IT’S SEVERAL weeks old, but this New York Times interview with Gloria Feldt, former head of Planned Parenthood, is worth reading for its insights into the feminist mind, particularly for its stunning admission that feminists consider housewives to be traitors. Simone de Beauvoir claimed it was wrong to be a housewife. Feldt agrees. She says this of unemployed women:

They make it harder for the rest of us to remedy the inequities that remain. We have to make young women aware of how their choices affect other women. It should be acceptable criticism to point out that, although everyone has the right to make their own life decisions, choosing to “opt out” reinforces stereotypes about women’s priorities that we’ve been working for decades to shatter, so just cut it out. And, the “individual choice” women have to become stay-at-home moms becomes precarious when they try to return to the workplace and find their earning power and options reduced. If we could see child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we could collectively recognize that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected to uncritically celebrate every individual’s decisions[emphasis mine]

When feminists say that they only want freedom of choice for women, they are either lying or inadvertently stating a falsehood. The society that does not explicitly support and celebrate the unpaid mother and wife is waging a battle against her.

Feldt also candidly admits that feminism is a war against men. She says, “It’s partly about overcoming social norms that overemphasize niceness, deference and attractiveness to the opposite sex.” She says women create “barriers’ for other women by being polite toward men in business meetings or agreeing to take on the lion’s share of household duties.

                                                 — Comments —

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

In the passage by her that you quote as representative of feminist intransigency, Gloria Feldt makes at least three sophomoric basic-language errors, which I take as a sign of her intellectual development. 

(1) The pronoun everyone is grammatically singular, as its final syllable indicates; the plural pronoun they is therefore not its proper subsequent in a sentence.  (He is, or she, where the context demands it.) 

(2) In the if-clause of a rigorous if-then construction, the verbal tense should be the past simple; the modal verb (could, would, might, ought) appears in the then-clause. 

Feldt’s ungrammatical construction: “ If we could see child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we could collectively recognize that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected to uncritically celebrate every individual’s decisions.” 

A grammatical reconstruction of the same:   “If we saw child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we collectively recognized that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected uncritically to celebrate every individual’s decisions.” 

 (3) Infinitives are units, which writers should not split, as Feldt does when she makes the phrase, “to uncritically celebrate.”   The correct word order is, “to celebrate uncritically”  or “uncritically to celebrate.” 

Of course, grammar is part of the patriarchal conspiracy, from which it is the messianic task of feminism to deliver us all, whether we want to be delivered or not.  Grammatically speaking, Feldt is a slob.   

Laura writes:

“ If we could see child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we could collectively recognize that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected to uncritically celebrate every individual’s decisions.”

Feldt uses this clumsy construction to obscure what she is saying. She knows everyone will get what she is saying but she is less than direct. If she is called to justify her views, she won’t have to answer for them. She will say, “Oh, but I really meant everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want. I am only talking about guaranteeing women’s choices.”

Children are a “necessary task” and not an identity. That is such a priceless quote. Any woman who loves her children and her husband, who cares for them with her whole identity, is forgetting that they are merely a “necessary task.” 

I do agree with Feldt on one point. Society cannot support conflicting ideals for women.

Karen I. writes:

Gloria Feldt does not seem to realize how much housewives help working women. If it were not for housewives, working women with children would often have things much tougher. It might even be impossible for them to keep working in many cases, without the help of housewives, including relatives who provide free child care. Housewives provide opportunities for women to keep working on snow days, sick days, the half hour between when school ends and a parent comes home, and other times when daycare is not an option. I have watched children (for free) to help working mothers several times, often on very short notice. The daycare subsidy program in my state even requires parents to list an alternate caretaker if the child is too sick to stay in daycare. They will not release the funds until an alternate is named. Usually, housewives are the only available alternate caretakers. 

It is a matter for a husband and wife to decide if a woman should be a housewife. As long as they both agree on the issue, no other opinion matters. Housewives should realize this early on. They should also realize they will always have to face some sort of disapproval, even from extended family. I think that the sort of things Ms. Feldt said can be terribly discouraging to new housewives and lead them to return to work. I hope that any housewife who reads Ms. Feldt’s comments and feels bad remembers that there must be something very important about housewives if powerful women are so threatened by them.

Laura writes:

It is not just individual working women who rely on housewives, but society still lives off a dwindling legacy of manners, civility and culture that would never have come into existence if most women had not once devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their families. And this dwindling legacy will not survive at all unless most women do so again.

Jill F. writes:

Gloria Feldt is quoted as saying,  ‘the individual choice’ women have to become stay-at-home moms becomes precarious when they try to return to the workplace and find their earning power and options reduced.”Is such a statement true? Those who want to vilify homemaking as a legitimate choice often repeat that if will hurt women later on when they return to the workplace. Do housewives just clean their homes mindlessly for many years and then, if they choose to return to work later, find that all they have left in their shrunken brains are pictures of windex bottles and dirty diapers? 

The oft-repeated myth that women who return to work after choosing to be an at-home mother are at a severe disadvantage has been accepted as a universal truth…but is it true?

The women at home that I know are much like my Aunt who, after gaining a literature degree from Stanford, stayed at home to be the best wife and mother she could be and that included creative and wiitty interaction with her family and friends. She supported her husband as he built his dental practice and became well-known in the community. After her boys were grown she decided that she wanted to put her writing skills to work so she called up a well-known advertising agency and obtained a position there almost immediately. She went on to enjoy a twenty year career in advertising. The creative ideas for her career flowed from her home life and her love of family and community. She was also more available to focus on her work with the good work of raising a family behind her.

Although my degree is from a state University and not an Ivy league one, I find that with the passing of time and the hard work and experience of being a parent, I am much more “qualified” in several areas of expertise than I was as a younger woman. I have not worked outside the home for many years but have worked hard instructing and caring for my large family. I speak to homeschoolers about education with an authority that I would never have appropriated if I had spent 20 years inside a classroom. I guess you could say that learning and reading and living out knowledge in the confines of my home without any other accolades besides my husband telling me that he is proud of me has matured me into a woman who is on the “cutting edge” of educational theory! I am extremely competent, responsible and qualified to transition into the career world and I know that my options and earning power will not be “reduced” by these years I have been “just a housewife”.

I have no desire, however, to transition to a career outside the home when my life is full and rich and immersed in the creative wonder of family life. I like it here. : – )

Alan writes:

In regard to Gloria Feldt,  all I can say is what a complete display of nihilistic arrogance from her. She thinks our society undervalues women? Well, it does but not in the way she thinks. And all this from a woman who works for Planned Parenthood, a business operation profiting (with government subsidy) from the slaughter of the unborn under the deceitful banner of “reproductive choice”. I need no more proof that God exists than the existence of evil such as this. When I look into the eyes of someone such as Gloria Feldt and see such a perverse, degenerate, and profane deviation from the Good, True, and Beautiful, there remains no doubt that these exist and God is their source.

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