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The Family, Not Feminism, Is Here to Stay
Eliezer Melamed, a rabbi from the community of Har Beracha (see photo) in Samaria, was recently interviewed and offered some acute observations on feminism.
“Feminism,” the rabbi said, “like other associated liberal concepts, is mistaken at its core. Feminism sees people solely as individuals, that they are not members of a family, of a nation, or even of society at large. Feminists are not good neighbors. They prefer loose personal connections so they can focus on themselves. This is not appropriate human behavior, which should involve concern for those around you. It’s no wonder that feminism has destroyed families, with both men and women as its casualties.
“People are not meant to live in isolation; they are a part of something. All of halacha (Torah law) regarding families does not relate to individual men or women but to a formula for healthy family life, which automatically includes how life is best lived by men and women — as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Feminism promotes external individual achievements, such as female army service, without much interest in family life.
“Due to the feminist movement, many men are more reluctant today to form connections with women. They feel that they are looked upon with suspicion and that they need to prove their innocence. They feel that they are constantly being scrutinized under the watchful eye of the feminist police.
“The consequences of feminism should be a warning to us all: more divorce, more unmarrieds, more LGBT’s, more children living without parental presence much of the time. Advances of women in academic and professional life are definitely positive but these advances must come slowly, and never at the family’s expense.”
Yet the rabbi is optimistic. He thinks that feminism will self-destruct just as communism self-destructed in the Soviet Union. “In the Soviet Union, a great effort was made to nullify nationalist and religious feelings, but the moment the Soviet Union fell apart, there was a strong return to nationalism and to religion since it is natural for people to be attached to a land and to a faith. So, too, it is in our nature to be part of a family. It may be possible to destroy the family framework temporarily, but in the not too distant future there will be a return to the family structure, and it will be stronger than ever before.”
Published in General
The fruit of feminism is abortion, the ultimate betrayal of family. It comes from feminism’s radical autonomy, in which the rights of another are as nothing to one’s own rights.
“It is a tragedy that a child must die so that you may live as you wish,” said Mother Teresa. Feminism celebrates and embraces this tragedy as a sacrament.
The fruit is rotten.
Good post, Yehoshua.
It would be too easy to blame the failure of my relationships on the feminism of the women I’ve known. Maybe I’m just a mope.
As Mark Styen says, “The future belongs to those who show up.” And Socialism/Communism reduces the birth rates.
Yes, Vectorman, and those who have lots of kids (Chasidic Jews and Mormons) vote for conservatives.
I especially appreciate this comment, Yehoshua. We have damaged our relationship with men, good men, and it will take a long time to recover. I appreciate the rabbi’s observations a great deal, and I hope he is right. Feminism went far beyond its original mandate, and we need to heal. Thanks for a great post.
I see feminism like the serpent in the Genesis. The serpent separates the man and the woman. They no longer trust one another. They see the possibility of sin. They cover up their bodies from each other because their nakedness shames them.
That which separates man from woman, made in the Creator’s own image male and female, is the serpent. Is evil.
That which brings us together in truth is good and is the Creator’s own image recreated.
That’s what I think, anyway.
Don’t forget committed Catholics, YB-E! I have 16 great-nephews/nieces, so far, from 23 nieces/nephews. :-D L’Shana Tova – prayers and thoughts for Yom Kippur, too. Thanks for this!
You and Bethany Mandel. May the breeders inherit the Earth.
Papa Toad and I have six. Choose life! that you and your children may live!
I think the good rabbi has it all backwards. Feminists are not individuals. The are collectivists. They see themselves as women who must adhere to communist/socialist/collectivist ideology rather than as individuals who might have different values.
Breeding aside, the cult of radical individualism is strong. Think of the mainline Protestant Churches and the Jews in America. Alot of corruption can happen very quickly.
But they get have sex with whoever they want and the government must pay for their behavior. Sexually they are both libertarian libertines and collectivists. They get to live however they want (individualism) and someone else pays for it (collectivism.) Radical indivualism involves society accomadating your choices. Ergo, abortion rights.
