Fitzgerald writes:

Your broadsides against feminism, in all it’s many forms, have been both gratifying and enlightening. As a white, male professional, I must be careful at all times within professional arenas to mind what I say to avoid the backlash of the feminist apparatchiks that haunt the corridors of companies today, especially in Human Resource departments where they reside like jack-booted secret police always probing and searching for pockets of resistance in the white male population. Should it be discovered or exposed I may harbor any facets of a decidedly un-PC perspective on these topics I could incur immediate and swift censure. The peasants must be quelled.

I do wish to highlight one facet of the origins of feminism and it’s ongoing impact that I haven’t seen explored in your blog postings on feminism, and to discuss what I believe men must do to roll back the tide.

Up until about 90-100 years ago, most people lived very close to the land, or in communities where the women were dependent on men. Women are less able to plow fields, they aren’t good at fighting wars, etc. and they are exceedingly vulnerable when rearing children so they were dependent on men for protection, food, etc.. Marriage consequently was first an economic union, secondly a civil and community unity, and only then an interpersonal one. Men worked in the fields, women tended house, raised children, they all suffered privations and a natural asceticism leavened their existence. There is respect between both parties, men and women, a mutuality of purpose and a feeling of shared struggle against nature, privation, and the outside world that reinforced the symbiotic nature of their bonds.

Along comes the industrial revolution. Men begin leaving the locus of the family to work in ever distant locations and their work becomes increasingly less physically demanding, easing their burden enormously. Not only are men no longer forced to scratch out a living in the fields, smithy, etc. but technology creates the ability for them to have an entire life outside the family. The women, however, are still subject to the same duties and struggles, etc. most powerfully the pain of childbirth and the ever demanding needs of their children. The relationship between men and women, especially in those more upwardly mobile as the middle class grew, becomes strained.

A side note, important to the story is the ever present need for respect in any relationship, but especially in intimate relationships. I liken the line of respect to be a tug-of-war between the man and woman with a flag and a pit in the middle. The flag may be permitted to move back and forth some during the relationship, but as long as the flag stays over the pit full of mud, all is well. If someone gets muddy because the other has pulled him into the pit, then much anguish will ensue and much will be lost.

Women, especially middle-class women, have become increasingly embittered and resentful as they continue to endure the sacrifices imposed by childbirth, maintaining a house and they must now increasingly become disciplinarians as well. The men are gone 8-12 hours a day. It used to be the men were nearby and would provide a disciplinary backbone to the family structure, not to say women didn’t also discipline but men do so with a deeper perspective, that of protecting the mother, the family and society at large from unruly children, boys especially.Women begin rebelling, first bluestockings, then more of the upwardly mobile middle-class, and they are angry, resentful and feel an acute sense of loss and estrangement. All of those qualities of women that make them so ruthless when angered are now leveled at men. Men were cowed, and they begin caving in to women and the multitude of forces arrayed against them.

Ultimately, we have lost the respect of the women in our civilization and men must gain it back. How? Allow me to propose a plan.
 
Women, even deeply feminist women, still want men to be men. Women are attracted to the primitiveness of men, but only to a degree. So first, men must not allow themselves to be emasculated. Men must balance their primitiveness, be strong, vanquish enemies, but at they same time men are called to be husbands, husbandry being the cultivation of and protection of life. So men must balance strength with a deft touch.

Nothing centers us spiritually like struggle and it’s incumbent sacrifices. The monastics pursued a life of simplicity and privation to achieve control over themselves and to grow in holiness, they became spiritual giants. Now, few men and women are called to such a severe existence. Therefore the Church Fathers created the seasons of Fast whereby Christians could voluntarily inculcate asceticism in their life by abstaining from rich foods, increasing their prayer life, all to heighten their spiritual senses via sacrifice. Consequently the Great Lenten fast, and later Advent, Dormition and Peter and Paul fasts, were universally adopted across Christianity by the 5th century, East and West.

