Alice Walker’s daughter exposes the cruel narcissism of a feminist icon
Print this out and send it to every young liberal woman you know: Here.
A few of the most poignant sections from Alice Walker’s daughter, Rebecca (hat tip – Kathryn Lopez):
Ironically, my mother regards herself as a hugely maternal woman. Believing that women are suppressed, she has campaigned for their rights around the world and set up organisations to aid women abandoned in Africa – offering herself up as a mother figure.
But, while she has taken care of daughters all over the world and is hugely revered for her public work and service, my childhood tells a very different story. I came very low down in her priorities – after work, political integrity, self-fulfilment, friendships, spiritual life, fame and travel.
My mother would always do what she wanted – for example taking off to Greece for two months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that independent, or just plain selfish?
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me – a ‘delightful distraction’, but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.
According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio – some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.
There’s also a sad passage in which Rebecca Walker describes her mother accompanying her to get an abortion at age 14. The callousness is no surprise to a growing number of women who refuse to be silent any longer about the heartache abortion has caused them.
Rebecca Walker’s conclusion:
It’s been almost four years since I have had any contact with my mother, but it’s for the best – not only for my self-protection but for my son’s well-being. I’ve done all I can to be a loyal, loving daughter, but I can no longer have this poisonous relationship destroy my life.
I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to deliver a very different message. Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities. It’s helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what about the problems it’s caused for my contemporaries?…
…Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.
But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women’s movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them – as I have learned to my cost. I don’t want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.
I hope that my mother and I will be reconciled one day. Tenzin deserves to have a grandmother. But I am just so relieved that my viewpoint is no longer so utterly coloured by my mother’s.
I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters – a happy family.
Amen, amen, and amen.
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Imagine her life if her mother had not the money to leave her to buy the food and fend for herself. At least she was able to eat.
In The Glass Castle, we read a woman’s memoirs of a hippy style family whose parents didn’t like to work or support their children. Often the kids had to fend for themselves and went hungry.
Feminism is partly responsible for the destruction of western civilization by failing to preserve the family.
Confucius said, as the family goes, so goes the nation.
I’m so sorry to hear about that, Rebecca.
I’m glad you found Motherhood to be fulfilling.
I’ll say a prayer for you.
Today this would be called child abuse/neglect.
What a sad article but I understand it all too well.
Ben Stein said it best back in the Murphy Brown days, “Liberals hate kids.”
Since liberals are childish, do you think it’s because real kids steal their thunder?
Or is it because kids take up time, patience, sacrifice and love?
Probably a combination of both.
Well, some anti-feminists beat their wives, owing largely to being anti-feminist.
Just that some feminist women are awful people, and even that their awfulness is closely connected to their feminism, doesn’t mean that being a feminist makes one an awful person. Some people are just obnoxious and self-centered, and will latch on to any idealogy that gives them an excuse to be bastards. Look at Christopher Hitchens, who uses both atheism and neoconservativism to justify hating just about everybody. And who doesn’t know obnoxiously militant vegetarians and equally obnoxious Christian fundamentalists? There are bastards of all political orientations; it shouldn’t surprise anyone that some of these are feminists.
This doesn’t, of course, in any way diminish the wrongness of being feminist in a way that leads to mistreating one’s children. But it also doesn’t follow that feminists as a rule don’t like children. All this shows is that some feminists don’t like children. This tells us as much about feminists’ attitude towards children as Rudy Giuliani tells us about Republicans’ attitudes towards marriage.
Amazing passage.
Give us some names of feminists who like children, i.e., make them a priority in their lives AND are pro life.
Read the feminist bible: Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. That’s where the idea of children are a “burden” to women and get in the way of their “fulfillment” (i.e. ambitions) comes from.
Like some Muslims? Why are feminists silent when it comes to the mistreatment of women in Islam?
Agreed. Unloving parents seem to be of all political types. I wonder what the Reagan kids would think!
I wonder how many feminists beat thier husbands (if they have them)
This is not helping michelle obamas kids.
Hey I remebered!!!
