Sex and Politics

Sex and Politics 

Sex Differences v. Dogma

by 

Walter R. Dolen 

© 1997-2008 by Walter R. Dolen 
All rights reserved, except as follows: 
You may download this work for personal use only, not for commercial use.
Published by the BeComingOne Press

Table of Contents 

Chapter 1 -- Feminism and Politics Page 10 

Early Leaders Page 11 

Against Family Page 13 

Then What is Feminism? Page 14 

Radical Feminism Page 15 

Militant Homosexualism Page 16 

Not Ten Percent Page 16 

Disastrous Results Page 17 

Feminism to Blame? Page 21 

Activists V. Non-Activists Page 21 

Real Feminism Page 21 

References for Chapter 1 Page 23 

Feminism and Politics

In the United States and around the world in the last few decades sex, radical feminism, and politics have intermixed with almost mythical dogma to help create more unwed parenting, more divorce, and more confusion among the sexes. From this study you will learn about sex and sex differences, you will see what radical feminism (women's lib) is and isn't, and you will see how radical women's lib used politics to form a more imperfect world for the sexes. 

Before we look at sex and sex differences, we first need to know more about radical women's lib -- that is, what is radical feminism? It is the radicals among the feminists we will look at because it was their dogma and their political movement that was the catalyst of the new confusion among the sexes. 

Because of an agreeable press and willing politicians, radical feminism has been interjected into our media, our political arena, our laws, our family life, our sex life, our schools, our churches, and almost everywhere else. With virtual single-mindedness a core of females with willing law makers have put their mark on our society -- forcing their ideas of what is politically correct upon the rest of us. 

Few women and men are true believers of this radical feminism, and outside the ranks of pop-media and pop-education more are daily becoming disillusioned and hostile toward women's lib. It has robbed females of their femininity, and has taken away the potential joy of motherhood: 

"Many mid-career women blame the movement for not knowing and for emphasizing the wrong issues. The ERA and lesbian rights.... The bitterest complaints come from the growing ranks of women who have reached 40 and find themselves childless, having put their careers first. Is it fair that 90% of male executives 40 and under are fathers but only 35% of their female counterparts have children? 'Our generation was the human sacrifice,' says Elizabeth Mehren, 42, a feature writer for the Los Angeles Times. 'We believed the rhetoric. We could control our biological destiny.... Nonprofessional women, poor women, minority women feel their needs and values have been largely ignored by the organized women's movement, which grew out of white, middle-class women's discontent.... Ask a women under the age of 30 if she is a feminist, and chances are she will shoot back a decisive, and perhaps even a derisive, no." [1] 

In 1989 in a Time/CNN survey, to the question, Do you consider yourself a feminist?, 33% of the women said yes while 58% said no, and 76% of the women said they paid little or no attention to the women's movement. [2] 

In 1992 another Time/CNN survey asked the same question, Do you consider yourself a feminist?, 29% of the women said yes while 63% said no. [3] 

Early Leaders

To begin to see the radical nature of this movement let's look at what some of the early leaders of this movement said. We will directly quote from such early radicals as Elizabeth Janeway, Mary Mothersill, Elizabeth Cody Stanton, Aileen S. Kraditor, Annette Grant, and Simone de Beauvoir: 

"Complaints about the movement are many: it hasn't defined its issues clearly, it differs within itself, its goals are either utopian or minuscule and, above all, it traffics in emotion instead of logic. Yet it persists!...  "If the women's movement cannot be easily contained within any set definition nor held to any stated program, perhaps that is because it is larger and more novel than it has been thought to be. I believe that to be true. The movement seems to me to be a response to profound and irreversible historical forces involving economic, technological, and scientific shifts in our society. No wonder it hasn't yet found itself a satisfactory name or a coherent ideology!"[10] (Janeway) 

"Whether or not the claim that women are and have always been oppressed by men, can be made good -- something that would require a more satisfactory analysis of 'oppression' than is currently available -- it is clear that in particular places at particular times, for example, here and now, women are treated unfairly. Once this fact is recognized, wherein lies the need of theory?"[11] (Mothersill) 

