both parents to work. As Catholics got the false idea that their problems could be disposed of – baby, husband – they began to imitate the world more and more.

Today, Gloria Steinem’s name appears on a document promoting multiple conjugal partners and calling it marriage. This was all planned. Men and women were manipulated. We were lied to. We were led astray. At first, we trusted some of these people. It was a big mistake. Now is the time to fix it.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Kaninchen]

How come you left Darwin out of that, ed?

 

[Nyarlathotep]

What I meant was that explanations as to ‘why we are where we are’ may be well said, may well be very interesting, even ‘true’ (in some way) but ‘we are where we are’, we’re not ‘somewhere else’, some alternative ending to the story.

True. We have to play the cards we’re dealt. But doesn’t it help to know how we ended up holding those cards? To completely mix metaphors, let’s say that you come home and see that your kitchen is on fire. Simply recognizing that fact does not help you. You have to find out if the fire was caused by electricity or grease because if you throw water on an electric fire, well… let’s just say that any theological questions you may have had would quickly be answered.

Similarly, you see a problem in society, say – too many divorces, family ties are becoming untied. It is wrong, as you said, to point to the easy answer (“no-fault” divorce) because, even though it’s convenient, it’s not true that no-fault divorce “causes” divorce.

But it somehow also seems wrong to me to simply sit back and say “eh, what can we do, can’t turn back the clock.” The thing is, history is not unidirectional…

I’m a conservative (a European Conservative, not an American Conservative), not a ‘reactionary’. I don’t believe we can ‘go back’ - Europeans have ‘been there, done that’ in the past and it didn’t work, I think we’re stuck with the inevitability of change and making things ‘less bad’ rather than ‘better’. I also believe that saying things like ‘what we need to do is get people back to a God’ (however phrased), within the context I live in, begs a parallel to ‘what would happen if they called a war and nobody came?’

…so advocating for societal change is not always “reactionary” unless you accept that the direction we’re heading in now must be carried out to its inevitable conclusion. But that’s too simplistic as well. It’s not how history works. We didn’t start from some “pure” ideal and enter on a linear path towards decadence ever since like the ancient Greeks and Hindus believed. There were periods in history when marriage and families have been strong and societies had a strong sense of morality, and there were other periods in history where libertinism reigned and morality was cast aside.

So cultural mores are not a straight line, but not really a pendulum either. More like a billiard ball, or partical in Brownian motion.

And there are those who have made a difference in society; so as long as there are one or two such people around during my lifetime, I just can’t put my head down and tend to my tomatoes.

 

[Kaninchen]

True. We have to play the cards we’re dealt. But doesn’t it help to know how we ended up holding those cards? To completely mix metaphors, let’s say that you come home and see that your kitchen is on fire. Simply recognizing that fact does not help you. You have to find out if the fire was caused by electricity or grease because if you throw water on an electric fire, well… let’s just say that any theological questions you may have had would quickly be answered.

And thereby hangs the tail/tale. The fire scenario has the great aura of testability and replicability about it but this is a message board where rumination, more often or not, is mistaken for discussion.

Similarly, you see a problem in society, say – too many divorces, family ties are becoming untied. It is wrong, as you said, to point to the easy answer (“no-fault” divorce) because, even though it’s convenient, it’s not true that no-fault divorce “causes” divorce.

But it somehow also seems wrong to me to simply sit back and say “eh, what can we do, can’t turn back the clock.” The thing is, history is not unidirectional…

Ending ‘no fault’ divorce would have precisely what effect in societies where people don’t bother to get married anyway?

You see, history only does go one way - the world moves on in all sorts of complex ways. You can’t replicate the ‘paradise’ of the 1950’s (we’ve had such discussions here) by mandating marriage and 2.4 children - you’d have to re-cast the entire industrial system, the entire labor market, the entire financial system, not to mention moving millions of people around. That’s if you could convince the population that the 1950’s (or whenever) had been a paradise in the first place and that it was possible to have, borrowing from Soviet phraseology, "1950’s In One Country’.

What we are faced with are complex phenomena, with all sorts of commonalities (including etiology) but also all sorts of differences (including etiology). Forgive this European for being very, very doubtful about formulas that argue for there being ‘one answer’ but we lost 50-60 million last time out.

…so advocating for societal change is not always “reactionary” unless you accept that the direction we’re heading in now must be carried out to its inevitable conclusion.

Thinking that one can re-establish the ‘order of things’ to that of a previous time is reactionary. Nowhere have I said that social change is always ‘reactionary’, I’m rather accepting of the idea - but at a piecemeal rather than a social engineering level.

And there are those who have made a difference in society; so as long as there are one or two such people around during my lifetime, I just can’t put my head down and tend to my tomatoes.

Never said you had to, we have a garden, we can tend it, we can make improvements, we can learn from our mistakes - we don’t have to hand it over to ‘workers and peasants cooperatives’, Agricorps or, for that matter, horticultural romantics - and only cattle* are stuck with endless rumination.