Poor analogy. You are mistaking policy with practice.
I am still waiting to hear the name of ONE feminist who is pro life. NAME ONE.
Why is this in a British newspaper? Would no American newspaper touch it?
How sad that someone would choose to abandon their own child, who they consider a “calamity”, and then play pretend mother to children half way around the globe. It sounds like a woman I met who said she felt more fulfilled working in a day-care center than staying at home and caring for her own children.
Is it the “familiarity breeds contempt” syndrome, or the “grass is greener on the other side of the fence” syndrome? Or is it just the need some people have for public recognition, and nothing in their lives has any importance or meaning without it?
Feminists for Life comes to mind. However, some of the things liberal women have said about FFL’s most famous figure – Patricia Heaton – are horrible.
Original feminism was wonderful. Modern-day feminism is awful, a shrill, hysterical movement devoid of all that is feminine and good for women.
I have to concur – in all the years and all the feminists I met in college and grad school, not a ONE of them supports anything like motherhood, post-abortion counseling, stay-at-home mothers, etc.
All those things are nuisances, standing in the way of our “fulfillment”. Women who stay at home really can’t be happy, according to them. Women who have more than one or two children are using their bodies for the wrong line of work, etc.
Such a shame.
I like Camille Paglia’s description of mainstream feminism:
Do you have evidence of the political becoming personal? Rebecca Walker does. Look at the revelations of Arthur Miller’s abandoned child. Intellectuals were raised to shame us, yet they are immune to shame.
You make some good points, I agree that not all feminists treat their children like Alice Walker did and they don’t all hate children. But feminism is not really, in my opinion, just a neutral set of beliefs. I think as an ideology it is extremely damaging. Feminism denies basic realities about men and women, and women who live their lives according to its principles are often very unhappy. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” There’s more to feminism than that phrase, but it’s one that most feminists would agree with. And it is absolutely false. Men and women need each other, and they need each other for different things. Feminism teaches women that independence and self-will should be their primary motivators. Feminism also teaches women that they should want and value the same things as men. While Alice Walker may be a selfish, narcissistic person who would have latched onto any belief system to excuse her behavior, the fact remains that the ideas put forth by feminism naturally lead to a denial of what is truly feminine and the false belief that women are essentially no different from men. This is profoundly harmful to the majority of women, who are, in fact, very different from the majority of men and who are made happy and fulfilled by different things.
I consider myself a feminist. I also put my children first. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive at all. Being a feminist means believing in equal rights for women and men. I am raising sons that know what strong women look like. I am no doormat, but my children are my life. And I’m also a working woman who has chosen to be self-employed for the flexibility, although I’m not making as much money as I could in the corporate world. Where is the contradiction here? There isn’t one.
So when did you stop beating your wife?
Seriously, your non-sequitur is lgm-esque in its majesty.
Rather bland statement. What, exactly, do you mean by “equal rights”? If you mean equal work, equal pay, sure, I see no problem with that. But I do not think that women belong in certain areas of work, i.e. military, police, firefighters, etc… where physical strength is necessary.
If you think that being a feminist means that women shouldn’t be doormats, I disagree. Feminism does not hold the monopoly on the idea that women should be treated with dignity and respect. Pope John Paul II wrote a beautiful encyclical on the dignity of women, and any clear thinking Christian realizes that.
I don’t believe that men and women are equal. Equal means the same, and they are not the same. I believe in equity for men and women, which is about justice.
Feminism has gone too far. They have blurred the differences between men and women: biologically, mentally, emotionally, sociologically, etc… They have done a great disservice to younger women, society, and the West by lying about the complementary differences between men and women, and by demonizing men, Christianity, and the west.
The fact that feminists don’t give a hoot about their Muslim “sisters” demonstrates that feminism is NOT about the rights and dignity of women. It’s about selfishness, narcissism and irresponsibility.
The fact that Alice Walker is a self absorbed whiny nag is evident in her writing. I cannot stand that woman. What a cow. We used her short called “Beauty, when self is the other dancer” for a english project in college. My response to the story was that Alice really needed to stop her incessant bitching and get a life. My teacher, who was very liberal, actually agreed with me.