By adopting a regime of self-control as espoused by the Eastern Christian fast practices, men can reclaim their role as spiritual leaders and gain the respect of their women. This neo-pagan men’s movement of the late 70’s and early 80’s (Iron John, etc) has been attempting to create a model for men to reclaim their spiritual leadership in a de-Christianized manner. Ultimately, it’s a very high calling that asks much of men, and currently most are unwilling to make the sacrifice. Until men are willing to do the work, society and culture will continue to collapse around them as the forces of progressivism, feminism, multiculturalism, etc. as well as other opportunistic factions ever present in humanity looking to exploit human weakness for their own profit, work to immolate and destroy our once great civilization.

Laura writes:

Thank you. You make some interesting observations, but I think your first paragraph is the most revealing. You say your job is at stake if you harbor incorrect attitudes. You are an enemy in your own country. This says more to me than anything else you have mentioned.

Family formation and childbearing are not purely economic activities, or nature at work, in any advanced society. You acknowledge that, but I think you place too much importance on technological changes. I don’t think feminism was caused by any greater burden on women. To the contrary, technology made their lives better and fuller. It also made it possible for them to leave their children, but there too it is not the primary reason women abandoned their roles as mothers and wives.

Family formation and childbearing, except in the most savage societies, are always the expression of larger, non-individualistic goals. The family is held together by immaterial objectives. The highest of these is not love between individuals, as noble as this is, but perpetuation of something larger. The family keeps a culture alive. Individuals can flourish without replicating themselves; cultures are meaningless in the moment and without replication over time.

Why did Western white women – feminism is primarily theirthing – deem it no longer worthwhile to be mothers and wives in the fullest sense anymore, leading to a precipitous drop in the birth rate? The answer is, they no longer had anything to preserve. Western culture had lost its moral standing. The white race lost its legitimacy. Ethnicity became merely ceremonial. Once childbearing is a matter of self-fulfillment and not this larger task of group preservation as well, it can no longer demand a lifetime committment. Women are not fools. They saw motherhood was no longer sacred. I don’t buy your idea that husbands were disappointing women and not fulfilling their role at home. If men failed women it was only in not defending the ideals of their people and their right to dominate the West.

Feminism is a search for lost identity. It attempts to find a replacement for collective purpose normally found in family, faith, ethnic group, race, and nation, all the vital parts of our heritage. The neuroses of family today reflect a collective lack of purpose. Individualism can never hold a group together. I have relative who is a psychotherapist. A couple recently came to her and asked if it was okay if they didn’t have any children. Leaving aside the absurdity of asking someone else’s permission, they exemplified the lack of larger purpose connected with childbearing. The fact that most parents love their children does not change this absence of larger purpose, which is also apparent in the way children are raised, with the emphasis tilted toward their individual psychology and development. 

Neither can self-abnegation alone hold a group together. Abstinence and fasting are worthy as the path to individual goodness, holiness and strength, the spiritual equivalent of boot camp. But these alone cannot save men or our society. Men too must want to preserve something beyond themselves.  Men must consider their culture, and the race that sustains it, worthy of survival. They must recover leadership of the West. It is rightfully theirs.

We either believe we have a right to exist as a people or our culture dies out. A white man either has the power to defend himself in his place of work as a white man, or his people fade away. He does not need to justify himself. If we are a legitimate culture, the sacrifice involved in raising children and sustaining marriage is worth it and naturally confers more meaning than the glory of individual achievement. You see this at work in those groups which have strong families and high birth rates despite the larger trend. Note that they are all groups with a strong collective identity. In America, they are primarily orthodox Christians, such as the Amish and homeschooling Catholics and Evangelicals; Orthodox Jews, and Mormons. Remember, when examining all the technological forces mentioned above, that these groups have successfully resisted the cultural changes these changes supposedly necessitate. These groups have been largely unaffected by feminism and it isn’t simply because they respect traditional sex roles. The respect for traditional sex roles naturally fits in with a larger sense of purpose, which is the strong desire to preserve a culture.  