"Many times and oft it has been asked of us, with unaffected seriousness, 'What do you women want? What are you aiming at?'... We ask for all that you have asked for yourselves in the progress of your development...."[12] (Stanton) 

"According to Stanton, what some women -- the enlightened ones -- want, and what all women deserve is equality of status and opportunity in political, social and domestic contexts. To critics who objected to the vagueness and generality of her demand, she replied with a list of specific legislative reforms, including woman suffrage but extending to education, property rights, employment practices and divorce law."[13] (Mothersill) 

"Feminism is customarily thought of as the theory that women should have political, economic, and social rights equal to those of men.... Clearly, the history of American feminism implies far more that the practical application of the theory stated above -- that women should have rights equal to men's. What the feminists have wanted has added up to something more fundamental than any specific set of rights or the sum total of all the rights that men have had. 

"The fundamental something can perhaps be designated by the term 'autonomy.' Whether a feminist's demand has been for all the rights men have had, or for some but not all of the rights men have had, or for certain rights that men have not had, the grievance behind the demand has always seemed to be that women have been regarded not as people but as female relatives of people. And the feminists' desire has, consequently, been for women to be recognized, in the economic, political, and/or social realms, as individuals in their own right."[14] (Kraditor) 

"The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men."[15] (The 1966 Statement of Purpose of the National Organization for Women) 

"What is Women's Liberation all about anyway?...It's about women's desire -- demand -- to be free to be women -- free to define themselves instead of being 'set pieces' in our society."[16] (Grant) 

"What is certain is that hitherto woman's possibilities have been suppressed and lost to humanity, and that it is high time she be permitted to take her chances in her own interest and in the interest of all."[17] (De Bauvoir) 

From letters exchanged in 1855 between Gerrit Smith and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, we see according to Smith, women's dress "imprisons and cripples them"; and according to Stanton, "it seems that if she would enjoy entire freedom, she should dress just like man."[18] (Smith; Stanton) 

From these quotes we can see that the feminists want freedom. They want freedom from alleged male oppression; they want freedom to be like men. According to them, the male oppression comes in all forms from the way men perceive women to the way they make love to them. The freedom to be like men comes in all forms from the possession of similar jobs to dressing like men. But added to this are the pathological feminists who see marriage as the main enemy and who call sex between all married couples nothing but rape. 

Against Family

Contrary to what moderate feminists may project, the feminists' dogma did play a big part in the disintegration of the American family because the hardcore leaders were and still are against the family unit: 

• "Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft." [19] 
• "The traditional family, with all its supposed attributes, enslaved woman; it reduced her to a breeder and caretaker of children, a servant to her spouse, a cleaning lady, and at times a victim of the labor market as well." [20] 

Contrary to radical feminists' dogma marriage is anything but detrimental for women. But because marriage is deemphasized today by the feminists' propaganda both women and children are being hurt, as well as the future well-being of our nation and other nations. Radical feminists manifest their lack of commonsense here. As we further examine the movement you will see much more of their extreme anti-family bias. Even the United Nations in its "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," declared rightly that "the Family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."[21] 

Then What is Radical Women's lib?

There are many books and articles available on radical feminism (called "feminism" by the radicals), but too many of these are biased accounts written by spiteful women with an ax to grind. There are a few articles written by less malicious women who have written their articles so as to "inform" us of the movement. In these less obnoxious magazine articles and books, the feminists movement may even come across as a logical movement based on a solid foundation of facts which will bring equality to women. Some see the movement as a movement of salvation -- saving women from the world's alleged sexism. But to others the movement "is not a movement calling for equal opportunity, equal pay, equal status for women's role in life, in fact as well as in law; instead it attacks the very nature of women, and in the guise of liberation, seeks to enslave her."[22]  This last statement is the difference between real feminism and the radical feminism.