But Lynne Stewart really blurs the line.
No, I don’t think that what you’ve described is a contradiction. There are a lot of strong, powerful women who are also devoted mothers. You say that being a feminist means believing in equal rights for men and women. However, in practice and as it is borne out in individuals’ actions and worldviews, feminism means a lot more than that. Every feminist I have ever encountered dismisses differences between the sexes and refuses to even consider the possibility that, e.g., abortion may be wrong, or being a stay at home mom, at least for a while, may be better for children than working full time, or that most women are more fulfilled by traditionally “feminine” things than by masculine things like power and career. If feminism as it is practiced today did nothing more than assert women’s worth and dignity as equal to men’s, I would be all for it. If all it advocated was equal opportunities for women, that would be great. But that’s not the case. Feminism does more than say women and men are equal in worth–it says they are equal–i.e. the same–in a whole host of other ways which, in my opinion, they simply are not. The ways in which this is harmful both to women and to society are myriad, but the bottom line is that feminism encourages women to do things that, on the whole, just do not make them as happy as what is more traditionally feminine. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. This is admittedly a generalization, but I stand by my belief that it is true for most people.
Wow. I completely relate to Rebecca’s story (except my mother wasn’t famous and when I was left alone, I starved). I’m glad she’s speaking her mind.
If feminism were one idealogy, I’d mostly agree with you. But it isn’t an idealogy so much as it loosely describes many idealogies that would self-identify as being in favor of the equality of women and men. There are a lot of disagreements about what “women and men should be treated equally means,” and some people think that means being an awful person.
If you’re going to identiy fallacies, at least identify the right fallacy. It was a false-generalization, and then only an example of a false-generalization with a logical structure more or less the same as the initial post. MM’s saying ‘this feminist hated her daughter. All feminists hate their daughters,’ just as I said ’some anti-feminists beat their wives. All anti-feminists beat their wives.’ I didn’t accuse non-feminists of beating their wives. I was pointing out that it’s silly to do so, for the same reason it’s silly to accuse feminists of hating children.
In the case of specifically Hitchens? No, assuming his personality in public is entirely different from his personality in private. Of course, I don’t see why I would assume that. He isn’t an actor; he’s ostensibly a writer and a journalst. Do I know people who’ve broken friendships and refused to talk to family members and just generally been obnoxious because of political stands? Yes I do.
Alice Walker is a big hero to Hillary Clinton. Besides being cruel to her own daughter, Alice Walker is virulently antiIsrael, so much so that the term “antisemite” might just apply to Ms. Walker. She signed an ad in the New York Times some years back that did not just criticize Israel. The ad that Walker signed called for the elimination of the State of Israel. The ad that she signed called for the replacement of the State of Israel by a Palestinian Arab state. The late leftist Ossie Davis also signed the ad.
Yet despite her record of being ferociously antiIsrael, Steven Spielberg idolizes Alice Walker. Hillary Clinton also admires Walker.
memyselfandi,
You’re not describing the feminist movement that took place in the 60s.
My mother wasn’t a feminist either and my story is similar. Not every woman should be a mother. I raised my children by doing everything my mother didn’t do and by not doing what she did do. I told my children that I might not do everything right so that it was then their responsibility to eliminate the those things that I didn’t do well so that their parenting would be better than what I did for them.
“Being a feminist means believing in equal rights for women and men.”
That is flatly false. Feminists and women in general (including some conservative women) love to talk about feminism’s allegedly noble intent instead of its day-to-day reality. Feminism is about revenge, hatred of men, and female supremacy.
I’m a 46 year old man who grew up in and still lives in California. Like most people who grew up in suburban California in the ’60’s and ’70’s, I was “down” with all the liberal pop culture phenoms including feminism. By the time I was in my 30’s, I’d been on the receiving end of feminist “enlightenment” for long enough to see it for what it really is. (I’m a slow learner.) It’s worse now than it’s ever been.
