What Feminism WON'T Tell You

Women's SECRET Power

I was recently watching an interview of Christina Hoff Sommers in which she explained so well why feminism doesn’t speak for women. If you don’t know, Sommers is an American author and philosopher who calls herself the “Factual Feminist” and whom the internet calls “Based Mom.” She has made it her mission to challenge contemporary feminism and reveal it for the farce it truly is. As I watched her being interviewed, it felt like someone was finally addressing the real issues with the feminist movement and talking about it with all of the knowledge required to break it down. And it was inspiring.

A big thing that stood out to me was the idea that — despite feminism’s claims that women are just as strong as men — women in the grips of its ideology act like fragile flowers. Like victims. They’ll say in one breath that women can do everything that men can, while complaining in the next that women are victimized by the world and must be treated with kid gloves. In one example, feminists claimed Sommers was the big, bad, terrible threat from which women had to be protected: when she gave a speech at Oberlin in 2015, the university set up “safe spaces” for women to run to in order not to have to face a fifty-year-old woman at a podium gently speaking into a microphone to say that maybe, just maybe, the feminist perception of the world is flawed. Another example: when Kamala Harris debated Mike Pence in 2020’s Vice Presidential debate, it should have demonstrated that men and women are on equal footing. Instead, any time Pence spoke feminists called him out for mansplaining or interrupting and being a part of the patriarchy. All feminists could focus on was making sex the issue, showing how their real goal was to remove the possibility of men and women ever having a fair debate in the future.

Feminism at this point in our history is an incoherent philosophy that really has no meaning at all — except for however it can be used to seek power through complaining about “oppression.” In fact, “feminism” as a term has become a great example of semantic overload. Semantic overload is when a term acquires multiple meanings and is then used in a purposefully vague way so it is unclear which definition is being used. The Left is very good at using semantically overloaded buzzwords and phrases to their advantage, making conversations happen on their terms and normal discussion impossible. Look at the term “feminism.” The history of feminism has had many waves of activism that each addressed a different concept of what was affecting women and what should be done to make women’s lives better. At its inception during the first wave, feminism was a good thing. Women did not have equal legal rights — most famously in voting — and women fought through lobbying and public activism to have their legal rights made equal to men. 

But now, feminism means a variety of different things. After the second wave, the third wave, and decades of deranged Leftist “scholarship,” it can mean actual equality in the workplace, or it can mean equality built on the assumption that men and women will naturally want and achieve the same things professionally, so any difference in their “success” must be proof of oppression. It can mean sex positivity because women must throw off the oppression of “slut-shaming,” or it can mean sex negativity because women need to recognize their own oppression by men who inherently use sex to degrade or control women. It can mean being pro-choice and accusing anyone who believes in the humanity of the unborn as having “internalized misogyny.” It can mean seeing the horrors of the patriarchy under every bed and around every corner and believing in the inherent victimization of women by “society.” It can mean believing that “society” is built to enforce inequality between men and women and that only a radical overthrow of everything we know can liberate us from society’s evil brainwashing. Now, when someone asks me if I’m a feminist, what definition am I agreeing to? It’s obvious that men and women should have equal rights – but what does the person asking me about feminism think “equal” means, and what do they think counts as a “right”? These days, you even have to wonder what they think “man” and “woman” mean! I believe that men and women should have equal rights to vote, hold property, and be protected by the law, but do I believe that women are inherently the victims of the men around us — regardless of what those men think, say, or do — just because they’re men? …Not so much.

When I realized that feminism was lying to me, I could see that feminists had NO idea about the REAL strength of women. They don’t understand the strengths that are UNIQUE to our sex because they’re so busy pursuing a revolution based on Leftist ideas that have no contact with reality. 

Want to see the real strength of women in action? Treat yourself to the movie “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” a musical that came out in 1954. 

Set in 1850 in Oregon, the film opens with Adam Pontipee, a backwoodsman living in the mountains, as he comes into town and expresses his desire to find a wife. After picking up some provisions, he comes across a woman he immediately falls for — and amazingly, she is willing to marry him that day! And that’s when we, the audience, are introduced to Millie. 

Millie is actually the centerpiece of the movie, despite the fact that it opens on Adam. Before marrying Adam, she was hustling and bustling in a boarding house in the frontier town, cooking, cleaning, and running chores for the frontiersmen who patronized the house. When Adam offers to marry her, she jumps at the chance to join him on his farm in the mountains, picturing an idyllic, beautiful romantic life of serenity, just her and her powerful, sovereign husband. She did not expect what she was getting instead. When Adam brings her back to his home, she sees that he left out some crucial information: he lives with his six fellow backwoodsman brothers…all in the same cabin. Having lost their mother as children, all seven men, including Adam, have no manners or civilization whatsoever. They are men, powerful, tough, and working hard, but crude, thankless, and thoughtless, too. Millie is faced with a decision: does she stay, teach these boys how to act like men, and build the life she wants around her? Or does she look at her situation with despair and flee to what she had known before? Embracing her bible, Millie pushes back her sleeves and takes on the challenge. She builds up the men and the home around her. And in doing so, she shows the ways in which women are truly strong.

Watching the movie, no one would blame Millie for returning back to her life in town. No one would say that Adam had done the right thing in keeping his siblings and living situation from her. But the way that Millie’s character decides to approach her newfound situation is indicative of something greater. In one scene, after spending the day cooking and preparing dinner for her newfound family, the men run into the room and scrounge at the table with no manners at all. With barely a moment’s hesitation, Millie tips the table, spilling onto the floor and the men everything she had worked hard to prepare while exclaiming, “If you’re gonna act like hogs, you’re gonna eat like hogs!” In a moment, the men learn that they can’t act like animals — and they are taught how to improve and grow through Millie’s firm insistence that they be better. 

