"... OPEN MY LEGS
AND THINK OF ENGLAND"

We've learned from reading the "Forum" letters in the local newspaper that there are many people who don't like what Mona Charen has to say in her column.

We feel differently.  Mona is really upbeat much of the time compared to some columnists.

For example, Mona tells us how great things are for women.  How we have attained equality and beyond; how we have equal wages and more; how we ... well, you get the idea -- really optimistic.

On the other hand, what a downer to read the reports of those who say that we have not achieved parity; that we are still paid 25 - 30% less then males; that we ... well, quite a different picture.

And how about all those books by women that are being published.  Mona clues us in, telling us that the authors are young, attractive and intellectual; that they attack the Woman's Movement with passion and that they "will give the establishment a bad case of heartburn."

When have you read raves like that about OUR Women's Movement writers since maybe the 60s and 70s?  Where are OUR writers that used to give the establishment a bad case of heartburn?

A couple of Mona's young and attractive writers (we balk at intellectual) are Wendy Shalit, 23, A Return to Modesty, and Danielle Crittenden (age not given), What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman.

The gist of both books is that all the problems women have are due to her sexual liberation.  

It was better back in the days when she hung ignorant on the vine waiting for the all knowing male bee to fly in, marry, and pollinate her.

We women, they insist, opened Pandora's box when we first learned about our anatomy (many of us from a book called, "Our Bodies, Ourselves".)  We found out that we had genitals, took pleasure in sex and it just went downhill from there.

How much simpler IGNORANCE made everything for women as evidenced by this early 20th Century diary entry:

Shalit touts a return to modesty and claims that it "invites male honor."  When the male has respect for the female, then things like rape do not happen, she asserts.

This explains all those 70 and 80 year old cruelly raped grandmothers in their modest nightgowns?

Crittenden sounds much like a book we found in the attic published in the 1800s.  It claimed that the woman controls by withholding sex.  The male "bee" has to marry her to get the honey.

This makes for a stable relationship which lasts 'til death do you part and the male is ever faithful for having had to wait.  (Yeah, right!)

Both books have the common theme -- in order for women to be happy she must be different from men.  The Woman's Movement has erased that difference.  The Woman's Movement is the cause of all our problems.

This genre is pervasive in much that our media reports, whether it be book, T.V. or movie. We are continually warned to back away from the equality cliff or we will fall to our death and destruction.

We are continually instructed that to be happy we must be as men have always defined us.  We are continually admonished that we must not define ourselves.

We think all this hype is because women in all walks of life are showing how strong, decent, capable and gee whiz we really are and this is throwing a haymaker into the soft belly of the 'ol boyz club.

If we sometimes err in our practice of such recently realized sexual freedom, so what?  We've only been rehearsing for less than a century and we can learn to do better.

The following seems apropos.  It's worth a read in our estimation.

Twanda@ConnRiver.net

1999-006

Copyright 1999 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@ConnRiver.net.

G e n d e r G a p p e r s   ^{T M}   

Regarding some of those "raves" -- a guest comment on George Will's column      RETURN TO TEXT