If you read here often, you’ve read some controversial thoughts.  This essay by s5 is a perfect example of a logical analysis of the truth, that will make any person who reads this take notice.

It is hard to start this essay, since it is a sensitive topic, I am not sure where to begin.  But as the famous idiom says, “begin at the beginning.”

I am a woman who was raised by a single mother.  She was a woman educated at the start of the feminist movement, and in her own way, was a leader in women’s advancement in Los Angeles.  I also attended an all female, non-denominational school from 5th grade thru senior year in high school.

From the moment I can remember, I was taught that I, as a woman, have every right that is equal to another person.  I, as a woman, can attain anything I wanted; an education, a profession, a home, a car, a lifestyle.  I knew that my opinions were just as valid as a male counterpart, and were deserving of attention and respect.  I was raised to believe that the world was my oyster, and I didn’t need anyone’s help at mastering it!

In other words, I am the female child of feminist.

Now, what also comes with this is that I should not want, nor need, a man to open a door for me, pay for my dinner, nurture me, nor provide for me.  I was told that I could (and should) do anything a man would do. It was expected that I get a career, raise a child, provide nourishment for my family, garden, take care of the animals, and the list can go on and on.

I was raised to be a superwoman!

Now, I am sure you have a particular opinion in your head of maybe what I look like, or how I talk, or how I present myself, based on what I have told you thus far.  And, I hope that I will never meet the expectation you have conjured in your mind…. because I fear you have imagined a.. is this the right term?… a ball buster.

You see… I think that there was a fundamental issue in the feminist movement.  Mind you the paradox is not lost on me that I say this with the full realization that my whole ability to have the freedom to say this, the skill level and education to say this, the financial freedom to say this, and the support to say this, is completely a result of the same movement I am about to criticize.

To explain this fully, I need you to let me tell you a bit more about myself.

First off, I love to cook and bake.  Something that seems to be rare in women today.  But, the beginning of this love affair with being in the kitchen started not out of desire, but out of necessity.  If I hadn’t figured out how to make myself food, I might literally have starved it was so foreign to my all-woman mother.  The women who taught me most of what I know in the kitchen are Julia Child and my grandmother.  Sadly, not one woman in my family is able to pass on the food history in my lineage.

Second, I am a student of anthropology; evolution.  This is my religion.  The scientific theory that we evolved from slime.  The belief that we have come from someplace and we are going somewhere.  With this comes the knowledge of sexual selection, reproductive success and the difference between instinct and genetic expression.  I was taught that we came from a hunter-gatherer society, where females did 80% of the work (gathering) and men did (20%) hunting… don’t you wonder why it is not gatherer-hunter society?  What I am trying to say is that I understand the role of the sexes on our evolution into Homo sapiens sapiens.

Third, I am an environmentalist that is looking for the solution to our problems by trying to be a sociologist.  I read the latest research.  I observe my surroundings.  I am in constant discussion of what is the root of this problem, so we may fix it.  Most importantly, why are we not fixing it?  Why do people not care?

I am interested in all of the problems of society: why are we getting dumber?  Why are we getting more fat?  Why are we getting rude and over-entitled to one another?  And, how is all of this having an impact on the environment?

All of this has brought me to one conclusion: women’s liberation may be what is to blame.

Without a doubt, women have always been the moral compass of the society.  If you don’t believe me, look to any classic film or television show and you will see.

We tell our kids the difference between right and wrong. We brought the family together every night around a common table.  We told our child when they had eaten too much, or had enough television for the night.  We made sure homework was done.  A man was not allowed to curse, spit, fight, fart, be rude, be (openly) racist, and more while in our presence.  We watched out for other children that might be around us and our family.  We were neighborly.

I can keep going on.  And, I am sure for everything I have mentioned a counter can be made that a man would do all of that, too.  But, my argument is that, more often than not, our job was to create a home and raise the children (not to take away from the fact that we were able to do that because of the role of our men).  By being given such a huge and daunting task, we did it with honor, as we lead our children, our husbands, and therefore, our society down a moral path.

I understand the implications of saying this.  I do not think it is possible to reverse our how our society functions back to a time that seems pre-historic and elementary.  Nor, do I think that is the best thing to do, given what has been accomplished by men and women having access to a “freer” life, and not being set by pre-determined societal limitations.

I believe that a moral truth is that the sexes are equal.  There may be things that I, as a woman, am incapable of doing (brute strength, for one) and that men are incapable of doing (breast feeding a child), that the other sex can accomplish.  But, in terms of an overall picture of human function (brain capacity, physical dexterity), we are equally qualified.

But going back, my hypothesis is that women’s liberation has created the moral decay of our society.  My reason for this is that when we accepted our new role as wage earning members, we, in general, gave up the lessons we taught by being empathetic observers.

