It’s a strange manifestation of what Carl Jung called ‘synchronicity’ that Gloria Steinem, a second wave feminist who favored full federal legalization of abortions, died just two days before a mistrial was declared in the Lindsay Clancy case. Both women were willing to break the law to kill their own babies – Steinem had an illegal abortion at age 22 – but one became a feminist icon, and the other one is charged with a triple murder.
Gloria Steinem outlived another second wave feminist, Betty Friedan. Betty Friedan literally wrote the book that initiated the second wave of feminism, entitled ‘The Feminine Mystique’. The concept of the “feminine mystique” is that women are naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers, and Friedan disavowed this idea.
The Clancy case, and even more so the crazy pink shirt protestors outside the courthouse, show that women have totally abandoned the notion that feminists should find any joy in matrimony or motherhood. Ironically, conservative men have clung to this idea much longer than our women, but that is changing.
If men can no longer blithely assume that women will never kill their own children, then the last vestiges of the male perception of ‘the feminine mystique’ may be forcefully purged from America. If the mystery and romance of femininity dissipates completely, much like a bridal veil falling off and revealing an angry and ugly bride, then men will no longer give women any special consideration. This should terrify women, because men with no illusions about the darker side of female nature are men who will view them with suspicion and wariness for the rest of their lives.
Women may have no choice except to become career women if men remove their options to become wives and mothers. This would not be the liberation of women, but rather the liberation of men from any sense of duty towards women.
That would be a very ironic end for ‘the feminine mystique’.
For more details, go to Substack and search for “The End of the Feminine Mystique”. Keep the quotation marks when you search for the article.
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It’s a strange manifestation of what Carl Jung called ‘synchronicity’ that Gloria Steinem, a second wave feminist who favored full federal legalization of abortions, died just two days before a mistrial was declared in the Lindsay Clancy case. Both women were willing to break the law to kill their own babies – Steinem had an illegal abortion at age 22 – but one became a feminist icon, and the other one is charged with a triple murder.
Gloria Steinem outlived another second wave feminist, Betty Friedan. Betty Friedan literally wrote the book that initiated the second wave of feminism, entitled ‘The Feminine Mystique’. The concept of the “feminine mystique” is that women are naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers, and Friedan disavowed this idea.
The Clancy case, and even more so the crazy pink shirt protestors outside the courthouse, show that women have totally abandoned the notion that feminists should find any joy in matrimony or motherhood. Ironically, conservative men have clung to this idea much longer than our women, but that is changing.
If men can no longer blithely assume that women will never kill their own children, then the last vestiges of the male perception of ‘the feminine mystique’ may be forcefully purged from America. If the mystery and romance of femininity dissipates completely, much like a bridal veil falling off and revealing an angry and ugly bride, then men will no longer give women any special consideration. This should terrify women, because men with no illusions about the darker side of female nature are men who will view them with suspicion and wariness for the rest of their lives.
Women may have no choice except to become career women if men remove their options to become wives and mothers. This would not be the liberation of women, but rather the liberation of men from any sense of duty towards women.
That would be a very ironic end for ‘the feminine mystique’.
For more details, go to Substack and search for “The End of the Feminine Mystique”. Keep the quotation marks when you search for the article.
Sibling jabs, for the win