A woman should, in fact, be paid the same salary or wage for the same work as a man of equal seniority in the corporation or based fair and objective performance measures.

It is probably reasonable that any man writing about feminism must first show some measure of good faith and reassure the reader that the author is not an Islamofascist mullah or some other variety of misogynist. For the record let me state the obvious truths which I support. A woman should, in fact, be paid the same salary or wage for the same work as a man of equal seniority in the corporation or based fair and objective performance measures. In classical areas where men have exploited women physically or financially, there should be strong laws protecting women. As the father of three girls, I hope they can fully actualize all their talents professionally if they so choose. That to me represents the legitimate substance of "feminist" claims. This is not so very different than the legitimate claims of the civil rights movement that prohibited official discrimination against blacks or any group based on racial or ethnic background.

When feminism (or civil rights) goes beyond this to demand equality of outcomes through affirmative actions, which, in point of statistical reality, requires quotas—I shrink in horror. This is just part of the diminution of the individual in favor of "group rights" and is alien to the spirit of personal freedom and liberty which should be the hallmark of the United States. The price of freedom requires that equality before the law is affirmed but outcomes are determined by merit. Should this lead to inequality based either naturally or as a result of prejudice in the private sector, there is simply no constitutional principle that says people must be open-minded or that prohibits narrow-minded bigots. Obviously if it can be proved that prejudice was the basis for a decision in a public institution, the law can step in. When it comes to the Augusta Country Club or the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Country Club or similar private associations, it is part of a free nation that these folks are able to associate freely. While "restricted" clubs personally disgust me, perhaps we should view it as a healthy social mechanism whereby these folks quarantine themselves. When it comes to universities, I say let the chips fall where they may. If 75% percent of MIT ends up being Asian-Americans, more power to them. The idea that we should allow less qualified students to enter to achieve some egalitarian notion of diversity is twisted.

So far I feel pretty secure that I have not offended any conservatives, male or female, black or white, Jew or gentile. I believe however that we must look at feminism more deeply than the civil rights movement and other entitlement regimes. Feminism when brought to its radical conclusion leads to the nullification of gender in society. Since the 1960’s we have begun to fiddle with reproductive biology in all sorts of ways in an attempt to eliminate the one indisputable fact—the biological difference between the sexes. To some this difference apparently was just a nuisance required for species reproduction but with the advent of the Pill, women became "sexually liberated" to be as promiscuous as men without the previous inconvenience of reproduction. The Pill also permitted women to put off children and family life so that no career ambitions would be retarded. Needless to say, this worked especially well for highly educated, upper middle-class women more than those who had previously done simple work and yearned for a family. The mentality that sex was disconnected with marital relations or children became dominant. Of course no system is perfect, so pregnancy "mistakes" became no reason for a woman to alter her life.

While contraception may have worked among some social circles, simple indiscriminate sex spread throughout the last decades. Although 40 million children were aborted since Roe v. Wade, millions became fatherless wards of the State. The welfare state ultimately created incentives in which more children actually became relatively more profitable and the presence of a father actually reduced the net income of the "biological unit." In the course of time men, especially black men became simply unnecessary and redundant. Thus were born bands of young males without responsibility and no need to sublimate aggression or testosterone energy toward constructive work or enterprise.

As women became "the same" as men, the traditional sense of respect for womanhood among men declined proportionally. Women became men with different plumbing and an occasion for sexual pleasure. The old-fashioned notion of deference and respect toward women slowly turned into the non-spiritual—Woman as Object. The traditional role of financial provision of males having been eroded and the link between intimacy and family sundered, women became both threatening financially and a source of mere sexual exploitation. It is not the men who are stuck with children. Most women are not as self-actualizing as Wall Street lawyers, but are instead slaves to financial necessity working as a clerk at K-Mart.

The data is unanimous that the closer a wife’s income is to her husband, the higher the divorce rate. If the wife is financially independent or makes more than her husband, the result has been disastrous with respect to divorce rates. This is NOT to say that a marriage should be based on a woman’s dependence to her husband as an indentured servant. This is merely to point out a sociological fact throughout the US and the Western world. The goal is not to keep women’s salaries down, but to resurrect a concept of Womanhood that is empowering and equalizing without turning more and more women into victims.