For example, let’s say I was in a traditional marriage, where my husband earned $45K per year.  We lived in a modest sized home, we ate good clean healthful food with an occasional night out, we knew and cared for our neighbors, and we spent time with our children.  At some point, we decided that it would be nice if I got a job.  Our annual income, let’s be reasonable, did not double, but it may have increased to $65-70K per year.

We now can get a bigger house, maybe, a bit more luxurious.  We are going out more often for dinner because neither one of us adults are able to get food on the table in a timely manner.  We don’t spend nearly as much time with our neighbors and our community.  And, while most of our free time is spent with our child, it is still less than what it was.

And, we know, I don’t have to tell you, that this was the beginning of even bigger houses, or multiple houses, less time in our community, less time with our children and learning who their friends are, less time as a family participating in activities and an increased conscience of more, bigger, better.

I really keep wanting to emphasize this… while none of this is wrong and we can’t go back… what was missing in this transition and direction to equality, is that we gave up what made us unique, and by in large, that has been a net-negative on society.

Now, I am not saying that women should go back to being in the home.  First off, given most people’s credit card debt, it is unrealistic and near impossible.  Secondly, in many cases, we are now single parent homes or the person with the greater wage is often times the woman, etc., etc.

What I am saying is that adults and parents need to look at what is missing from the process of raising our future generations and find a way to get that back.  We need to find a way to get our child around a dinner table every night and monitor what they put in their bodies.  We need to tell our children that it is inappropriate to dress like they have no respect for themselves and their society and try to compromise on clothing that is appropriate for being in public and for their age.  We need to start treating each other with respect, turn down our music when we are driving with our windows wide open, get off the cell phones in public, and so much more, as an example to the future that we truly do honor thy neighbor. You know that this list can go on.  For everything that bothers you about society, you can trace it back to someone giving up hope that their child could change.

I also want to speak scientifically about the possible impact of our societal change onto our evolutionary change.  When we speak of evolution, obviously, it is not on a time scale that we are present and alive.  Evolution occurs on a multi-generational level.  This is why most evolutionist will tell you that evolution only cares if you are reproductively successful.  But, even that needs more definition.  You, as an individual, are not reproductively successful until you have raised a child that has a child.  Therefore, if you are reading this and you do not have a child yet, your parents are not evolutionarily successful.  Evolution is only occurs on a genetic level.  If you are not allowing the genes to be passed down, you are in effect stopping any possibility for your lineage to evolve.

Animals know this.  This is why is many animal societies relationship bonding is hugely important.  If we look at our closest ancestor, the chimpanzee, we can observe the building of relationships amongst the individuals.  For example, grooming is a huge bond mechanism in apes.  And, while the chimps have beautiful coats, this is not the reason the animals spend hours taking care of one another. They do this, and mind you this is one of many examples, because if I have developed a relationship with you, and something were to happen to me, then I have that much more assurance that you will take care of my child.  And, if my child is taken care of, there is a greater chance that my lineage will continue on the evolutionary track.

OK.  So, a lot of information and you may think it is irrelevant.  However, how do we bond now?  Both parents are out of the home, the child is left to his own devices after school, we have no time to talk to our neighbors, and much of the time we live away from our immediate family.  Who is ensuring the children are being raised properly.

Look at the children we have in society, right now. To start, 60% of them are obese and have diabetes.  They typically have an attention span of 30 seconds.  The extent of the relationships they have with the opposite sex is “sexting”, because it takes to much time and energy to, I don’t know, ask someone out on an actual date?!?  And their intelligence is declining at a rapid rate.  For example, in the state of California, we are not in compliance with many of the regulations under the No Child Left Behind program; our 8th graders cannot pass the math requirements for the 6th grade test and the state considers it a good thing, and we get funding if, only 40% of our children pass the annual assessment.  This means 4 out of 10 kids can get 60% and we consider that GOOD!!!  (I feel as an aside, I need to state that I actually dislike the NCLB policy created under the Bush Administration, but it is our only current standard for aptitude testing in the country.)

My point is this:  what kind of humans are we evolving into?  I am beginning to think that Wall-E and Idiocracy will be considered sooth-saying sometime soon.

We, as individuals, used to value our various roles (sexual or otherwise) and the community need to bond, because we saw its place in the greater vision.  On some instinctual level we understood that you sacrifice the individual need for the societal need.  We knew that evolution, although playing out on an individuals genes, impacting the society (and therefore, the species) on a much greater and more valuable scale.

I am not going to go down a road that blames women.  I do not believe that is accurate or fair.  For every mother that had to get a job there could have been a father unwilling to pick up the slack.  And, for every father that left without a trace, there was a mother that picked up the pieces so she could afford to get food on the table.  All of us are to blame.  We all have had our hands in this cookie jar, in some way or another, and we are crying that all the cookies are gone.  The truth is that at some point, collectively, we made a common decision to value the individual above all.  In that very simple shift in mindset, we may have created a species that is evolving itself right to extinction.

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