Feminism or Sexism: Have We Really Evolved?

This is the Age of Enlightenment…or so they say. Women can ride buses, vote, become senators…just about everything! Women have equal rights, equal treatment and sometimes equal pay, though we are still slightly behind men in our paychecks.

However, in addition to women being treated the same as men; our society seems to also have undergone a different change: loss of womanhood. Our society, in celebrating the rise of the female gender, has neglected to teach the female gender how to remain, well, female. We are so busy being men now, that we have forgotten how to truly be women.

Fifty years ago, women were taught, really trained, in the art of being a homemaker, a wife, a mother, and the all-encompassing art of raising your own children. Now organizations, camps and schools train our children, the divorce rate in America alone is over 50%, and nurturing, encouraging and loving have been replaced enthusiastically with larger television sets, higher debt to satisfy greedy fingers, and one is expected to act like an adult at age 18 without being treated like an adult any time prior to one’s 18th birthday.

I am a woman, and I have been raised in a sexist home. Food was always prepared lovingly by hand, busy schedules paused for the evening meal table, children were thoughtfully listened to like they were adults of equal status, and responsibility for your own actions was strongly enforced. Debt was paid off before indulging in luxuries, and we weren’t allowed to spend our money at all if we even owed money to a best friend, who would shrug it off as nothing. We were taught to not be whiny or “grabby” and we played with our own toys until they were used up before we were allowed to ask for lots more. Our family did not overspend on the holidays and, come January, we had just as much money in the bank as we did in October.

I know the thought of returning to sexism may seem old fashioned and out-of-date. I maintain that we need some old fashioned common sense knocked into us. Stimulus plans and printing more money, whatever your political persuasion, will not teach our adults how to save their income, rather than buying on credit, or as my dad always said, “money that doesn’t exist yet.” I maintain that our spoiled-brat children are being trained by spoiled-brat adults, and that they, in turn, should have been taught how to be loving but firm, kind but steadfast, when teaching their children values. I maintain that marriages are collapsing, not only because of a lack of masculinity and steadfastness in the husband, but because of a shrewish, disobedient spirit in the wife. Our modern women have not been taught the fine art of respecting your husband, uplifting him and honoring him in public, and building him up to be the king that he is. I believe that a truly great man has a loving and kind woman behind him, being his helpmate.

The lost art of femininity cannot be found by becoming men. We are women, of great worth and value, of inconceivable power and influence, wielding our greatness in the home and in our families. Yes, you may wonder if this article is being written by a 60-yr-old woman who longs for the old days. Rather, this article is written by a young woman who is starving for a society where men fight for and protect their loved ones, women are helpmates, not hindrances, to their kings, and children are taught right and wrong by careful teaching at the kitchen table, instead of by the prison system. This is written by a young woman who lives in a diseased society of mutual disrespect between the sexes, instead of acts of kindness between strangers.

I am 23 years old.