The second part of this article will explore whether this is a meaningful and spiritual difference between the sexes and how the family can be restored. Until this point, we have merely critiqued the excesses of a particular "entitlement" program largely hijacked and controlled by the Left and typically a movement that now is an established vested interest group which is mainly tied to the "Democratic coalition." The radicalization of feminism has had a detrimental effect on the family and women and now has created a large victim group of women and children.

The next question is to determine whether there are, in fact, distinctions that should be recognized between men and women. The argument usually boils down to at least two areas. The first is biological (Nature) and the second sociological (Nurture). The biological argument is, on the surface, fairly straightforward. Clearly women are different than men. Only women have the potential to create new life through childbirth. The consequence of intimate sexual relations ultimately falls on the woman regardless of the moral responsibility of the father. The fact is that some women do not look for true fathers bound by spiritual bonds but merely are become available to "sperm donors" It is not particularly startling that these "male breeders" have no emotional ties to the mother or the future child.

Beyond the obvious biological difference there is, at least arguably, differences in the way information and emotions are processed neurologically according to many scientific studies. This should NOT be viewed as better or worse means of perception and cognition but rather complementary and does not impact IQ or abilities. Rather this may suggest that women are slightly better in some fields and vice versa. Obviously such broad, sweeping statistical data can not and should not be applied in individual cases. The only relevance to these studies is that perhaps we should not be surprised to see different scores, outcomes or performance between men and women. The psychoanalyst Karen Horney discusses, "Feminine Psychology." In a positive sense, it is generally believed that women are naturally better listeners and better at being sensitive to intuitive cues and feeling validated by their own intuition.

The second argument for sexual difference is sociological. The argument goes that women are conditioned from infancy through childhood toward acceptable "feminine behavior." There are certainly numerous examples of this from dolls and frilly clothes for girls to play guns and approved assertiveness of little boys. No one can deny thousands of years of different socialization between men and women throughout most of world history. This fact, however, only begs the question. Is culture autonomous and creates behavior or is culture a reflection of species "specialization" throughout time. Edmund Burke would likely argue that "customs" are wiser than individuals and abstract Reason and that they develop organically overtime to establish the smooth operation of society. Unless we believe that social customs develop randomly or "out of whole cloth", we must assume that there is some rationale behind these customs. One might argue that these customs are the result of male oppression and domination. Saudi Arabia might well be an example of male domination parading as custom or religion. In the United States that is arguably one of the most sexually egalitarian nation, one still sees role differentiation in marriage and the workplace.

The real question is if there is some redeeming value and purpose value to sexual differences. Both Western and Eastern religious traditions, see the human differences as a projection of Male and Female archetypes that prevail in Creation. In both esoteric traditions there is a sense of a dual forces that create harmony in the universe. Whether it is called Yin and Yang or "Potential" and "Actual" or "Giving" and "Receiving", the concept suggests that there exists a male force of infinity and boundless outpouring on the one hand and a female force of finite reality and the transformation of endless potential into actual reality. In Hebrew, the infinite and transcendent God is a male noun but the immanent presence of God is a female noun. Biologically one can see this in the sexual organs of humans. Males can create literally billions of sperm and women have exactly the number of ova required for a female’s entire fertile period—not one ovum more or less. While the man fertilizes the ovum in a moment, it is the female that turns that potential into a child over a gestation period of nine months. Certainly throughout most of human history, men went out into the forests or the marketplaces while women raised the children and established the home. The Home represented the end goal; the provision of food and goods was the means.

Perhaps it is time to restore the dignity of Womanhood and the role of Mother. Respect must be given to the critical role in human development of the mother and the wife that sets the moral tone and stability of a household. Could there be a greater value around which conservatives rally? The godliness of women must be restored not only for the self-esteem and self-respect of women, but also for the very humanity and civility of men. It is this ideal that we must reaffirm. As mentioned above, this is not a basis for discriminatory economic or social policies. It is, however, the basis for offering real lifestyle choice to women, men and families. By reestablishing the Family as the foundation for civil society, this is the basis for both women’s liberation and true human liberation.