Feminism is the belief that men and women are basically the same and thus interchangeable. Feminism seeks to eradicate sex distinctions and emphasizes ‘freeing’ women from the home and children so that they can have careers like men. The success of the feminist movement in western society is so deep that we live in what can be called a ‘post-feminist society’ in which most people today are feminists without the label. Feminist ideals have been swallowed by our culture, and feminist convictions have become so ingrained in our society that churches have been infected, too.
Feminism has been called a ‘war against women,’ in that it seeks to deprive women of the natural glory of womanhood and all that it entails: homemaking, wifery, motherhood, and bearing and raising children is trumpeted as a poison from which women must be eradicated. The ultimate goal for a woman, then, isn’t to be a woman but to be a man inasmuch as it is possible (it’s ironic, then, that while championing masculinity in women, feminists simultaneously champion femininity in men!). While it’s true that feminism directly assaults God’s glorious designs for women, feminism is also an attack on the family: an ex-feminist named Carolyn Graglia left her career to embrace homemaking, and she said that feminism’s front-and-center goal has been to ‘undermine the homemaker’s position within both her family and society in order to drive her into the work force’; the long-range goal has been to ‘create a society in which women behave as much like men as possible,’ and as a consequence women are to ‘hold equal political and economic power with men.’ To accomplish these goals – both immediate and future – feminism has focused on ‘the status degradation of the housewife’s role.’ When painted with an overarching brush, feminists are ‘united in the conviction that a woman can find identity and fulfillment in a career,’ and to this end ‘it has actively sought the traditional family’s destruction.’ According to Graglia, feminism operates on two flawed assumptions: first, feminists assume that equality means sameness, so that men and women, if they are equal, must do the same things; and second, feminists allege that most differences between men and women are imposed by culture. Biblically, men and women are certainly equal: both are made in the image of God, both have equal value before God, and both are in need of redemption in Christ; but this doesn’t mean that they have ‘equal functions.’ The biblical model of men and women emphasizes differences between the sexes and holds that these differences aren’t products of hierarchical cultures but are designed into the ‘software’ of men and women. Jettisoning ‘gender roles’ isn’t to rethink cultural assumptions but to reject innate design differences.
The modern feminist movement has been called ‘Third Wave Feminism,’ and it is the third ‘phase’ of feminism’s history. Though the term feminism wasn’t coined until the 1880s in France, the term accurately encapsulates the three waves of the ‘Women’s Movement’ (a term which, though seemingly benign on the surface, is misleading, for the Women’s Movement, as we shall see, has sought to reshape society in line with godless progressivism).
First Wave Feminism: 1830s to 1920
‘First Wave Feminism’ strove to make the economic, political, and social status of women equal to that of men. Its chief goal was the political right for all women to vote. This movement was spearheaded by women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. This Women’s Movement focused on topics such as equal wages, property rights, and marriage rights. They were important in campaigning for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which abolished slavery) and the Fifteenth Amendment (which outlawed infringement of rights of people of color, particularly ex-slaves) and the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition of Alcohol), which went into effect in 1920. With the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments under their belt, the Women’s Movement focused on women’s right to vote, which was eventually won in 1920 in the Nineteenth Amendment. All three of its major campaigns – abolitionism, temperance, and women’s suffrage – sought to undermine an older order of society. While chattel slavery became outmoded and faded out of use in the world, abolitionism was a radical ideology that fomented sectional division and war in 1861. Though everyone agrees that slavery had to be dealt with, the way in which was it was dealt was likely the bloodiest and most expensive way possible, in terms not only of money and material but also lives. The Temperance Movement was an unbiblical movement: while God forbids drunkenness, nowhere does He forbid alcohol, which is a gift from God that is to be enjoyed appropriately to His glory. The movement to banish alcohol punished the godly for the sins of the wicked, and its source was the false Social Gospel, which looked to the state for protection from all social ills.
The Nineteenth Amendment, though viewed as a positive good today, had underlying motivations that made it controversial for its time. The right of every citizen to vote wasn’t the view of the American Founders, in part because they feared the dangers of democracy and the tyranny of the majority. Voting wasn’t considered only a right but also, and even more so, a duty: since government has a protection and military duty taken up only by men, it was argued that the vote in such a government should not be passed on to women. The Nineteenth Amendment didn’t only vote a right upon women but also a duty, but it wasn’t a duty that all women wanted. In the end, the desire of some women for the vote thrust all women into politics and placed them on a new duty outside the home. Thus we see the logical connection between first-wave feminism and its later stages that explicitly called for women to leave the home. The theologian B.B. Warfield, a contemporary of Anthony and Stanton, pointed out that feminism viewed the individual rather than the family as the basic unit of society: ‘The difference in conclusions between [the Apostle] Paul and the feminist movement of today is rooted in a fundamental difference in their points of view relative to the constitution of the human race. To Paul, the human race is made up of families… To the feminist movement, the human race is made up of individuals; a woman is just another individual by the side of the man, and it can see no reason for any differences in dealing with the two.’ Family were the ‘first government,’ of which men were the heads of their households, and thus only men were thought to have the duty to participate in the civil sphere. Women were not permitted to vote because their vote was represented in the vote of their husbands, and wives had significant influence on their husbands.
