Western Woman

The “New Woman” has been proclaimed with a certain regularity for a century or more, Time magazine reminded its readers in a 1972 special edition devoted to an exploration of the status of women in America.¹ In 1989 the Scots traveller James F. Muirhead observed that it was man who was subservient in American life because he was “the hewer of wood, the drawer of water and beast of burden for the superior sex” (i.e. females). The feminists disagreed, insisting it was they who were dominated.

In 1920 American women won the right to vote, and in the 1920s and 1930s began to go to college in considerable numbers, with the expectation of entering the professions. Women believed that “the battle had been won.” But, after the vicissitudes of the Great Depression of post-World War II economic boom, the feminist movement was reborn. It was a time of turmoil in American society: President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963, and the U.S. engagement in the Vietnam War prompted radical protests and widespread questioning of traditional values and institutions, especially among the youth.

The “new feminism” movement was a phenomenon of the restlessness found in the American woman of the 1960s and 1970s. “By all rights, the American woman today should be the happiest in history,” Bonnie Angelo observed in Time’s 1972 cover story. “She is healthier that U.S. women have ever been, better educated, more affluent, better dressed, more comfortable, pampered by gadgets. But there is a worm in the apple. She is restless in her familiar familial role, no longer quite content with the homemaker-wife-mother part in which her society has cast her ... Many are in search of a new role that is more independent, less restricted to the traditional triangle of—children, kitchen and church.”

According to Angelo, all but the staunchest advocates of “women’s liberation” agree that woman’s place is different than man’s—but the restless American woman of the 1970s was not so sure just what that place was. The “new feminism” increasingly influenced young women to stay single and transformed marriages by ending once automatic assumptions about woman’s place, stated Angelo. Widespread commercial dissemination of oral contraceptives—the Pill—together with the overturning of state laws prohibiting abortion on demand—a process which began in the mid-1960s, but remains enmired in controversy today—had the effect of separating sexual relations from the solemn institution of marriage.

In 1972, women already made up one third of the U.S. work force, but their pay was much lower than men and they were generally confined to the lower ranking and lower skilled jobs. A soaring divorce rate, however, meant that in 1972 some 20 million Americans lived in households dependent on women as the sole or principal bread winners. A Psychology Today survey at the time found that even among male respondents, 51 percent agreed that “U.S. society exploits women as much as blacks.”² In the more colorful phraseology of the American politician, diplomat and author, Booth Luce: “Power, money and sex are the three great American values today, and women have almost no access to power except through their husbands. They can get money mostly through sex—either legitimate sex, in the form of marriage, or non-married sex.”³

 Indeed, the changes in sexual morality in Europe and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s were drastic and pervasive. Unlike their parents, many members of the young generation view premarital sex as good instead of bad. A Gallup poll in 1970 in the United States found that three out of four students were indifferent to virginity, or the lack of it, in the person they marry.⁴ Said British gynecologist John Slome: ‘‘The kiss of the 1940s and 1950s has become the sexual intercourse of the ‘60s and ‘70s.”⁵

The effect on women has been dramatic. For those feminists who decried the fact that woman’s reproductive role made her a “prisoner of sex,” the Pill appeared as the key to freedom. “Without the full capacity to limit your own reproduction,” wrote Lucinda Cisler in Sisterhood Is Powerful, “a woman’s other freedoms are tantalizing mockeries that cannot be exercized.”⁶ But in the view of University of Michigan psychologist Judith Bardwick, instead of liberating women to enjoy sex, the Pill has replaced fear of pregnancy with fear of being used. “Far from giving young women the sexual license that men have so long enjoyed, the Pill has caused some women to resent male freedom even more,” Bardwick stated. “Far from alleviating anxiety over sexual use of the body, the Pill has exacerbated it.”⁷

The pill notwithstanding, unwanted pregnancies still occur by the tens of thousands, and the fight over legalization of abortion-on demand remains on center stage. And, the effects of long-term use of the Pill, which acts to prevent ovulation, are now a matter of public record. The changed hormonal balance caused by the Pill is blamed for headaches and weight gain in some women. British and other medical studies have found a connection between the Pill and the formation of blood clots that can cause strokes as well as an increased susceptibility to various forms of uterine cancer. Successive generations of female contraceptives—oral, sub-dermal and all the rest—have become even more potent and questionable in their long-term effect.

It should not be surprising to find that as of the 1970s female suicide was on the rise in the United States. Though it has always been the case that more men than women kill themselves, trends had begun to change in certain large cities. In Los Angeles, for example, whereas in 1960 of those who committed suicide 35 percent were women, by 1970 the percentage of women among suicides had jumped to 45 percent.⁸ Another indication that women had begun to experience more conflict came from a University of Wisconsin study during the same period, which found that women psychiatric patients complained of more anxiety, depression, alienation and inability to cope with stress than did their counterparts of ten years earlier.⁹

THE “WOMEN’S LIB” MOVEMENT

“Women’s liberation” began formally with the founding in 1966 of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest and most influential movement group. In 1985 NOW had a nationwide membership in the United States of some 185,000 women and men. NOW was conceived as a civil rights lobby for women, active in organizing support for enactment and enforcement of law prohibiting discrimination against women in employment, education and so forth. NOW has also led numerous campaigns in the Congress and in the courts on issues ranging from childcare to abortion reform.

The National Women’s Political Caucus is another mass-based organization, with a membership of 77,000 in 1985, and a commitment to get women involved full time in politics. “Women! Make policy, not coffee!” is the organization’s motto.¹⁰ The Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, formed in 1977 and opened to male congressmen and senators in 1981, supports federal policy initiatives to improve the status of women and families. There are in addition a myriad old and new women’s groups and organizations concerned with specific issues such as education, abortion or pension rights.