To say that feminism is about equality is to merely parrot one of the tenets of its absurd propaganda platform. Feminism is now dominant in our society. One of the best ways to judge a movement or people is to watch what they do when they gain power. The utter contempt our culture has for men from pop culture to workplace law to the courts (including family courts) to dozens of other areas tells you everything you need to know about feminism.
I’ll say it again – feminism is not about equality, it’s about revenge, hatred of men, and female supremacy.
The only problem with your argument is that…MM never said “All feminists hate their daughters” or anything remotely similar. Reread her post and tell me where you find that. Feel free to look under the penumbras and behind the emanations.
BTW, it’s ideology.
The woman’s lib movement has done more to destroy the foundation and fabric of our families and country than anything else I can think of. This movement has demasculated men, left our children alone and taught girls to seek attention and be irresponsible.
Lessons in Feminism:
Stan/Loretta is a gender feminist.
Reg is an equity feminist.
We know this as the Madonna Effect.
LOL! Good lesson, Python Wisdom is always welcome.
Rebecca, God Bless you.
I have two feminist siblings. I would call them my sisters but they long ago let me know that men were the problem with the world and shut me out of their lives.
I have seen first hand the cruel reality of feminism.
Now those same two siblings are alone, truly bitter, self-isolated form the only people in the world who ever cared for them and, in my mind, waiting on the grave. For they see nothing, and have seen nothing good around them in their adult lives.
Rebecca, build your live and protect your children.
It is the best thing you can do. You have my unending respect for speaking out.
I hope your message encourages more kids of feminist to do the same.
I think we all know that feminism has become far more than just equal rights for women. It has grown to be a far left political block, bent on destroying anything that has to do with western civilization and society in general. The ultimate goal, of course, is those in the forefront of “feminism” to be the ones running the “show”. Unfortunately, it has become one of the ways the family has become so separated. Each person “doing their own thing”. Women and men will always be different. You cannot legislate something that is against nature, though we have a Congress today that wants to control all of nature. I’m so glad my 3 daughters aren’t that way. We are a close family, with values and morality.
I have older sisters like that – of the four of them, only one had children of her own; another “cheated” by adopting an infant from China, and the other two missed the boat altogether. Only one of them (the one with kids) is married; two of the others were married and divorced (one of them twice), and one (who adopted) never could find a man who could stand her.
Being good liberal feminists all, for the ones who couldn’t be bothered with the “burden” of kids, my only observation is — “You’ve already given back to America all you can: you didn’t breed.”
obviously, this woman has learned from her mother’s mistakes; and, yet, she has her mother’s talent for writing, too. what a great and wise woman she is, and how sad for her mother.
nothing is more important than the future generation(s), and that is one thing the feminist movement of the 70’s still has not quite figured out. these selfish and bitter women are blind to the impact they have had on generations.
It seems the farther away something is from a liberal (e.g. hunger in Darfur) the more concerned they are about it, and conversely, the closer it is to them, the more they neglect it,,while as conservatives we realize it’s within personal interactions that the greatest good can be done. Forget about “social justice” for a moment. What about caring for those in need who are closest to you.
Yep, there are good parents and bad parents. And, good and bad are relative to our own experiences.
Heck, there are good and bad people.
Attributing good and bad to an individual’s political, or religious, beliefs is too broad a brush stroke.
You mean she was punished with a daughter?
How did the daughter feel? Did she care?
Does she now understand the selfishness of her “feminist” ego?
I know a few people like this. They are hurting their children, don’t know or understand and worse, don’t seem to care.
Bingo.
So long as their “concern” is impersonal then it’s acceptable.
I think it comes down to a refusal to take any responsibility for the problems. Let the government feed the poor. Let the government give them shelter. Let the government clothe them.
The worst thing you can do to the left is create an inconvenience for them.
Straw man alert! No one attributed good or bad to feminism. But it’s undeniable that many isms (e.g., communism, feminism, Bolshevism, Nazism) attract sociopaths like a Georgia porch light attracts mosquitoes.
