Dear Betty Friedan (& other feminists),
Dear Betty Friedan,
Last month, I finished your book, “The Feminine Mystique.” I cried sad, heartbroken tears. Heartbroken for the lies you sold to us women. The lie of a false feminism. My heart goes out to your wounded conclusions and the hurt you’ve endured from the men in your life.
I wish I could sit down for coffee with you, pray over you and discuss where you got it wrong. As a friend recently reminded me, “yes, there WAS a problem. Women were facing at the time.” But unfortunately, Dear Betty, you steered us wrong. When you said, “the world is bigger than peeling a baked potato,” “a few hours out to a coffee shop is not enough,” “women need more than vacuums and diapers,” When you tried to convince us that we were wasting our education by pouring into our homes, that we need to COMPETE, not compliment, the male sex - you completely got it wrong.
As a 21st century, graduate level educated 30 something woman, I've felt this lie to the inner being of my bones. I believe you succeeded in inflitrating the lies into our education system. You convinced women to look outside of our homes, outside of our babies, for something “bigger and better.” You convinced us that our education must compete with our homemaking and family. You succeeded in pitting the career oriented woman against the homemaker. You succeeded in convincing us we must choose, with the former being superior.
Oh dear Betty, how wrong you were! How godless and empty and wrong were your conclusions on women.
As I read your book, I saw how I was personally affected by your ideology. Sometimes it manifested in anger, confusion, and always thoughts, feelings and actions that were NOT of God.
As I dog eared the pages and finally finished the last page, I understood how modern culture has sought to destroy the woman. My eyes were open to an unfulfilled, angry woman - seeking to use contraception, abortion, divorce, education and any means to separate herself from her family, her marriage and her children. My eyes were opened to the extreme, false conclusions on women.
Dear Betty, the truth is that you will NEVER find fulfillment by abandoning your family, by competing with men, by going to an extreme to suppress your nature. Like Aristotle said, “Virtue is a mean between two extremes: one of excess and one of deficiency.” You will NOT find peace, joy or love by going to an extreme of fighting your femininity.
Dear Betty, us women were MADE to bear children! We were made not inferior or superior to men, but EQUAL in dignity! If you wanted to fight for our sex, I wish you would have accepted this TRUTH. Our STRENGTH, NOT our WEAKNESS - is bearing new life! Our feminine, emotional intelligence! No part of our femininity is in competition to men, or competition to education.
Women CAN and I might say, should, be educated in the state of life they are raised into it. College, graduate level study, business pursuits, professional endeavors are wonderful for women! But, you missed the mark. You tried to convince us to pursue these things ABOVE family. Above childbearing.
Dear Betty, a godless ideaology will never work. You must have God the center of your choices and discernment. There must be a right order and priority. Will a woman, should a woman spend more time with her child than a man? There might not be a correct answer but think of how from the moment of conception - the child by nature is physically attached to his mother. He spends the first 9 months directly connected to her. This is God’s natural design! This is truly our superpower as women! NOT our downfall!
Dear Betty, when I poured hours into my adult journals asking, “How will I use my education in motherhood?” I now see where that question came from. You’ve caused my generation to doubt our femininity, to doubt our motherhood.
When you said you’ve solved, “the problem that has no name,” you were wrong. The answer for women’s empowerment is NOT turning away from her natural design! Is NOT turning away from her children, her husband, her family, her nature! The Christian life is ALWAYS centered around others. And it is a PRIVLEDGE to be a woman - not a disease or a burden or a inferior complex!
I’m so sad for the lies you’ve brought upon us women, but I pray for your soul and for those affected by the false feminism to someday come to TRUTH by God’s grace alone.
5 Truths to refute the lies:
1. Femininity is NOT a scale! You tried to convince us that a woman is “more," feminine because she ___, or less feminine because she ____. A woman is a woman! This idea that you are more or less of a woman because of the choices you make is such a lie. You tried to pit us women against each other, making some who like and dislike certain aspects of homemaking doubt themselves. As women, we all have unique gifts that will apply to education and homemaking all differently.
2. We are a body AND soul, and our feminine genius is in both. We do not have to shut down our reproduction in order to be more feminine. Our reproduction is not a burden, but a blessing. The answer is never to shut down our body or kill off our children. The feminine genius is real. Women are incredibly designed human beings with a PURPOSE and unique ability for emotional intelligence and capacity to BEAR LIFE. Any attempt to go against our nature will lead to hurt and chaos and confusion.
3. Education and childbearing are NOT in competition. This idea that the more educated you become, the less "feminine" you become is absurd! It's like a hersey separating brains from body, or demeaning a woman to a sex object etc.
4. The small things have meaning. The small things we do as women, making family dinners, supporting husbands and children - is NOT meaningless. We do not need to leave our family to go find “more.” The home is NOT a “comfortable concentration camp!” The home, the family is actually the KEY to a happy society! I think of Mary, the Mother of God. How the small things she did raising Jesus became a KEY to our salvation. Unfortunately, when we try to compete and not be the women we were created to be, we will have anger, hatred, gender confusion etc, etc.
5. You cannot find fulfillment in a godless ideology. We've forgotten Genesis 1: "God made them male and female." Remembering Genesis 1, doesn't mean returning to the stone age. God made us for THIS fight, in THIS time and place. Applying Genesis 1 means believing in the TRUTH while living in the now. I'd want all women to know, you are so loved for the woman you are.
Quotes to Help Fight Feminism:
"The world doesn't need what women have, it needs what women are." Edith Stein. The lie that we are wasting away by being at home or wasting our talents by being with our children has created so much hurt to women. It's also a lie that the full time working mom doesn't love being with her children! It's a lie that the SAHM doesn't need time away from her children to pursue her interests and "use" her education in other ways!
“How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.” G.K. Chesterton
“Children are not a distraction from the most important work, they ARE the most important work!” C.S. Lewis
Dear Betty, I am so sorry for the hurt you endured from men and the for the confusion you brought upon women. I pray today for all women to learn the TRUTH and for us to trust in God’s promises, “All things for the good for those who love God.”
I pray for the new wave of feminism in my generation to rise and bring back the fulfillment of the Proverbs 31 woman, the wholesome, hard-working, dedicated, smart, emotionally intune, not suppressed woman! I pray that joyful motherhood is an avenue to this new revolution of our sex. When you see the women smiling with their husbands, enjoying their children, may you know the truth. This is the true feminism the way that God created us.
All my love,
Alex DeRose