Many moderns assume that 19th and 20th century men didn’t care about women because they didn’t let them vote and that nowadays we are so much more enlightened. This is, in the words of C.S. Lewis, ‘chronological snobbery’. Many men of prior ‘sexist’ generations made their decisions, including voting, with their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers in mind. They cared for the women in their lives far more than the modern effeminate man does. Men’s privileges came with great responsibilities. Today’s men are less privileged, and as a result they are also less responsible.
The Women’s Movement didn’t emerge from a vacuum; it was an extension of the 19th century Progressivism that was sweeping the western world from 1890 to 1920. The Progressive Era’s roots went further down to the French Revolution of the late 18th century. Feminism’s egalitarian view of men and women originated from the most radical wing of the Enlightenment, that of the Jacobins. The Jacobin party was the political faction of the French Revolution that carried out the Reign of Terror in 1793-1794. Jacobin ‘equality’ stands in opposition to the British tradition of equality before the law. Whereas the British (and thus American) view of equality entailed equal treatment under the law, the Jacobin view meant sameness. This is an equality that flattens the world by tearing down hierarchy and role differences. The 18th century theologian R.L. Dabney described this as ‘mechanical equality,’ and today it’s known as ‘functional equality’ or egalitarianism. While the Jacobins of the French Revolution weren’t feminists, their radical egalitarianism was later applied by feminists to gender roles.
Secular progressivism is anti-Christian; though it portrays itself as a beacon of light, it really seeks to destroy traditional family values and traditional morality in the light of anti-religious dogma and in service to a utopian fiction in which the disintegration of all boundaries and hierarchy results in a world free of violence and suffering. Progressivism’s overt effort to dismantle hierarchy is an affirmation of egalitarianism, the idea that everyone is equal in every way. Egalitarians despise authority and therefore scorn hierarchy. They begin by rejecting God’s authority, and they in turn reject biblical authority structures. On the other hand, biblical, historic Christianity affirms hierarchy. God holds authority over all creation, and He has set certain authority structures in place. Men have authority over their wives in the marriage covenant, parents have authority over their children, elders had authority over the congregation in the church, and civil officials have authority over citizens. Of course, authority can be abused, but this does not change the fact that authority still exists. While all humans are equal in the sense that all are fallen in Adam and are in need of God’s grace, God has given different roles to different people in society. Christian equality requires us to treat everyone with love, but it does not undermine the authority structures that God has set in place. Rather, Christian love affirms God’s authority structures and those God has placed in authority over us.
We have examined First Wave’s Feminism underlying assumptions insofar as they rejected biblical hierarchy, embraced Jacobin egalitarianism, and trumpeted anti-Christian progressive ideals. These motivations shaped their methodology in pursuing the abolition of slavery, the Prohibition of alcohol, and the women’s right to vote. First Wave Feminists also focused on degrading marriage; one of their goals was the release of women from marital subordination. Stanton rejected the biblical view of marriage and divorce, teaching that marriage ought to be held together only for the sake of ‘love’ (a common belief in our day but a radical one in hers). This was a radical rejection of the traditional Christian teaching that divorce is only permissible in the case of adultery or abandonment.
Second Wave Feminism: 1920 to 1990s
If First Wave Feminism can be described as women’s desire to be independent from men, second-wave feminism can be described as women’s desire to act like men. Second Wave Feminism began decades after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment; in the 1960s, feminists began fighting for women’s legal and social equality. They fought for a woman’s right to initiate divorce proceedings, no-fault divorce, a woman’s right to abortion, and equitable wages. This movement, when boiled down, was an overt attack on marriage, demonstrated in Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminist Mystique, which called women to trade homemaking for the workforce. The feminist Gloria Steinem said a woman needs a man ‘like a fish needs a bicycle.’ No-fault divorce sought to make marriage vows and the marriage covenant redundant: prior to no-fault laws, the person initiating a divorce had to show fault, such as adultery or abandonment. No-fault divorce only requires an assertion by one party that there is a ‘breakdown’ in the marriage. Divorce thus becomes much easier for people to attain, the divorce rates skyrocketed. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 had unforeseen consequences: this Act made it illegal for companies to pay different wages to men and women for comparable work. Companies could no longer discriminate on the basis of sex ‘for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.’ Where these laws became problematic is not in pay requirements but in the prohibition of employers favoring men over women in hiring, even though young women are bound to be less efficient and take more time off due to pregnancy and childbirth. Thus, government has removed the natural advantage of men in the workforce. While this may seem good to many today, the result is that women are now taking up careers in spite of biology, and they are competing with men for breadwinner jobs. This has further spurred the decline in the birthrate, the availability of domestic-oriented women, and the number of men making enough money to support a stay-at-home wife.