Women are powerful and in a way that men cannot replace or live without. Embracing that women have power and it is uniquely ours is the first step to finding purpose and happiness — there is work to do that NEEDS to be done and which ONLY we can do. We don’t have to worry about purpose — only we are capable of doing this work — and we don’t have to worry about happiness — doing it is itself more fulfilling than anything else and is also what brings about good times. Women have SO much power to control their own choices, the world around them, and the MEN around them. We set the standards for civilizations, defining what is acceptable and what will allow societies to thrive. And for a philosophy that’s all about women’s rights, feminism really doesn’t give women credit for the amount of power they already hold. Constantly feeling like you are powerless in your world, that you are a victim of the people around you, is a recipe for despondency and depression. 

First off, women make men better. This modern, "anything boys can do, girls can do better" feminism, constantly undermines women by insisting that what makes bad men “happy” is what women should aspire to “achieving” for themselves and does not take advantage of the unique quality of women’s strength. It does not even acknowledge that, to women’s credit, the video games, hollow promiscuity, and teenage pleasure-seeking of lost boys is not naturally appealing to women. In Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Millie comes in and teaches seven men how to act like good and capable people. The brothers instantly recognize she is a woman to respect and she has authority in their lives. They know, without argument or debate, that she and her judgment are to be taken seriously. She shames them into recognizing their own flaws and forces them to grow up. Fighting, yelling, eating like animals and snatching fistfuls of food off the serving dishes entertains them, but Millie leads them to realizing what they already know — that they want more out of life and that they should build themselves up to take on their own important masculine roles. She teaches them how to court women, how to be kind and good, while using their strength and vigor to do so. She doesn’t ask them to be weak. She encourages their strength to be put to good use. She insists that they be better and show her respect, and she uses sugar and spice, building them up with loving approval and encouragement while unafraid to lay down the law. And you know what? It works. The brothers want a woman to lead them and make them into who they should be, even though a modern feminist wouldn’t think to call any of what Millie does “leadership” because her husband Adam is still clearly "in charge" of the big decisions. Millie singlehandedly changes all of the brothers and their lives for the better through inspiration and admonishment and is the most consequential character in the movie, all without using “power” as modern feminism narrow-mindedly thinks of it.

When feminists convince us that it’s not women’s responsibility to make men better, they take away our fundamental societal role: loving. As women, we take care of what we love. We build beauty around ourselves. We make houses into homes. We make neighborhoods into communities. We make boys into men. This happens on an individual level, but it also happens on a societal level. On an individual level, if a woman raises her son lovingly with good upstanding values and morals, guess what? He’ll be a great member of society. If a guy can't get the time of day from the women he admires unless he makes a proper man of himself, guess what? He'll find a way to be a gentleman.

On a societal level, the quality of our men responds to the quality of our women and what our women demand of the men who want their love. A good example is this: before the women’s liberation movement — which encouraged women to find their fulfillment in sex itself, unrestrained and mindlessly pursued with anyone and everyone — men were forced to wait until marriage to have sex. Could they seek it out from less reputable places? Of course, but that’s the point. They had to go to less reputable places. And that carried risks, socially and physically. They couldn’t just pick up any woman in a bar (or by swiping right) and have a one-night-stand. Women weren’t ghosted or left eternally hanging by a thread in a relationship that doesn’t go anywhere and could end at any minute after having sex because they had made an unspoken pact in solidarity with their sisters – we will not have sex with men until they marry us. This expectation established a societal standard that honored and stood by women.

Once feminism decided that 1) sexual fulfillment meant having sex for its own sake completely regardless of relationships, emotions, or family, and 2) sexual fulfillment was the most important thing in life for happiness and living a full, “empowered” life, the rules changed. Men could now sleep with women and leave. And women were left to blame themselves for feeling bad about it — or blame society for making them feel bad. Instead of recognizing that love and commitment were the missing puzzle pieces precluding them from happiness, they were told that sex and love were unrelated, a figment of their imagination put in place by “society.” Women were left with no purpose or even control over the course of their lives when they wanted more. Perhaps they had control over their evening, but they couldn’t depend on men to support them if they got pregnant, they couldn’t depend on men to stick around after one night in bed, and they couldn’t expect men not to take advantage of women’s newfound “liberation” — that didn’t actually lead to the happiness and fulfillment feminists promised. 

Women are the backbone of good civilizations, and we flourish when we embrace our role. We build families. We are the harbingers of the future — we raise good children and we inspire men through love and make them great. We make things run smoothly in our communities and our homes. We make our husbands into the family men who lead society alongside us. And women have a specific role in bringing the best out of other women, because men cannot condemn women’s toxic behavior, despite the fact that feminists have asked for equality.

Women have a unique role in building and maintaining society. It is all-important but subtle — and shallow, power-obsessed modern feminism doesn’t understand it. The fact that societies need women doesn’t need to make us resentful. The fact that children need their mothers to nourish them and teach them doesn’t need to make us tired. The fact that men need women to make them better doesn’t need to make us aggrieved. All of this is a testament to women’s power and purpose. Embracing it is the most inspiring, fulfilling, and natural thing for us to do — we only have to choose to do it.   

Don’t Want To Read? Listen Here Instead:

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Quote of the Week:

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain

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