Think of communism,
For as soon as the distrubtion of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is foreced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a a herdsman, or a cirtical critic, and must reamin so if he does not want to lose his mean of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branche he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, eithout becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. — Karl Marx
All this is utter fantasy. The Greeks would recognize it as utter fantasy. A tradesman becomes really good at a few things and sells his skilled services to other trained specialists. But it is radical individualism to suppose that you can do anything and everything and that outside society determines what you are.
I used to teach English and I always hated teaching once a week classes because you spend way too much time repating what they forgot in the last six days. If any Ricochetti wants to put their kids in a language class, do twice a week or go home. You need to specialize in things in order to get good.
Right, they have sex whenever they want in a manner in compliance with what the Movement says. They will have abortions on demand in order to comply with the Movement’s demand that they dedicate their lives to the Movement and not their family, or themselves.
They are the exact opposite of individualists.
And being an individualist is precisely what our country was founded to be. Unlike the feminists, however, the founders believed in real freedom. The feminists believe only the movement. Everything for the movement and nothing against the movement.
Re#10
A certain type of individualism leads to collectivism.
That claim invites a really big, “How?”
I think Asonia is right. Fragmented isolated individuals living according to their own lights without knowing reference to evolved mores and traditions, are easily turned into a mob, the disconnected fodder more easily subjugated by a strong govenment. The thing we call collectivism is really not collective at all, it’s subjugation by a narrow powerful governing elite.
The premise of the OP is that feminism is a monolithic movement. It is not. Even the definitions of the types of feminism vary considerably. It is all complicated with many competing agendas. Here is a Wikipedia snippet:
Where as the link below talks about intersectionality (3rd wave) and gender constructs (4th wave).
https://femmagazine.com/feminism-101-what-are-the-waves-of-feminism/
They are for equality of result, not opportunity.
Christina Hoff Somers spoke with Ben Shapiro over the weekend about feminisms.
Very interesting conversation, I thought:
I hear. Catholics are also famous for large families. How could I forget!
“Collectivist” is a buzz word with no content. People who live under communist regimes have no sense of community. How can you when, at any moment, the KGB may knock loudly on your door (if they knock at all) and whisk you off to the Gulag?
In communist states, people do not care for one another. They snitch on one another.
Regarding first-wave feminism, I’m all in. However, in my humble opinion, any woman who puts career before having children is a threat to civilization. And let’s face it, without birth control pills, the various forms of feminism since the 1960’s would not be possible. So what is feminism, in the end, really all about? When you detach intimate relations from the responsibility to procreate — as increasing numbers of women decide not to have children — you are making a statement that the future is of no real concern to you because you choose not to have any part in bringing the next generation into being. Also, the pleasure you derive from intimacy is completely self-centered since no offspring — that require constant sacrifice, putting the needs of your child before your own — will come from it.
I’m plenty disturbed by the unorthodox maunderings on what is individualism and what is collectivism. The mental gymnastics are leaving me dizzy. I feel like I’m in 1984. “War is Peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is Strength” and now Individualism is Collectivism.
Do you really think that the communist/progressive influence that has been popular in important segments of our society since the turn of the 19th to 20th century and which has dominated the democrat party and much of our culture since at least the 1940’s would have been much different if the Pill hadn’t been invented?
The Party is not reliant on any particular technological or medical breakthrough. Absent the pill, the Party would require that women become expert at the use of condoms, and other forms of birth control, and failing that the party would promote an even more liberal practice of infanticide as a responsibility for furthering the Party ideals. They wouldn’t stop at preventing births, they would howl and scream until the government takes over all responsibility for raising unwanted children, and then they would ensure that as many children as possible became unwanted (which is precisely what Kim Il-sung did).
It’s all just variation on a theme. The progressives don’t want any particular agenda such as free love, drugs and rock and roll, or homosexual marriage. Those issues are nothing but tools to attain ideological power over people, and no matter the issue du jour they have shown remarkable success at winning the premise of their agendas.
Feminism has never been about women and equal rights, except for a few crack pots. Feminism is about toppling social institutions so that the collectivist mentality can be established, and then exploited to allow pure control by the party elite.
I hate to think you might be correct. Weren’t the Chinese killing their infant daughters when only one child was permissible and they preferred a boy to a girl? The new policy in China permits two children on condition that one of the parents is an only child. (Previously, in order to have two children, both parents had to be only children.)