Feminists Hate Marriage And The Family

In my first article about feminists here, I made the argument from a Catholic perspective that feminism is evil.

I most certainly stand by that argument.

The Church has always taught that marriage and family are very important.

Moreover, the Church has always taught that motherhood is the calling for most women.

However, some people still believe that feminism wasn’t intentionally against marriage and the family unit.

In this article, I am going to prove that feminists have always been against marriage and the family unit.

Table of Contents

The First Feminist, Charles Fourier, On Marriage and the Family

Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837) was a French pro-revolutionary, utopian socialist philosopher.

Moreover, Fourier first coined the term “feminism” in 1837.

Certainly, he was against the traditional understanding of marriage, family and sexuality.

But don’t take my word for it, take his:

The familial union presents as well a mixture of inconvenient ages and characters that inhibit conversation. Morality engenders a frigid atmosphere, as in all places where it reigns.
Oeuvres completetes de Charles Fourier

To speak frankly, the family bond in the civilizee regime’ causes fathers to desire the death of their children and children to desire the death of their fathers.
L’attraction passioneé

If children are a joy for the well-to-do, they are a torment for seven-eights of all civlizees, who cannot afford to maintain and educate them.
Ibid.

Marriage and dependent children are a trap for the people! Morality carefully hides this distressing truth from us because it knows no remedy for the evil. But I, who bring a remedy must not dissimulate the woes from fathers, and I must not dissimulate from society its radical vice of pushing seven-eighths of all families into evil practices through poverty.
Ibid.

There was very little that prevented the vandalism of 1793 from suddenly producing a second revolution as marvelous as the first was horrible. The whole human race was approaching its release; the civilized, barbarian, and savage order would have disappeared forever if the Convention, which trampled down all prejudices, had not bowed down before the only one that had to be destroyed, the institution of marriage.
Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World, J. Beecher (1986), p. 304-5

It is certain that nature inclines us toward the amorous orgy, just as much as toward the gastronomic orgy, and that while both are blameworthy in the excess, they would become praiseworthy in an order in which they could be equilibrated.
Ibid., p. 310

In conclusion, he obviously was no fan of marriage and the family.

Feminist Cofounder of Communism Friedrich Engels

Likewise, Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) saw marriage as a struggle similar to the class struggle:

The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Monogamy was the first form of the family not founded on natural, but on economic conditions, viz.: the victory of private property over primitive and natural collectivism.
Ibid.

In the family, he is the bourgeois, the woman represents the proletariat.
Ibid.

Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other, as the proclamation of a conflict between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous historic period. In an old unpublished manuscript written by Marx and myself in 1846 I find the words: The first division of labour is that between man and woman for the propagation of children. And today I can add: The first class antagonism that appears in history coincides with that of the female sex by the male.
Ibid.

The first class antagonism appearing in history coincides with the development of the antagonism of man and wife in monogamy, and the first class oppression with that of the female by the male sex.
Ibid.

In other words, for Engels, women should overcome their husband in the same way the proletariat should overcome the bourgeois.

Certainly, this would mean the dissolution of the family in the same way that Communism abolishes private property.

So this feminist theory created by Fourier and expanded upon by Engels would become the basis of the feminist movement.

Therefore, the feminist movement was an extension of the socialist movement from the beginning.

First-Wave Feminists Were Against the Traditional Understanding of Marriage

So many well-intentioned people believe that first-wave feminism was not about attacking marriage and the family.

In order to rebut that claim, I am going to reference 2 of the most prominent first-wave feminist leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

First, atheist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) had this to say about marriage:

To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up—to be wedded to an idea—may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony

The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Similarly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s best friend, never-married Quaker turned agnostic, Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) wrote:

Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life.
Social Purity

I never felt I could give up my life of freedom to become a man’s housekeeper. When I was young, if a girl married poverty, she became a drudge; if she married wealth, she became a doll. Had I married at twenty-one, I would have been either a drudge or a doll for fifty-five years. Think of it!
Susan B. Anthony Interview

If women will not accept marriage with subjection, nor men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The women who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period… single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves.
Susan B. Anthony Speech

In other words, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were not fans of the traditional role of the wife.

Feminist Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir was a Marxist socialist existentialist philosopher that further defined feminist ideology:

The worst curse on woman is her exclusion from warrior expeditions; it is not in giving life but in risking his life that man raises himself above the animal; this is why throughout humanity, superiority has been granted not to the sex that gives birth but to the one that kills.
The Second Sex

All forms of socialism, wresting woman from the family, favor her liberation.
Ibid.

The terms masculine and feminine are used symmetrically only as a matter of form, as on legal papers. In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general ; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.
A History of Sex

This quote pretty much sums up why feminists have been so relentless about pushing women to work:

No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.
Simone de Beauvoir Interview with Betty Friedan

Simone’s existentialist philosophy would not only influence feminism, but also be the basis for gender theory.

Borrowing from her lover, Sartre, she developed the idea that in gender “existence precedes essence”:

One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine.
The Second Sex

In other words, de Beauvoir planted the seed for the transgenderism and further radicalized feminism.