What a tragedy that Alice Walker never discovered the absolute joy of being there for one’s own children. This daughter was a huge blessing to her, but she bought the lie of feminism that being “just a mother” wasn’t good enough. Au contraire. This mother of two recognizes that my role as mother cannot ever be eclipsed by any other job in importance, even if I were to become a U.S. Senator. It would pale in importance to my role as “mother”.
Sounds like BHO and his wife M O -to them and the liberal communist socialist LEFT children are a burden.
CHILREN ARE A BLESSING FROM G O D!!!!!
CS
L For LIFE
What’s really sad is I can relate to Rebecca Walker in so many ways. While we were not wealthy and my mother was not a feminist, she was like Alice Walker every other way described.
Liberal remind me of abusers. Abuse will carry on for generations until one decides to break the cycle. When one chooses to speak up and open that closet and release the skeletons, they are often ostricized and disowned as Rebecca and I know all too well.
Sure seems like it. IMO it’s because uberlibs–feminists and others–are all about self fulfillment and self gratification above all else – and caring for kids, and that attitude, DO NOT MIX.
Wow, to say the least. This just goes to show that the extremism of feminism is not about fairness for the female sex, but rather a form of victimization and a rage outlet.
What does it say about feminism that a fairly liberal woman, Tammy Bruce, decides to abandon the feminist ship?
What does it say about feminism that the daughter of a famous feminist says that her mother’s views were harmful to her childhood?
But of course, like David Mamet’s conversion to conservatism, this story will stay hidden from Americans who don’t read Michelle Malkin or National Review…
A lot good post here. I think this idea of “equal rights” obfuscates what good for society as a whole. It also has become a kind of catch all phrase that is very broadly defined. As others have mentioned equal pay for equal work is one thing but “feminism” has come to encompass so much more then that. Like many the “rights” issues it has become radical and destructive. Men and woman are different and thank God they are.
I know one thing for certain. In the last 50 years or so the American family has taken some major hits and “feminism”, in part, had something to do with it.
I notice that no one so far has observed that political feminism is about lesbianism. I mean, who are a significant number of the movement’s icons?
atheling said:
OK now you’re bringing up some associations in my mind. Didn’t Obama say he wanted to give his daughter the option of an abortion because pregnancy might “punish” her with a baby? He could just as well have said “inconvenienced”. Then there’s Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” as if inconvenience is some major force in the world, in his mind. I guess if one’s social values trump personal values, all kinds of things which might otherwise have been personal become inconvenient. Alice Walker called her daughter both a distraction and a calamity. As the church lady would say, “How inconVENient” to have an unplanned child.
Feminists have become all and then some of what they claimed to hate. Selfish, cruel barbarians.
They don’t speak for me.
Her situation somewhat reminds me of the price the Soviet peoples paid under Communism:
Although the masses fianlly became literate, they paid for their education by subjecting themselves to purges, mutual suspicion, shortages, and the rise of new Communist elites to replace the despised Russian nobility of the Tsarist era.
Seems Alice forgot one very important factor: balance.
…”The fact that feminists don’t give a hoot about their Muslim “sisters”…So, Feminists have said nothing…”
Jealous of their “sisters’” dominance by men… maybe masochism can be added to their attributes.
Diagnosis: DVM
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Feminism is just another ism that when practiced in a vacuum free of any other competing isms is a disaster.
{^_^}
I was reading the comments, but before I could really respond, you’d already pointed out the fallacies of your detractors and dissected feminist arguments. Good stuff.
The only thing I’d like to add greater emphasis to is this: you must judge the doctrine on its own merits: what are the logical conclusions of a system of thought if taken by itself? To say, “well, there are feminists who are good moms out there.” Great. I’m sure there are, but are they better parents because of the feminist philosophy, or because they are inconsistent feminists who still “cling” to conservative/Christian family values?
You think Oprah will interview Rebecca Walker on her show?