Radical Feminism

Then what is this radical feminism, this radical women's lib movement? (Women are unfairly discriminated against by men and women and their needs to be a feminist’s movement, but not the radical one.) As we mentioned earlier, the main thrust behind it is radical. The radicals are the energy and fuel behind the so-called Women's Lib movement that began in the late 1960s. In many ways they are obsessive, shameless, and reckless. They don't hesitate to twist reality to fit their mythological beliefs. This radical movement is propagated by the political-correct culture with its priests and goddesses. Our colleges and media are the prime crusaders furthering the radical women's lib myths. Its agenda is for radical change. Not change for the good of society, but change that leads towards progressive chaos. Its leaders are possessed of a twisted version of reality and are using every means available to propagate and force their beliefs on us. Although many women today have rejected this radical dogma for various reasons including the reality of the world, we herein will analyze the radical movement and the damage it has done because a light needs to shine on its genesis.

As we will see the radical feminists are using the false theory of sex-role-malleability in their attempt to forcefully change and mold mankind into their twisted image of sex-role-neutrality. The goal is to change the world to fit their misguided folly. They are marching troops, marching to their own tune. Their ultimate goal is to rid the world of all sex roles and sex differences because of their mistaken belief that almost all sex differences are culturally determined. The radical are out of balance. We will see that both nature and nurture have its effect.

Militant Homosexualism

Another aspect of radical feminism is the factor of militant homosexualism in their leadership. Notice: 

"A vital relationship between lesbians and women's liberation is in their mutual interest in a time of changing relationships. Lesbians are the women who potentially can demonstrate life outside the male power structure that dominates marriage as well as every other aspect of our culture. Thus, the lesbian movement is not only related to women's liberation, it is at the very heart of it."[23] 

Many of the leaders of the movement are militant female-homosexuals. Their militarism make them extremists: they want to push their anti-male and pro-homosexuality on all females, starting in grade schools. There seems to be a deep hatred or fear of males in them. Some of this can be traced to their broken families, some to other reasons.

In reality the word 'homosexual' is self-contradictory. Sexual behavior can only happen between two biologically different (dyadic) but complimentary individuals, not two similar individuals. The extremists of radical feminism are really HeteroPhobics, not homosexuals. They on some level hate, fear, or despise males and are using the women's lib movement and some sex education programs to push their views. This will make some children ambivalent of their sexual orientation which will further damage their lives as they learn the hard way about the reality of sex and sex differences. 

Not Ten Percent

HeteroPhobics do not make up 10% of the population. Time after time the extremists say their numbers make up 10-15% of the population. This comes from the myths propagated by Kinsey.[24] Kinsey in his fraud used skewed data based too much on a prison population and data made up of prostitutes and sex deviates.[25] Homosexuals in reality make up 1 % to 1.5 % of the population. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago looked at the sexual behavior of 1,481 adults in 1988 and found that most adults were either monogamous or abstained from sex. "The survey found that 98.5% of sexually active adults have been exclusively heterosexual during the last year. The survey acknowledges that the number is considerably below the 10% adult homosexuals that the a Kinsey report claimed and argues that a 2% homosexual figure is 'in line with the best available figures' found in other 1988 studies. The survey also found that 80% of Americans 'strongly disapprove' of homosexuality, up from 75% a decade ago."[26] 

Disastrous Results

What are some of the disastrous results of nearly 30 years of radical feminism in United States? 

Abortion. Legalized abortions have dramatically increased from 5,000 in 1963, 18,000 in 1968, 236,000 in 1970, 586,000 in 1972 to about 1,600,000 yearly. In the United States abortion now takes the life of about one-third of all babies conceived. There is no reliable data or any creditable educated guess as to the number of illegal abortions before abortion was 'legalized' in the United States, except that it was substantially less than the numbers today. 40% of women obtaining abortions in 1987 had at least one before, while in France this figure was 19%. About 80% of all abortion were obtained by the unmarried. Fifty-five percent of all abortions were from the 20-29 age group. Eighty-eight percent of all abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Ninety-seven percent of all American abortions in 1988 were curettage, the scraping of the fetus out of the uterus by a scoop-shaped surgical instrument, piece by piece, that is, body part by body part. The body parts are then counted to make sure none of the baby remains inside the womb. 