Second-Wave Feminists

As a result of Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex, published in 1949, the second-wave of feminism in the 1960s would commence.

In the same vein as the feminists before them, many new feminists rose to the occasion.

We will cover some examples here:

Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Jo Freeman, Naomi Weisstein, and Shulamith Firestone

Feminist Betty Friedan

Firstly, Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was a feminist who wrote The Feminine Mystique, which essentially kicked off second-wave feminism.

Again, her focus was convincing women to pursue careers instead of being housewives:

Women who ‘adjust’ as housewives, who grow up wanting to be ‘just a housewife,’…they are suffering a slow death of mind and spirit.
The Feminine Mystique

A woman today who has no goal, no purpose, no ambition patterning her days into the future, making her stretch and grow beyond that small score of years in which her body can fill its biological function, is committing a kind of suicide.
Ibid.

Why should women accept this picture of a half-life, instead of a share in the whole of human destiny?
Ibid.

In other words, Friedan wasn’t a fan of women being housewives.

As with the feminists before her, she believed that woman should pursue happiness outside of the home.

In contrast, she looked down on women who just wanted to live as housewives and mothers.

Feminist Gloria Steinem

Secondly, Gloria Steinem (born March 25, 1934) was a second-wave feminist.

In the same vein as the others, her focus has been to blur the line between the sexes.

In other words, she has conformed to the “existence before essence” idea that de Beauvoir proposed regarding gender.

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
Speech at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., 23 Sept. 1981

More women are becoming the men they wanted to marry, but too few men are becoming the women they wanted to marry. That leaves most women with two jobs, one outside the home and one in it.
Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.250, Open Road Media

The deepest change begins with men raising children as much as women do and women being equal actors in the world outside the home.
Huffington Post Article

The surest way to be alone is to get married.

Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.

The problem with Superwoman is that she has to do it all, inside the home and outside the home. If there is a man there doing half of it, that’s a different world.

In other words, she wishes to deny the differences between men and women and give them the same roles.

Moreover, she seems to want to push for men to be more feminine and is upset that they aren’t feminine enough.

Again, this is an attack on marriage and the family because muddy roles leads to competition and chaos.

Other Second-Wave Feminists

Lastly, there were many other second-wave feminists that said similarly nasty things.

First, feminist Jo Freeman (born August 26, 1945) said:

A highly competent [obscenity] often deprecates herself by refusing to recognize her own superiority…Like most women they were taught to hate themselves as well as all women…Internalization of a derogatory self-concept always results in a good deal of bitterness and resentment. This anger is usually either turned in on the self —making one an unpleasant person or on other women — reinforcing the social cliches about them. Only with political consciousness is it directed at the source — the social system…. We must be strong, we must be militant, we must be dangerous.
Jo Freeman Magazine Article

She is essentially saying that women hate themselves for being lesser and need to channel that hate to overthrow the system.

This point goes a bit further than just attacking marriage and family, but the goal is always revolution.

In addition, feminist Naomi Weisstein (October 16, 1939 – March 26, 2015) said:

Except for their genitals, I don’t know what immutable differences exist between men and women. Perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until social expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both sexes, answers to this question will simply reflect our prejudices.
Naomi Weisstein Article

Finally, feminist Shulamith Firestone (January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) said:

Just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be, … not just the elimination of the male privilege, but of the sex distinction itself; genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally.
The Dialectic of Sex

Again, these women bought into the idea proposed by de Beauvoir that gender is just something that one can choose.

The Results of Second Wave Feminism

The results of second-wave feminism were abhorrent.

Firstly, legalized abortion, or murder of the unborn, came out of the movement.

Secondly, no-fault divorce was legalized. meaning people can divorce at will.

This has been detrimental to children of divorcees.

Thirdly, it’s virtually ubiquitous that adult married women have full time careers now.

This, of course, means that the children are left in daycare, school or afterschool programs for their rearing.

Fourthly, contraception has been promulgated amongst the population.

Fifthly, the sexual revolution caused women to be promiscuous outside of marriage.

Finally, feminism, gender theory, and these socialist philosophies have been taught in nearly every school.

With contraception, abortion, and women focused on careers, this has lead to much less children per couple.

Men have largely opted out of marriage commitment because of no-fault divorce and the sexual revolution.

In other words, the socialists that created feminism have been successful.

They have nearly destroyed the institution of marriage and wiped out the family unit.

Women focus on careers and sexual promiscuity instead of marriage and children.

Men focus on getting what they want from women, and then completely opting out of responsibility.

The children suffer because everyone is chasing their own selfish desires instead of caring for the kids.

I may talk about third-wave and fourth-wave feminism in future articles.

But I think this article shows all the problems feminism has created were always the plan.

Likewise, I may write a future article regarding the fact that most women want to be wives and mothers.

But again, you can just talk to women to see that most of them want to be wives and mothers.

If you aren’t yet Catholic, I am hoping that you will realize that the Catholic way is correct.

Women that pursue the Catholic way put marriage and motherhood above their selfish ambitions.

Read here to learn more.

In short, I hope you see that the solution to these problems is The Catholic State.