My most recent column on the modern feminist movement struck a chord with many students.
In today's era of political correctness, it is unpopular to be critical of the historically oppressed people — those of racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals and women.
Taking on the oppressors — big business, white men and religious Christians, however, is commonplace. But every debate has two sides to it and when students only hear one perspective (as is common in the media and academia), they are unable to think critically about issues and problems in the world.
I thought that I would share some of the fan mail I received from my last column to look at both sides of the debate.
A disgruntled woman wrote: "The modern wave of feminism wants women to have the choice to be a 'house mom' and not like in the past, be stuck with the position."
Unfortunately, this woman obviously thinks that women who stay at home are stuck in a rut. In her very words, we can tell that she looks down upon "house moms" by viewing it as a position that one can be stuck with.
The mass entrance of women into previously male-dominated jobs has had many positive effects, the biggest one being that women are free to do what they want to do with their lives. But how often do we talk about what the costs of women entering the workforce in mass has been — especially on children?
The same time women began to enter the workforce en masse, many troubling statistics concerning children began to emerge.
The suicide rate for girls ages 10-14, increased 27 percent between 1979 and 1989, and the rate among boys that age rose an astounding 71 percent. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, less than 5 percent of girls younger than 15 had had sex, today about a third of girls that age are having sex.
And each year 3 million teenagers are affected with sexually transmitted diseases.
These statistics paint a tragic picture of children who don't feel loved.
As women have entered the workforce, daycare has provided the answer of what parents should do with their children.
Has it been a good answer? Well, according to a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, toddlers who are put in daycare for long stretches of time tended to be more aggressive and defiant, regardless of the quality of day care. Daycare workers who are in charge of dozens of young children are not able to give them the love and attention that they need and that parents should be providing but are increasingly failing to do.
Don't fool yourself into believing that moms who drop their kids off at day care do so out of need.
Robert Rector of Heritage Foundation found that "nearly 80 percent of the preschool children using any form of day care come from married-couple families with two income earners."
Most moms leave their children at daycare because of want, not out of need.
But, children don't just need their parents when they are very young, they need them when they are older as well. Arlie Russell Hochschild discovered from "a study of nearly 5,000 eighth graders and their parents that children who were home alone for 11 or more hours a week were three times more likely than other children to abuse alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana." By neglecting their children, parents put them at major risk for throwing their lives away with drug abuse.
Troubling trends such as these should be talked about in academia and the media. But, oh no!
Then we might begin to acknowledge that women entering the workforce hasn't been as great as we are led to believe and we would offend many feminists.
My column also upset another woman, who wrote me: "While no one can blame you for your opinions, one can blame you for printing your seemingly made up, or to be fair, mass media fed interpretation of the history of women in the United States in a publication that is supposed to be of academic standard."
People who believe that viewpoints should be suppressed — especially on college campuses because they fail to be politically correct or mainstream — are the most dangerous threat to our individual freedom. The free and open exchange of ideas is what protects us from autocracy.
I challenge anyone to dispute a fact or statistic in any of my columns. This woman is obviously not prepared or tolerant of a discussion of the flaws of modern feminism in America. While it is important to acknowledge the societal good that feminism has achieved, it is also equally important to acknowledge the adverse consequences of the movement.
Perhaps my favorite comment was from a woman who wrote: "If there are still imprudent idiots out there like you, we have lots of work set out for us." Well, I'm not going away, and I've always felt that name-calling is the worst way to argue your point.
Finally, not everyone disagreed with my thoughts on modern feminism.
One woman wrote: "I'd actually like to commend you on your essay, while writing it you probably knew you'd get harsh feedback, and you still did it. Not being afraid to share your opinion is one of the most valuable assets one can have. And, although I may not agree with everything you wrote in the paper, I understand your point of view. Thank you for your thoughts." Why don't more people like you e-mail me?