This may not be scientific, but I get the impression that true liberals (and Obama may be a good example of this) want to be “viewed” or “believed” to be wonderful, educated, all things to all people — and as long as the illusion is there, that’s what’s important. It’s like the wizard behind the drapes in the Wizard of Oz. It doesn’t matter if its true, as long as you are praised and praised and praised for your public image.
The problems, the true character, the warts and the scars are only apparent to those in your inner circle (family, children) and they don’t seem to want to spend a lot of time with them.
As long as they can go out and continue to be praised, that’s where they will be.
Could this be a direct result of our public school system’s “no one can fail”, “everyone gets a blue ribbon”, “grades are bad” policies?
Hmmmm… I never said that there are feminists who are good moms. Perhaps you are quoting another person.
You know, my sister is a “Recovering Liberal” (Ha!) and she admitted to me the exact same thing. She championed all the liberal causes because she thought it made her a good person. She never considered the ramifications or long term effects of those causes, nor did she examine the many inconsistencies and hypocrisy of mainstream liberalism until now. She’s a recent convert to Christianity, and realizes the phoniness and selfishness of her liberal position.
She also realizes that the way she treats everyone she is in contact with – on a personal basis – matters more than just saying or supporting liberal causes. She explained to me that feeling good about oneself matters more than having any principles, morals, ethics and values when one is a liberal. It is a very narcissistic world view.
Don’t have a clue there jroberts, do you? Try setting the Kama aside for a moment and re-read Rebecca Walker’s piece WITHOUT your world view intruding.
It is HER story about the horrors so many went through as mere adjuncts to the Cause. But that is all beyound you, isn’t it? No jroberts is NOT about you, sorry.
I’ll say at the outset that I adore women and coexist with them quite well
Does being raised by a neglectful, self-absorbed parent(s) lead to conservative belief? Based on the small sample here, including myself, I am inclined to believe so. Or maybe we just got dropped on our heads? I dunno.
What I do know is that IMHO good parenting requires servant leadership and the willing delay of gratification for the benefit of others. That’s not the picture my mind sees when someone mentions feminism. As was said above, seems like self-fulfillment, revenge and power.
Yes, I was summarizing jroberts’ response to what you had said and was elaborating as to the fallacy he was committing.
When I read this story last week, I honestly wasn’t surprised. However, it’s not just the femnazis as Rush calls them. There seems to be many today who do view their children not as precious gifts but as “punishments”. They also seem to feel that their happiness is more important than their childrens. Unfortunately, I have a pal from high school who recently found out her new boyfriend was molesting her 10 y/o son and 12 y/o daughter. She kept this criminal in the house for two weeks and finally the girl told her teacher and she and the brother were out of the house that afternoon. This idiot actually chose this guy over her kids until the cops came. But she bailed him out. Kids are still in foster care (where they’re better off in my opinion) and she’s trolling the yahoo personals again looking for another boyfriend (she needs to be happy).
Rebecca’s story is heart breaking but I am happy she has found what truly matters.
terrig:
Your story about that pathetic woman who let a man abuse and molest her children happens too frequently.
I hold women like her with so much contempt, it makes me want to slap her silly. Dr. Laura addresses this issue constantly.
Women should be she-bears when it comes to protecting their children.
But instead, they are too weak and stupid to choose a husband for character and fatherly instincts. Instead, they have serial boyfriends with whom they have children, and end up raising those children themselves in poverty. That’s stupid.
Then we see them anxiously hunting for the “next” one, and often, in their desperation, end up with a creep who hurts her children. How many times have we read stories of children who have been beaten, burned, strangled, molested, abandoned, and murdered in horrific ways by mom’s boyfriend? Too many damned times!
Because feminism has destroyed the traditional concepts of motherhood, womanhood, and marriage, children have been suffering the most, either by the mother’s abuse, neglect, or outright MURDER by abortion.
I have nothing but contempt for mainstream feminism. One judges a tree by its fruits. With the fruits of feminism, we have seen evil.
I had to stop and consider the implications of Rebecca Walker’s article in a personal way. Her description of her mother’s actions seemed to mirror the attitude of my ex-wife as to the responsibilities of parenting. For most of the marriage I was the provider/nurturer to both my biological daughter and my stepdaughter.