It’s true that fasting, prayer, abstinence and contemplation can help us – both men and women – to reclaim what is lost. Perhaps we are saying the same thing but you seem to suggest men should pay for crimes against women. I disagree. The women of the West will naturally respect men when men cease to see themselves as the perennial bearers of collective guilt toward other races and toward women.

                                                                                    —– Comments —–

N.W. writes:

Your observation that it is the loss of culture which has lead to the loss of traditional roles within society and marriage was dead on. You’re right, without a rich culture and inheritance to bequeath our heirs what is the point of begetting them in the first place? If all we will get for our efforts is a bunch of noisome snotnosed ungrateful brats why bother? Children are leeches and deadweights upon ones resources and freedom and there is no reason why a level-headed unencumbered individual in a free society would ever wish to subordinate themselves to such indignities. Thus quoth the libertarian.

Facetiousness aside, the other day my father and I were discussing the predicament our society is in. It occurred to both of us that people really don’t give a damn anymore. I know some people who remind me of the horses and soldiers I read of in “Alls Quiet on the Western Front” trudging through an unending hell, so shellshocked they don’t even react to incoming artillery, dumbly accepting their lot; perhaps they’ll die in this barrage or maybe they’ll live to get blown away tomorrow. The point of it is, for all effects and purposes it seems to many that we are at the end of time, history has been obliterated. Yes, there may be tomorrow, but it won’t be any different than now. Perhaps pages will download quicker or the zip drive will hold twice as many gigs but things won’t really change.

So it seems then that in order to escape these cultural doldrums we must hope and pray that the westron wind will once again chance to blow upon our becalmed vessel and allow us to continue with our merry adventure across the pages of a history yet to be written. So. Westron wind when wilt thou blow? And how? And what is to be done in the meantime?

Laura writes:

This indifference is not normal or natural. To paraphrase Lieutenant Joe Cable, in South Pacific, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” You’ve got to be carefully taught to hate your own people and all they stand for.

Sheila C. writes:

I was struck by your reply to the comment regarding feminism and our declining birth rate. I hadn’t really made the connection between women shunning motherhood and white people shunning their culture – although now that you’ve brought it up, it seems blindingly obvious. I always wanted to have children (and babysat extensively from age 12 on) purely for the love of children and the joy of watching them learn, develop, grow. When I think back to women I knew in college, most didn’t want children for the usual selfish reasons – wanted more personal time, big careers, etc. There were some, though, that rejected motherhood on purely physical grounds – they found the entire thought of pregnancy and childbirth invasive and disgusting. Perhaps another way to view that is they saw themselves as mentally and physically complete as they were, with no need of a spiritual connection to God or a physical connection to a spouse and children, and no need of a cultural connection to their people and heritage. Such a predictable progression. There is, of course, also a personal aspect to consider. My older son never showed much interest in babies and at least at present, doesn’t want to have children; my younger often refers to what he’ll do when he’s married and has a wife and children of his own. I fully expect these desires to change as each boy fully matures, but now our culture will actively encourage them to fulfill themselves solo and actively deride a traditional familial role. I can only hope that having been raised in an intact nuclear family will direct them otherwise.

While I hardly think you’re posting for my pleasure or my comments, I would like you to know how much I enjoy all your comments and views. Having a forum where I can openly discuss my views with like-minded people is truly nourishing to my soul, in a culture and society where such unfettered thought is heresy. After fighting my way through a day filled with nothing but Chinese, Indian, Muslim, and Hispanic immigrants, your blog is really an oasis of sanity.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

