In this entry on modesty, shame and the future of resistance, a reader who has experienced the crass power plays of feminists at work wonders whether traditional women aren’t insulated from the worst of it. I reply:

Every committed housewife in America, unless she is Amish, Mormon, or an Orthodox Jew, lives in the heart of the beast. No one is more despised by our culture than the homemaker who believes in her vocation and does not support either outright careerism or non-committal, do-as-you-like, don’t-rock-the-boat feminism. Servant couldn’t be more wrong about traditional women being insulated from what he has seen and experienced. The only homemakers who have any kind of status are those who are wealthy, in which case people are generally willing to overlook their betrayal of feminism. Most women in my position experience serious passive aggression by other women and men, a thousand slights and cuts meant to marginalize them. Women who are powerful, who are callous to children and husbands, who neglect their homes, and who glorify their girlfriend gangs are openly celebrated both by popular culture and by family and friends. 

You couldn’t be more wrong about not understanding what you say. A housewife lives on the frontlines of this culture war. Only the strongest survive.

The summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire has some of the most extreme weather on the planet. The peak is situated in the path of dramatic clashes of air masses, as if it stood between warring gods hurling ice and blocks of frigid air. At 6,288 feet, Washington is higher than the surrounding mountains, unprotected by the sort of frictional interference that would modify conditions on a smaller peak. The other day the wind chill was – 82 Fahrenheit with winds gusting up to 100 miles per hour.

The observers on the summit, who take continuous readings of wind, temperature, barometric pressure and humidity, are envied by weather junkies everywhere. But their lives include many tedious chores. For one, they have to frequently remove rime ice from the instruments. Earlier this week, there was a seven-inch glaze of ice on the anemometer and wind vane.

Staff meteorologist Mike Carmon wrote in the daily journal on December 28:

Temperatures rose through the 20s throughout Saturday night and the wee hours of Sunday, and a southeast flow fed plentiful moisture into the region. As a result, glaze ice began to form around 10 p.m. At first, the accumulation was nothing out of the ordinary-about 1-2″ per hour. Then, when I went to the tower for the midnight observation, I could not believe my eyes! There was nearly 7″ of glaze ice coating the posts that I had de-iced approximately one hour before! It was by far the fastest accrual of glaze ice I had seen in my lifetime. The pitot-static anemometer and wind vane were encased in this thick coating. It took many, many whacks of the crowbar to get rid of all of this ice.

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In the previous entry on the low-cut, low-rise, low class clothes of modern women, clothes that leave a man feeling insulted or in a constant state of  distraction or alienated from his normal male responses, Clark Coleman argued that men should shame women for their appearance. I said I thought it was unlikely that they would.

Perhaps I was too pessimistic. Maybe it could happen. Certainly it would be a great development.

But would men have the courage to criticize women who are powerful and attractive or even those who are their friendly co-workers? Can they afford to criticize women who are powerful and attractive?  There are effective ways to go about it. No woman likes to be called a slut. It’s a word that retains its power, unplugging the secret, stoppered spring of modesty and shame in even the most uninhibited and sexually practiced of women. Men have used this word often in reference to women with little social status, those who are not beautiful and who are sexually loose. They risk nothing in doing this. Could they use it against someone successful, in a position of influence, surrounded by admirers and yet dressed in lingerie at work?

As another reader comments below, the situation is serious for men. They sometimes risk financial and social ruin in criticizing women.

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In 1898, Elizabth Bisland wrote a brilliant essay on the advance of what is now known as feminism. Woman is not by nature egalitarian, she argued. At heart, she is an aristocrat, prone to selfless loyalty to the hero who fires her romantic yearnings. Men were forcing egalitarianism on women. With the advance of radical democracy, they suddenly refused to play the role women’s loyalty demanded of them.

“He is relentlessly forcing a democracy of sex upon woman; industrially, mentally and sentimentally,” Bisland wrote. “He refuses to gratify her imagination; he insists upon her development of that logical selfishness which underlies all democracy, and which is foreign to her nature.”

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The discussion on female immodesty continues here.

In a brief discussion about my post Fatherhood and Democracy, a commenter at Dennis Mangan’s blog makes an apt observation:

A bad king or a bad dictator can be deposed. But how can you depose a bad people?

Was feminism the inevitable outcome of racial and cultural defeat? There is good reason to believe it was.

Feminism is the invention of Western white women. Their discontent, which emerged so forcefully in the 1960s, was arguably a reaction to the emasculation of men. Men were different first. They shed the trappings of male authority. They embraced feminine pacifism and revolted against all forms of paternal authority. 

This emasculation was a white phenomenon too. The white race had run afoul of history. It lost all pride and the will to survive. Why replicate itself? Fatherhood became aimless and decadent. Men stopped being chiefs and lords, kings and bosses. They became just guys. Guys do not rule anything.

A woman can never become a chief or a lord. But she can become a guy.