Due to her actions I was blessed with full custody after the divorce.
My ex-wife is now in a nursing home.
My oldest daughter, now 19, was living with her and is glad to be relieved of what she felt to be her caretaking filial responsibilities.
My youngest daughter, who is 15 and lives with me, doesn’t feel a need to contact her mother at this time.
The friends and so-called “sisters” that she chose over family are long gone.
My family consists of me and my two daughters. My oldest daughter is turning into a delightful adult. She’s smart, funny, and a joy to have a conversation with. My youngest daughter is maturing into a sensitive young woman with a caring and generous heart (albeit with the usual mid-teen drama).
After reading this article, I found myself wondering if my ex’s exposure to the feminist philosophy of the ’70’s warped her lifeview from that point on.
Anyway….what’s done is done.
As I mentioned above, she is in a nursing home.
And if she passes on in that place?
She will do it ….alone.
Heh, and I’d wondered why all the boys in my generation act like five year old girls.
Thanks a bunch for the 60’s.
You know, it was wonderful that women gained access to school’s, career’s and all that nonsense but, to be perfectly honest, I would be happier being a housewife. I’ve heard my whole life that I MUST have a career, and I MUST be better than the boys. I live in a town where feminity is frowned upon and I feel ashamed to wear a dress or even makeup. Is that what feminism has achieved, spineless men and obnoxiously masculine women who think that looking pretty is a sign of exploitation?
All of my friends and me take pride in our appearances, and not for the sake of being a sexual object, but because being well put together gives us confidence and a sense of power.
Thanks to feminism and the 60’s, most of us have spent are lives being demeaned, abused and treated like idiots because we choose to exert our feminity. I think that’s the legacy of feminism: Shame. The shame of being a woman. God knows, I’d rather be a girl than one of the boys my age… I’ve got more cojones than anyone I know haha.
Like all liberal memes we discover too late that it was all a lie.
I remember an ad on the radio several years ago for a temp service. It said, “you have been a wife and mother but now it is time to be a woman by having a career.” I didn’t think I heard it right until I heard the ad at a later date.
memyselfandi said:
No, I really don’t think so. Being a feminist means believing in the advancement of women’s rights only. If feminists truly believed in equal rights for both sexes, they would choose a gender neutral term to describe their movement, not the sexist term “feminism.”
It would be like saying that white supremacists and the KKK stand for equality of the races; or that La Raza and the NAACP are interested in the advancement of all people. It just doesn’t fit the mold…
And our illiterate culture has mistaken “equality” for androgyny.
Men and women should be treated with equal respect, but we are inherently different in our abilities, likes/dislikes, etc.
We are designed – whether you believe in God or evolution – to be complimentary to one another…
Alice Walker typifies a lot of the social/political radicals of her time. She “loves” humanity in the abstract, but not the people right in front of her. Individual responsibilities to a marriage or a child get in the way of their devotion to politics and revolution. The adulation of fans, fellow travelers, and the elites means more than hugs and hand paintings. I wouldn’t doubt that Ms. Walker surrounds herself with friends, associates, and even lovers who admire her from the outset. Ultimately, I think she is disapponted her daughter didn’t just “get over” the haphazard way she was raised and chalk it up as a necessary sacrifice to the wonderfulness that is Alice Walker and her cause. She has what Tammy Bruce would call “malignant narcisissm.” I’ve read stuff on Frontpagemag.com about other children of radicals and they were often mistreated by their parents. It’s very sad.
Feminism should’ve been regarded as an experiment that needed to evolve and change. If Rebecca Walker is a liberal still, it may not be for very long. She possesses far too much common sense.
I just read Rebecca’s entire article.
POWERFUL!
I am proud of her stance. Radical feminism has lied to, and devastated so many. She is MUCH stronger that her mother has ever been. There is no greater priviledge than motherhood. Anyone who disagrees is fooling themselves.