I’ve thought often about this issue of declining fertility.The platitudes don’t make sense I believe in the case of whites the lowered birth rate is very much affected by unconscious attitudes toward their culture and race. Contraception is not a cause. It merely facilitates. All the pathologies of the modern Western family – divorce, cohabitation, single motherhood, low fertility – are in part a reflection of the diminution in the will to survive as a people. We have turned parenthood into a neurotic exercise because reproducing this way is essentially neurotic. Children are fashioned as perfect single units. No wonder mothers turn away from the terrifying demands of creating perfection.  But quality can only help a culture so much. Quantity matters.  I’m not saying it would be better if women and men viewed themselves as genetic breeding machines. But if they felt some pride in their genetic endowments, as if these were an essential aspect of a great culture, they would want to replicate them and would not focus so much on perfecting the psychology or the living conditions of individual children. Mothers and fathers would be participating in an important project by bringing children into the world and ensuring their survival. These motivations work on a very unconscious level, but are reinforced by the culture at large by the level of confidence it displays.

Perhaps Sarah Palin’s popularity is in some ways a recognition of this. Her large family speaks of this cultural and racial pride. In this sense, I can appreciate her appeal.

Fitzgerald writes:

I meant to explore only one facet of the rise of feminism little discussed in traditionalist circles, not to assert it was a primary cause. I’d probably refer to it more as a catalyst that intensified the changes taking place in the culture at large dating as far back as the 16th century where the rise of the modern Europe began emerging and breaking away from long-held traditions. This split exploded into a full-on crisis by the French Revolution as the progressive forces at war with Church, society and culture at large fully gained the upper hand.

Laura writes:

I don’t understand your point that women were under an especially difficult burden once men went to work in offices. In the fifties and sixties, the workoholism we see today was relatively uncommon. Most men were home for dinner. The work hours for both men and women have increased significantly since then. The more women are away from home, the more men are too.

In early America, many men were away for long periods for fishing, whaling, trapping, and business in the cities. But, you’re right. Feminism couldn’t have arisen in a traditional agricultural era and certainly there are many more jobs today that are appealing to women. That is a significant change.

Fitzgerald writes:

I don’t believe women were under any especially difficult burden after the rise of modern industry, certainly not anymore than they had historically been. In fact, the increases in material wealth and the proliferation of time-saving household appliances greatly reduced the burden from servicing the never-ending stream of dirty clothes, dirty dishes, dirty children and even dirty floors. My point is the growing contrast between the women’s work and the changing realm of what man’s work merely accelerated and deepened female acrimony toward men and “their” civilization. The life of a committed housewife is physically and psychologically challenging, but it’s also very rewarding and ennobling when in the context of marriage, children and fostering love for ones’ people and culture. It doesn’t take much for resentment to creep in, especially if you’ve lost touch and faith in the very traditions and culture you are supposed to be instilling the next generation. If, as N.W. so clearly states, you don’t give a damn, then life is really about pursuit of power and money and staying home tending house and raising your husbands’ brats (it’s always “his” children in these tirades, memory serves it takes two to tango) seems all the more pointless and burdensome and can be construed as oppression in the extreme view. Frankly, I don’t get it, and I’m repulsed and infuriated by the level of animus leveled at men and  Western Civilization today. I feel a prolonged rant coming on, so I’ll go now, and return to my duties, which are greatly ennobled by the need to provide for my beloved children. Thanks again for your erudite insights and seemingly tireless dedication to the institution of the housewife.

Charles writes:

Laura writes: “Men too must want to preserve something beyond themselves. Men must consider their culture, and the race that sustains it, worthy of survival. They must recover leadership of the West. It is rightfully theirs.” 

This just about sums up the whole situation. An excellent comment – thank you. One of the most – if not the most – masculine things a man can do is marry, have children, support his family, and teach them well. Teaching them well includes teaching that our culture, our faith, our ideals, etc., are “valuable” and are transmitted through the ages by each generation. This takes a lot of work. It requires consistent discipline. But it is worth it. 

And yes, men must take the lead. Their families will follow if they will but do so. 

Thank you for an excellent weblog.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing. Like so much else, family life has been feminized into primarily an emotional realm, a sphere of psychological formation. Its significance as a miniature commonwealth ruled by a man who sees the big picture – the preservation of a culture and a race –  has been lost.

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