Just one short generation ago, the family ruled. It was fashionable to be from a large family where roles were clearly defined. Father knew best and mother was always there to feed, comfort and rely upon. For the most part, dad was the breadwinner, mom the nurturer. Children were expected to be the product of marriage and marriage was only between a man and a woman. Divorce rates were low and the majority couples stayed married for most of their lives. Welfare roles were almost non-existent as were out-of-wedlock births. The family might not have been perfect, but it was intact and the lack of social programs and crime reflected it.
In order to follow the history of the changing family, one must only follow the history of the feminist movement. The correlation between the two clearly outlines the influence radical feminism has had on the breakdown of the family.
For over forty years, the family has been under scrutiny and attack that was brought on by the U.S. radical feminist movement that started in the 1960s. Today the family is certainly different than what it once was.
The Beginning of Radical Feminism
There are three types of women in the world: radical feminists, mainstream feminists and the majority.
Modern feminism, or what has been coined radical feminism, has its roots in the American culture that dates from late 1960s to the early 1970s. Before this time, women who fought to change cultural norms did so with no intention of breaking down the family. They were clearly not anti-marriage. They just wanted women to have more choices in their lives.
By 1969 noted University of Chicago sociology professor Marlene Dixon brazenly declared, “The institution of marriage is the chief vehicle for the perpetuation of the oppression of women; it is through the role of wife that the subjugation of women is maintained.” Marriage was referred to “as a slavery-like practice” that needed to be destroyed to bring about equality between men and women. The “heart of radical feminism” designed to save women, was now on a mission to destroy not only marriage, but in the process – families.
Mainstreaming the Anti-Marriage Message Around the World
Since the 1970s, the radical feminist message was mainstreamed throughout the American culture, having a detrimental influence on the intellectual formation of millions of students. The next generation of radical feminists have in turn taken up the cause and taken the battle to the halls of the United Nations. The United Nations process becomes the catalyst to spreading the anti-marriage, anti-family message internationally through official documents and treaties, like CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women. If signed and ratified, nations become enslaved by appointed councils that demand the radical changes espoused by those whose ultimate goal is to destroy families and those who stand in the way. Women’s rights are promoted as human rights and include abortion – disguised as a health and reproductive right.
In a world where developing countries continue to experience higher than normal rates of death during delivery, lack of education for women, female infanticide and sex-selective abortion, radical feminists prefer to mainstream “genderless societies” to vulnerable and often unaware nations.
As an example, recent women’s rights legislation, masquerading as the “Magna Carta of Women,” is making its way through the Philippine Congress. UN radical feminists, rumored to have written most of the language, have managed to inject anti-family and anti-life policy that conflicts with the Philippine Constitution that protects “the sanctity of family life” as well as protecting the “life of the unborn from conception.” The language in the Magna Carta is almost exactly what was used by CEDAW Compliance members in a 1994 UN report that creates confusion between the nation’s culture, laws and constitution and this new law regarding women’s rights.
The radical feminist movement of false truth would have the women of the world believe that men and religion are corrupt, marriage is slavery and bearing and raising children is beneath them. The reality is most women agree and want the right to be educated, vote, own property and be treated as an equal in marriage by the law. But, the feminists have taken the battle of women’s rights to a new low. Their agenda does not take into account that women are part of a family and families are the bedrock of a good and healthy society.
The Truth About Marriage and Family
While radical feminists see marriage as a “patriarchal” institution that harms women and children, the facts are mothers who give birth and raise children outside of a stable marriage are seven times more likely to live in poverty.
- Over 80 percent of child poverty in the United States is within divorced or single-family households.
- Domestic violence is most common in cohabiting households. And mothers who do not marry are twice as likely to suffer from domestic violence as mothers who are or have been married.
- Social science research continually confirms that the effects of marriage and intact families are overwhelmingly positive for men, women, children, communities and society.
- Some of the benefits of intact families are: greater health, longer lives, more education, and higher income, less domestic violence, less poverty, less crime, less addiction, less teenage pregnancies, and less depression.
So, the question remains, has the feminist movement advanced the cause of women by bringing greater equality and freedom to dissolve unhappy marriages and independence in family life, and more career opportunities – or not?
The answer is simple and devastating. Divorce has generated new forms of inequality for women by way of greater economic insecurity and poverty. Divorce has transformed women from haves to have-nots. Divorce has not moved women closer to the social goal of gender equality. Instead, women now bear double responsibility for breadwinning and child-rearing – and most do it alone. Women are now working harder and falling further behind. Divorce rates have increased as have welfare rolls.
- Between the years 1950 and 1996, the annual divorce rate increased by 89 percent, while the annual marriage rate among unmarried women age 15 and older decreased by 45 percent.
- States with a lower percentage of single-parent families, on average, will have lower rates of juvenile crime. State-by-state analysis indicates that, in general, a ten-percent increase in the number of children living in single-parent homes (including divorces) accompanies a seventeen-percent increase in juvenile crime.
- Married couples and their families have much higher incomes and greater assets than do single adults or single-parent households. Women want to be a functional part of a healthy, good society where they can learn and grow and raise a family. They do not want to be misled by the radical agenda of a few who would rather destroy the family.
United Families International will be attending the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) in March. It is there that we will be fighting again to promote and protect a future for the family. The radical feminists will be out in force and your support is needed. Help us to spread the truth to the nations of the world and ensure every child will have a family with a mother and a father to belong to.