MM and Rebecca, thanks for sharing.
I just found this wonderful nugget of innate honesty and wish I’d found it sooner. I found it utterly heartbreaking. I read the entire article and I CRIED. I cried for the following reasons:
1. As a child, I saw the pull of guilt my own mother had about working and shuffling my sister and I off to various babysitters. She had had many, many miscarriages until me and my sister and she had to work. She was (and is still) a gifted computer programmer and I wish that her employers had had the foresight to have a daycare center within their facility so she knew we were safe.
2. I saw how feminism and the wonderful modern, irresponsible American culture perverted my younger sister. She always felt in competition with me, because feminism encourages, not sisterhood, but competition among women (as I discovered in college). Feminism turned my sister into a clueless, craven slut. I don’t often call another woman that… but as a teenager, she was the MOST selfish creature who hung out with like kind, developed a hideous drug/alcohol habit, ran away 2 times, and was raped at a frat party. My mother often tried to reach out to her and my sister would spit in her face… asking for stuff but not love. This was the result of my mother’s guilt and it’s still having an impact. My sister and I have been estranged (like Rebecca and Walker) since I graduated college. Many times, at the urging of friends, I tried to reconcile with her, to no avail. My sister, to this day, now a social worker, thinks the world revolves around her. When she heard that I was marrying a military man, she “reluctantly” participated in my small wedding, yet on subsequent occasions, she has been very disrespectful to both my husband and me and that alone is why, like Rebecca, I’m estranged from my sister. Another ironic twist to my sister, she recently had a baby girl, and I wonder what my niece’s future will be. Will my sister be yet another disinterested mother like Walker? I will hedge my bets since she was certainly a disinterested, jealous, abusive sister for most of my life.
3. In college, I had a “beloved” women’s history teacher who I really looked up to. Her first husband abandoned her and her young daughter and me and my classmates often tried to support her. Her classes really taught me the academic philosophies of feminism, if not their hideous, personal repercussions. I saw this woman, a great friend, get married to a fellow professor I admired, and have another child. Unfortunately, even throughout the changes in her life, she still felt that women didn’t need men or felt they exploited/hurt women rather than partnered/supported them. A woman, who was my personal, feminist icon… who I invited to my own wedding… when she found out that I was marrying someone in the military, she cut off all communication. I was devastated, even tried to contact her but she refused even those attempts. To this day, it befuddles me…even though she was a liberal, she was my friend and I was naive enough to think that friendship went beyond politics. I was wrong.
4. My personal consequences: throughout high school, college, graduate school, even from my own mother, female relatives/friends, I was told that women shouldn’t “depend” on men. Focus on your career, even if it doesn’t make you personally happy or “complete.” From the time I got my master’s degree, to the time I pursued an ill-fated teacher’s career, I always had the word “career” in my mind. I’m now 32 and know that Rebecca’s feelings are all too real about that “ticking clock.”
I know working moms try, but their attention is always diverted. They can’t always be there for their kids, which is sad. Feminism, as devoutly followed by many liberal women, has turned them into self-centered, egocentric bitches like Alice Walker. I’ve seen it in female relatives who went through divorce after divorce like they changed shoes and the casual, careless sexual flings of my friends.
As a woman who is 32, I desperately want a child and hope that I will be able to conceive and realize that dream. So does my husband. Nobody ever realizes what feminism does to men and the husbands of ambitious women who think a career above everything means “something.” It only means, that in the end, something’s gotta give…. either your personal relationships, your dreams, or your sanity.
MM and Rebecca, I second rightwingmom.
My Mother was a real feminist. She was competent, smart, taught me to be honest, demonstrated Christian behavior as well as offered to teach me how it had saved her from self destruction, loved my children completely, shared her humor and that of others in her letters to me. I am ashamed I did not demonstrate how much I appreciated her and thank her more for her sacrifices while she was still alive. I could not be the father or husband I am today without having had her influences in my life. I have no doubt that she made me a much better man and person, and I have passed her love on to my children. Thank you Muriel Cecelia M.
Her loving son.