This movement’s impetus came with a 1950 invention called ‘the pill’: prior to 1950, extramarital sex carried with it a high probability of pregnancy. But this could be significantly reduced as long a woman took the birth control pill. Mary Eberstadt notes that ‘no single event since Eve took the apple has been as consequential for relations between the sexes as the arrival of modern contraception.’ The rebellion against the ‘old order’ gained a springboard with the arrival of the pill. As the pill became more popular, it removed one of the greatest deterrents of extramarital sex. Men and women could now have ‘casual’ sex with no repercussions, or so it was believed. Sex naturally results in children, and children get in the way of careers. With the emergence of the birth control, women could experience freedom not only from unwanted pregnancies but also freedom from motherhood. With sex and children disconnected, traditional roles could be discarded. Women were free to have sex apart from marriage and jobs apart from children – enter the modern world. But birth control wasn’t perfect, and women who wanted careers may end up getting pregnant anyways – so what to do? Feminists burdened with an unwanted child couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the prison of a home, so they decided their best bet was to kill the child and keep living the free life. This right to terminate a pregnancy was granted in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. This ruling not only granted women the ‘right’ to abort their children, but it also permitted women to make this decision without the father’s consent – even if the mother and father are married. Thus, Roe legally bastardized children by taking away the father’s authority over them. The mother is the only one who can decide whether her child lives or dies.
Those children who survived pregnancy were often raised by people other than their mother, with kids spending more time with daycare workers and schoolteachers than with their own mothers. This continued the degradation of the family unit: prior to the Industrial Revolution, work and home were intertwined so that the entire family worked together to support the family business, and husbands were more involved in childcare. Industrialization in America, especially between 1780 and 1830, drove many men away from the home to factories in order to provide income for the family. This divided home and work and resulted in fathers being less involved in the raising of their children. At the same time, many of the tasks women had to do at home became much easier, especially in the 20th century) or were handed over to others. Instead of preparing food from scratch, we get food from the grocery or go to a restaurant; instead of making clothes, we purchase them from a retail store; instead of educations children, we send them to schools. And the elderly, who formerly needed to be cared for by their children, are now shipped off to nursing homes. The tasks once required of the wife are now gone, enabling women to join their husbands in working outside the home. As a result of industrialization and Second Wave Feminism, the idea of the productive household has become lost. The point is that what was once unthinkable – a mother leaving the home for long hours five days a week – became possible; now it has become not only normal but praised.
Thus we can see how three major revolutions set the stage for feminism. First, the French Revolution spread Jacobin egalitarianism, which was used by feminists to undermine male headship in the home. Second, the Industrial Revolution drove men outside of the home in order to provide for their families and made women’s domestic work easier. Third, the sexual revolution, enabled by the pill, delayed marriage and reduced the number of children women had, thus encouraging women to abandon the home and take up the same tasks as men.
Third Wave Feminism: 1990s to Present
Third Wave Feminism began in the 1990s and has largely been behind the push for homosexuality and the celebration of sexuality as a mean of empowerment. It has certainly succeeded in accomplishing its goals, with the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states in the 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges, followed by the extension of anti-discrimination laws to homosexuality and transgenderism in the 2020 case Bostock v. Clayton County (both of which are entirely lawless rulings). These later forms have shown just how anti-Christian feminism is, as it has explicitly attacked God’s design for the family. R.J. Rushdoony says that religion ‘is seen as a projection of the family, and the family must therefore be destroyed in order that religion may also be destroyed.’ Feminists understood this, and they have thus targeted the family in order to undermine religion.
If the family is eradicated, who takes its place? The feminist’s answer is simple: the state. The rise of feminism in western society has also coincided with the rise of statism. Government has displaced fathers, and many people now look to the state to supply their needs. It is hard to say whether the rise of government has caused the decline of men or whether the decline of men has led to the rise in government; it probably works both ways. However, bad government policies have certainly contributed to the breakdown of the family, such as no-fault divorce, financial handouts for unmarried mothers, the decriminalization of adultery and homosexuality, and now state-recognized same-sex ‘marriage.’ Laws incentivize behavior, especially those that involve money; this is seen most clearly in the government incentivizing women to have children out of wedlock by paying them to do so (regardless of the intention to help such women). This policy has undoubtedly contributed to America’s out-of-wedlock birthrate surpassing 40%. Thus feminism, which has sought to ‘free’ women from the biological constraints of motherhood and from the ‘traditional’ values of womanhood, has also resulted in the gradual destruction of the family unit. In an ironic twist, their campaign to eradicate the authoritarian nature of a head of household and the authority of a father over his children has resulted not in a vacuum of authority but in a new authority, that of the state. The state has taken the place of fathers and of the head of households. Authority abhors a vacuum, so this shouldn’t be surprising, and perhaps it isn’t: remember that feminism is founded upon the philosophical undertones of Progressivism, which seeks not only to destroy the hierarchy of families but to usher in a supposed ‘golden age’ where isolated individuals can thrive with the assistance of Big Brother government.
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