With the abundance of birth-control methods today, it is an outrage that abortion is being used for birth control. The rate of abortion among American women is greater than among women in most other nations. Projections of abortion rates by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of New York indicate "that among every 100 women in the United States there will be 76 abortions, with some women having more than one." [4] 

Fatherless Children. Today almost one-third of all babies born are born to unmarried women: in 1991 over 68% of all black babies, 39 % of all Mexican-Americans babies, and 22% of all white babies were born to unmarried women: thus about 30% of all babies born in 1991 were to unmarried women or about 1.2 million babies, the highest number ever in the United States. In 1970 the total figure for babies born to unmarried women was 11% and increased to 18% in 1980. In 1970 there were 656,460 teen births -- 31% to unmarried mothers. In 1990, there were 533,483 births to teens -- 68% to unmarried mothers. (see reports issued 9-9-93 and 5-12-93 by the National Center for Health Statistics; see Statistical Abstract of the United States, for 1992, p. 69) 

Marriages and Divorces. In 1960 there were four marriages each year for each divorce. But today there are only two marriages each year for each divorce. Children of divorced parents are four times more likely to become divorced themselves. [5] Dr. Judith Wallerstein found in a long-term study of the effects of divorce on children after following 60 families over a period of 10 to 15 years: that daughters of divorced parents have difficulty with intimacy and relationships; "almost half of the children entered adulthood as worried, under-achieving, self-deprecating, and sometimes angry young men and women." [6] 

One Parent Families. In 1960 87% of children lived with two parents; in 1990 only about 72% of children lived with two parents. Thirty percent of all family groups with children were maintained by single parents in 1993, a significant increase from 13 percent in 1970, according to a report released August 10, 1094 by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau. According to this 1994 report, "Although two-thirds of all single parents are White, one-parent situations are much more common among African Americans than Whites. About 63 percent of all African American family groups with children were maintained by single parents, versus 25 percent of comparable White family groups. Among Hispanics, single parents represented 35 percent of family groups with children." This 1994 data is up from 1990 figures where over 55% of black children are brought up without fathers. [7] 

Mothers Working Outside The Home. In 1960 women made up 33% of the labor force. Today women make up 45% of the work force outside the home. 57% of all women over 16 years of age work verses 76% of all men over 16 years. In 1948 approximately 10.7% of married women with children under six years of age worked, in 1955 16%, in 1960 18.6%, in 1970 33 %, but today the figure is 57%. Today, only about 18% of all mothers with children 18 and under do not work at all outside the home. [8] 

Never Married and Children. In 1960 8.7% of females and 16% of males 29 years-of-age had never married. In 1990 23.5% of females and 36% of males 29 years-of-age had never married. Today over 36% of all children are born to single women: about 1,600,000 children. In 1940 there were only about 110,000 illegitimate births yearly, while in 1960 there were approximately 250,000 such births. Over 900,000 children live with unmarried-couple households today versus 200,000 in 1960. Many more, about 16 million, live with their single parent (divorced or unwed). Surprisingly, today in France and England the percentage of children born to single women is about the same as the rate in the United States, but more of them eventually marry so a higher percentage of them are reared with married parents than in the United States. 

Welfare Mothers. Almost half of all welfare mothers have never been married and nearly 70 percent had their first child out-of-wedlock, according to a new Census Bureau report released Friday. 

And of that group, more than a quarter were unmarried and under age 18 when they had their first child. Only about 13 percent of the mothers on welfare were married with a husband in the household. 

The study, based on a national survey of women aged 15 to 44 (peak childbearing years) done during the summer of 1993, is being cited by Republican welfare reformers to justify their moves to limit benefits to unwed teen-age mothers and to women who have additional children while on welfare. 

Roughly 10 percent of the 36 million mothers in the age group were receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. There were some 9.7 million children dependent on the program. 

The women receiving welfare were younger (average age 30) and had their first child younger (20) than the average American woman, who was age 34 and had her first child at age 23. 

Welfare mothers also had more children, 2.6 each, vs. 2.1 among all mothers. 

More mothers receiving AFDC were white, 2.1 million, than black, 1.5 million. But the AFDC recipients account for 25 percent of all black mothers and 7 percent of white. Almost 20 percent of all mothers of Hispanic origin received AFDC. 

