IN THIS RECENT ENTRY, a reader named Jesse provided fascinating information on fertility statistics, past and present. He has a remarkable command of the numbers. I was curious to know why he had researched all this and devoted so much of his time to data on unwed motherhood and falling birth rates.

In response, Jesse sent this brief essay.

    “Why I Turned against Feminism”

I first turned against feminism when I was 24 years old, in 1995. I was influenced back then by a cultural conservative revival. I first heard of “out-of-wedlock births” as a problem in 1994 or maybe 1993. I sort of had an inkling I was against feminism for about six months before. But from childhood to age 23, I was a feminist just like everybody else. Indeed, there didn’t seem to be any other choice. Feminism was like a state of being, merely the way of the world, the way things were. Feminism was simply an expression of common sense and common courtesy. The idea that feminism was an “ideology” that people may or may not agree with never really occured to me. 

Anyway, what changed things for me is this. I was trying to figure out how to get a girlfriend and what I could do to be of value to a woman. My number one priority emotionally was how to make myself attractive to a woman. Well, daydreaming and fantasizing about what the ideal family life would be like I developed the fantasy of me taking care of the woman while she raised my children. I had the idea of making money, of being a big strong man and of her being happy as I provided her with a safe, secure and comfortable home where she could dedicate herself to the raising of our children.

The amazing thing is, this fantasy just kind of welled up inside of me. It was like it was instinctual or something. The fantasy felt so wonderful and happy. I thought to myself, “Eureka! This is how I can have value to women. I can be a breadwinner and a provider!” It was a great victory. Finally I had a rational way of developing myself in a direction that would appeal to a woman. 

Then, darker thoughts came to me. I thought, feminists wouldn’t want me to be that kind of man; that feminists were opposed to me fulfilling this happy fantasy that I had developed. This filled me with rage. How dare they try to sabotage my life. It was as if feminists wanted to destroy any opportunity I had for a woman to love me, that feminists wanted me to live a desolate life without meaning and that no woman would ever love me if I went along with who feminists wanted me to be as a man. 

So, after realizing that feminists were opposed to my dream of becoming a provider and protector of women that is when I absolutely turned against feminism and decided that I was going to become the man I wanted to become and that I thought I should become whether they liked it or not. Soon afterwards I started to see feminism as not only my enemy but as an enemy of society in general. I saw that the problems that I suffered other people were suffering too, and that indeed many of the problems of society had their root in the harmful effects of feminism on human relationships.

                           — Comments —

Mrs. Cote writes:

This essay struck a cord. I think there are many women who turn away from feminism experience with the same “aha!” moment when they finally acknowledge those girlhood fantasies of home and hearth with a peaceful family and an adoring husband who loves our cooking and sees us as beautiful are NORMAL. We too grow up with feminism as simply the norm that’s never questioned except in the vaguest ways deep in our hearts. It seems so strange to be told so many times growing up how smart we are or how talented, that we could be anything we want to be, EXCEPT to be a “just” wife and homemaker. It is usually never said out loud by adults but the absence of that choice among the socially acceptable listed vocations speaks loud and clear enough. However, like any other true vocation once we feel the calling to dedicate ourselves to married life we will never be satisfied until that call is obeyed and fulfilled. It is so much more than simply to “get married” so you can check off that box on your to do list. Or worse, to get married so we can have a false sense of security in what a commenter called a mutual safety net, life has a way of ripping gaping holes through those. It is a call to express what the vast majority of us are biologically, emotionally, and spiritually designed to be.

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