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Intellectual women have been openly antagonistic toward traditional women in the main organs of the press for more than 50 years. And when they are not openly so, they are often subtly and cleverly so. Thus the notion that women are not intelligent unless they are paid professionals remains alive and well.

This attitude is especially disturbing when expressed by supposedly conservative women. A good example is this recent article by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal. 

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Lisa Miller, a former lesbian who has been ordered to turn over her daughter this Friday to her previous lesbian partner, has apparently fled and gone into hiding. The woman who has been awarded primary custody of the girl by courts in Virginia and Vermont has no biological tie to the child. 

For all the mistakes of her past, Lisa Miller is a heroine. The case demonstrates why a federal constitutional marriage amendment is the only way to protect traditional marriage and children.  Custody disputes such as this are likely to become common, with parents fleeing to sympathetic states like fugitive slaves.

If I were Lisa Miller, I would risk everything, even prison, for my daughter.

In the previous entry, Karen I. describes an amazing incident in which her nine-year-old son was held down by pre-teen girls while one was forced to kiss him. His arm was injured. The story is typical of the aggressive sexual behavior popular culture encourages in young girls.

Teen idol Miley Cyrus

Like most women, I cherish the company of other women and welcome the opportunity to bask in female affection or talk about mutual interests. But I have turned down invitations to be part of any women’s book club. A disturbing cultural phenomenon has swept the nation. On the face of it, it seems a sign of progress, an awakening of  intellectual enlightenment and refinement. Women gather in living rooms to sip wine and discuss literature. What could be unhealthy or backward about that?

The truth is the women’s book club has too often become a self-justification society, a bastion of thought-control. Within the intimate enclosure of these gatherings, female supremacy is sometimes stroked and preened, like a spoiled Persian cat sitting on the lap of a spinster.

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Heav’ns youngest teemed Star,
Hath fixt her polisht Car,
   Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending:
And all about the Courtly Stable,
Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.

            – from “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” John Milton

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

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Charles writes in response to the entry In Defense of Scrooge:

I thought I was the only one having difficulty with the way charities conduct themselves. Your posters have made some very accurate statements. Here are my favorites:  Read More »

Brittany writes:

I think you are too harsh on single mothers. Not all unwed mothers are bad people; they just made a mistake. Maybe their boyfriend pressured them into sex and he left when she got pregnant. You can have sex one time and get pregnant. I was born before my mom and dad were married but if my dad had left my mom would have been a single mother. Yes, my mom did have premarital sex but that did not mean she was a slut because she was only with my dad and they were engaged. Yes, some single mothers did not care but what about the ones that just made a mistake?

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Scrooge movie poster

M. writes in regard to the previous entry:

I have to disagree with Alex A. when he says that Scrooge’s transformation wasn’t as a result of seeing the light but of fear of the horrors to come if he doesn’t change. 

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In the previous post on welfare and motherhood, Karen I. writes:

I thought of a few more things the poor children of single moms get, including free lunch and often breakfast at school, free coats from the local newspaper charity, free filled backpacks from my church at the start of school, free rides to and from doctors appointments if they need them with the state insurance, fee waivers to attend summer camp free or cheap at the YMCA and free transportation to and from that camp. Add that to what I already listed and try to convince some single young tramp with a baby on the way she ought to marry her baby’s Daddy and get a job. Morals are not going to convince her because she does not have any or she would not be in that situation to begin with. She has no education to use at a job, so that argument is out the window, too. So, she has to choose between working at a low paying, miserable job and sitting home “poor” with all the State is just dying to hand her the minute the baby arrives. No wonder 40% of births are to single mothers these days. 

I used to be the first to give to the food pantry, the backpack drive, etc. After seeing who really benefits from these things, I don’t do that anymore. Now, if I want to give something, I hand it right to someone I know who can use it. I have given loads of brand name kid’s clothes to a mom whose husband had his work hours cut back. She appreciates it and I know it is going to someone who really deserves it. I think that everyone who wants to give to charity should do the same. Find someone who really deserves the help and help them yourself. Leave a bag of food, Christmas gifts or warm clothes on their doorstep if you think they will be embarrassed. You don’t need an agency to find needy folks for you. They are everywhere if you just open your eyes and look for them. Often it is the ones who are too proud to seek welfare that need the help the most.

Laura writes:

And yet Oprah makes us weep for single moms.

Karen’s advice for charitable giving is excellent. Not only does it assure the right person is getting your help, it’s more personal. 

Should a family with an educated mother and a father attending graduate school be entitled to welfare payments so that the mother can remain home with the children? A reader says she knows such families and asks for my opinion. My answer: No. The mother should go to work temporarily or the family should live with relatives. Here is our exchange.

Intensely Curious writes:

I, like you, believe that families need their mothers to stay home and be the prime homemaker, making the family home a place of solitude, serenity and a warm environment in which everyone in the family can thrive. When voicing this opinion, which is not the smartest thing to do, I often hear things like, “Children need to know the value of the dollar,” and “Children need to see a good role model,” etc. Those responses are usually given in regards to situations similar to the one I’m about to share with you. Read More »