About 10 percent of foreign-born mothers, nearly 400,000, were receiving cash welfare benefits, but three-quarters of this group were not U.S. citizens. (Scripps Howard News Service, WASHINGTON, 1995) 

Children in Poverty. In Families headed by single women in 1989 about 51% were classified in poverty by government statistics. This is approximately the same percentage as in 1960 except that there are 10.9 million female headed households today while in 1960 there were 4.4 million. This means today there are at least 6.5 million more poor children than in 1960. 

Trying to have a Baby. In one study of unwed mothers 12% of the white and 24% of the black unwed mothers said they didn't use contraception because they were 'trying to have a baby' or 'didn't mind if they did.' Other reasons why they didn't use contraception, were that 49% of the black and 59% of the white unwed mothers thought they were either too young to get pregnant or they felt it was the time of the month when they couldn't get pregnant.[9] This naive and reckless attitude is even worse today than when this study was made, for the unwed-motherhood ratio is almost beyond control, over 30% and going up. 

Feminism to Blame?

Of course, you say "we cannot blame all of these statistics on radical women's lib," well maybe not all, but their dogma has played a big part in the disintegration of the American family. (Men also have played a part. But in this work we are mainly examining the radical feminist's part.) To radical feminists marriage is deemphasized, sex outside of marriage is blessed, but since a woman's biological drive to have children does not change, the inevitable happens to the detriment of the children being raised in this situation. 

It is my guess that the great increase in teenage pregnancy in the last three decades is in part due to the reaction of the new demands put on girls by feminism -- not only are they expected to be mothers, but also have are expected to have careers outside the home. Many young girls having babies are in effect voting biologically for motherhood over careers. 

Activists V. Non-Activists

In this book we'll limit our examination of feminism to the active radical feminists and their radical beliefs instead of those who think they are feminists. We are thus examining the radical feminists, their extremism, their defenders and their myths. Many of the non-activists are giving lip service to something other than what they think. The non-activist reads about the feminist desire for equality between men and women, and desires equality also because "equality" has a righteous and even patriotic connotation to it. The non-activist hears the noble sounding words of some aspects of feminism, but not the true meaning behind the words of the radical feminists. In this book we will examine the true meaning behind the words. 

Real Feminism

The so-called feminists have antiphrasically changed the true meaning of the word "feminist." The word "feminist" should correctly mean: a female with qualities that are generally associated with most females in rational societies that recognize the real worth and value of women; feminists are those feminine women who not only recognize their own worthiness, but also strive and stand up for their equitable rights among men and women who may not recognize their value. The "feminist" of the so-called movement of feminism or Women's lib is not really feministic, but one with masculine behavior in a female body. These "feminists" are describing their dreamed-up future new women who have never existed in number, and never will because biology limits women as it limits men and all creatures on earth. We should stop calling feminists feminists, for they are in reality antifeminists or male chauvinists in female bodies. 

In order to further understand the nature of today's sex, feminism, and politics we need to go into more detail. We need to examine some of the grievances and claims of radical feminists. Are the grievances and claims true or imaginary, or somewhere between the real and the illusionary?       

References for Chapter 1

[1] pp. 82, 81, Time, Dec. 4, 1989 

[2] p. 89, Time, Dec 4, 1989 

[3] Time, March 9, 1992, p. 54 

[4] 90 of the Bibliography list; p. 13 in 159; p. 265 in 211 

[5] p. 35 in  159 

[6] (Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce, 1989) 

[7] 1990 census figures 

[8] Nye and Hoffman, The Employed Mother in America, 1963, p. 8; etc. 

[9] 90 

[10] p. 91 in 88 

[11] pp. 113-114 in 126 

[12] pp. 107-108 in 126 

[13] p. 109 in 126 

[14] pp. 7-8 in 95 

[15] p. 363 in 130 

[16] p. 16 in 70 

[17] p. 679 in 42 

[18] 95 

[19] Declaration of Feminism, November 1971) 

[20] Sol Gordon, "The Egalitarian Family is Alive and Well," The Humanist, May/June 1975, p. 18 

[21] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Dec 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the UN 

[22] p. 4 in 177 

[23] p. 620 in 1 

[24] 142a (Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, 1990) 

[25] p. 5ff in 142a 

[26] p. 218, 219 in 211 

(The bold numbers are the numbers of the works in our bibliography found in the back of the book.)