• and other ruminants, obviously, but the sentence reads better with just one animal!

 

[Nyarlathotep]

And thereby hangs the tail/tale. The fire scenario has the great aura of testability and replicability about it but this is a message board where rumination, more often or not, is mistaken for discussion.

Okay, I knew that inserting metaphors was risky. My point was simply that, in correcting a percieved societal problem, one would do well to investigate the causes of that problem; and that to simply live “in the now” and react to things as they happen (or worse, simply accept them as “inevitable”) without (dare I say?) a little “rumination”, is counterproductive. In still other words, this may not mean much to you, but American sports coaches have a universal tendency, when asked about any particular game, play, injury, etc. to reply: “It is what it is.” I hate that phrase.

Ending ‘no fault’ divorce would have precisely what effect in societies where people don’t bother to get married anyway?

Precisely none. As I described earlier, in those states, like New York, without no-fault divorce, the divorce rate is precisely identical to those states with no-fault divorce.

You see, history only does go one way - the world moves on in all sorts of complex ways. You can’t replicate the ‘paradise’ of the 1950’s (we’ve had such discussions here) by mandating marriage and 2.4 children - you’d have to re-cast the entire industrial system, the entire labor market, the entire financial system, not to mention moving millions of people around. That’s if you could convince the population that the 1950’s (or whenever) had been a paradise in the first place and that it was possible to have, borrowing from Soviet phraseology, "1950’s In One Country’.

What we are faced with are complex phenomena, with all sorts of commonalities (including etiology) but also all sorts of differences (including etiology). Forgive this European for being very, very doubtful about formulas that argue for there being ‘one answer’ but we lost 50-60 million last time out.

Thinking that one can re-establish the ‘order of things’ to that of a previous time is reactionary. Nowhere have I said that social change is always ‘reactionary’, I’m rather accepting of the idea - but at a piecemeal rather than a social engineering level.

I’m with you in one respect: to hearken back to some previous historical era and seek to recapture precisely that era (Golden Age, Age of Heroes, 1950’s America, Pastoral Aryan Urheimat, Soviet Workers’ Paradise, etc.) is not only foolish, but often dangerous. While I don’t believe Martin Heidegger, for example, was a Nazi, he too was caught up in that German Nationalism that wistfully dreamt of a fictionalized past that never was. You’re right, nailing down precisely which etiologies under which circumstances lead to precisely which phenomena is difficult. We can never “go back”. There are no “forumulas” and there is no “one answer”.

Nobody (I hope) is seeking to re-create the 1950’s. That’s not to say that we can’t learn from history to improve the present. If we want stronger families, we look to several periods (not just one, possibly romanticized period) in history when families were more cohesive and society more communal. It is possible. Jared Diamond wrote two books I highly recommend: “Guns, Germs, and Steel” and “Collapse.” The former was a study of why some societies succeeded, and the latter was a study of why some societies failed.

But you’re right, no simple answer will do. For example, according to Putnam, the largest contributor to the delcine of the American “neighborhood”, in the small-town sense we know it, was not postmodernism or the 60’s, or any social or philosophical movement – it was the federal government’s Post-war highway policy!

Never said you had to, we have a garden, we can tend it, we can make improvements, we can learn from our mistakes - we don’t have to hand it over to ‘workers and peasants cooperatives’, Agricorps or, for that matter, horticultural romantics - and only cattle* are stuck with endless rumination.

• and other ruminants, obviously, but the sentence reads better with just one animal!

Co-operatives are fine until the government gets a hold of them. Trouble is, “grass-roots” never seem to stay “rooted” for very long.

Summary: “Social engineering” – bad. Social “tweaking” good. So, while I don’t pretend to know how to “fix” anything, if urban flight to the suburbs is caused by more highway spending, which depends on the numberof cars on the roads, I take the bus to work.

 

[Kaninchen]

Summary: “Social engineering” – bad. Social “tweaking” good. So, while I don’t pretend to know how to “fix” anything, if urban flight to the suburbs is caused by more highway spending, which depends on the numberof cars on the roads, I take the bus to work.

Exactly.

I think it’s enormously important to do something. In my case, I give up one day a week to working for a charity - it could be argued that it would be better to work that day and give them the money but that’s not the point. The point is doing something.

 

[DevotedChild]

Just to set the records straight, it wasn’t feminism that made abortion legalized in America. What made it legalize was that so many women were doing it illegally and dying that P. Obama legalized it so they get through it more safely and because he also knew that no matter if it was legalized or not women would get it anyway, even if it was against the law.

And also, there have been forms of abortion long before this era. Women would eat plants and have charms put on them and all that stuff just so they would not have a certain baby. It is just that within the last few decades that people seem to have seen the problem and are now taking sides on the issue.

Just to let you know I am Pro-Life and not Pro-Choice. I have this post here only to help you keep your history/records straight and to still think rationally while discussing this topic of Feminism.