This current of the “new feminism,” led predominantly by professional women and women in the labor movement, was joined by another current of younger women who were active in the civil rights and student protest movements, including the anti-Vietnam War and youth “counter-culture” movements, of the 1960s and 1970s. The latter group’s focus was less on legal or policy changes affecting women than on a frontal challenge to cultural definitions of maleness and femaleness.¹¹

As a result of its varied composition, the women’s liberation movement’s goals range from the modest, sensible amelioration of the female condition to extreme and revolutionary visions.¹² The first camp emphasizes a more egalitarian society: equal pay for equal work, a nation in which women are not blocked from access to education, political influence and economic power. The more radical wing of the movement, however, is disdainful of such mundane concerns and wants nothing less than a drastic revision of society in general. In their view, the sexual roles must be redefined to free both sexes from the stereotypes and responsibilities that have existed for ages. The concept of man as hunter and woman as keeper of the hearth, these feminists declare, is obsolete and destructive for both sexes.

Language itself became an issue for the “new feminists:” namely, do males use language to help perpetuate their roles as masters?¹³ Yes! Shout the feminists, language is “living proof’ of women’s oppression. Thus, titles such as “chairperson”— instead of “chairman”— and “congressone”—instead of “congressman”—have begun to be heard in the West. Likewise, “sportsoneship” instead of “sportsmanship,” “herstory” instead of “history,” and “spokesone” instead of “spokesman.” More well-known is the feminists’ rejection of “Mrs.” and “Miss.” as a form of address—because it allegedly stigmatizes women by revealing their marital status. Instead, “Ms.”—pronounced miz—has been widely adopted.

At the extreme radical fringe, the “new feminists” are waging an assault not just on society, but on the limitations of biology. Some argue that through the science of eugenics the genetic code could be altered to produce a different kind of man or woman. Sputnik magazine of October 1987 gave substance to this view with an article titled, “Should Daddies Be Mummies?” The article dealt with the theory of sex change forwarded by a German doctor, in which the uterus of a woman is taken out by surgery and placed into a man’s stomach so that the man, too, can perform the child-bearing task, thus putting an end to the inequality created by nature itself between the sexes. Short of that, extremist feminists demand a complete withdrawal from dependence on men, including sexual ties, and advocate embrace of lesbianism.¹⁴

The views and aims of the women’s liberation movement are wide-ranging, and sometimes contradictory. Likewise, the broad response to the “new feminism” has been as varied as the circumstances in which ordinary American women have found themselves. A series of Vignettes of women interviewed by Time magazine in 1972, and excerpted below, makes this variety clear.¹⁵

= Betty Jackson dreamed of being a singer or a nurse and, someday, a wife. Instead, at 15 she had an illegitimate child. “I live in dope city and on one of the worst streets,” said Betty. “We have no heat. We get hot water once in a while. The wall is coming apart from the leaks. Roaches are everywhere. The rats minuet and waltz around the floor.” The Welfare Department paid Betty’s rent, but the two additional checks they provided monthly barely covered the purchases of necessities, much less “luxuries” such as a telephone, radio, TV or vacuum cleaner. “I am a slave to my financial problems,” Betty said, “and my life is meaningless as far as having things that people are supposed to have.” Whatever hopes she had of returning to work were dashed, Betty reported, when her 19-year-old daughter gave birth to an illegitimate child.

Survival, Betty explained, was her primary concern. Women’s lib? “I’m not interested.” Religion? “I don’t go to church. They’re robbers. I can prey at home, and He’ll hear me just the same. I don’t have to pay for it.”

= Luaretta Galligan married in 1944. She found herself alone most of the time when her husband’s company assigned him a job that kept him away from home six days a week. To make friends and keep busy, Lauretta opted for a job and attended night school. As her household expanded to include five sons, she dropped her outside interests to spend more time at home, “making sure everyone is going in the right direction,” as she put it. At age 52 she still rises at 6:30 to prepare her husband’s breakfast and get the two sons off to school. She smiles happily when her husband, Thomas, calls her his “greatest asset.”

Said Lauretta: “My first priority is my family and my husband’s work, and then I work on other things.” She never plays bridge and only occasionally goes to fashion shows or luncheons. Most of her social life revolves around her husband’s business. “Being a homemaker and mother is very stimulating. I realize there are many things about homemaking that are a little bit monotonous, but a lot of things about a woman’s career or a man’s career can be monotonous too.”

= “Why should I have children?” asked Suzanne Sape, 23, and a happily married woman who is upward bound in a management planning career. “I’m glad I’m married,” Suzanne said, “and I enjoy being feminine. I like to sew, and I was once really interested in fashion.” But Suzanne’s bent toward homemaking and shared joys did not extend to having children. “If I were to conceive,” she stated frankly, “I would have an abortion. I like children very much. I consider it an enormous challenge to raise them the way they should be raised. It takes an awful lot of time and energy and intellect to raise them to cope with the problems of a pretty crummy world.” Suzanne had talked with doctors, she said, about sterilization, but concluded that she did not want to risk the possible physical and psychological side effect.

“If you are a career woman, how can you bring the child up?” Suzanne asked. “If a woman has a child, it should be a fulltime occupation for at least the first year, perhaps two or three. Three years is an awful big bite out of a career, and I’ve spent a long time preparing for my career.”

= Noraine O’Callaghan is against abortion—“It’s murder she told Time—and she worried that some mothers use day care centers as a substitute for child rearing. But she sympathizes with most of the aims of women’s liberation, she said. Her one reservation: “In order to get into the system, a woman has to become like a man, and is therefore, probably no better.”

= Marcia Heuber’s world is one of seasons and crops, dawn-to-dusk farm chores, the kitchen and children in a rambling farmhouse. When she was in high school, Marcia told Time, “My biggest goal was to get married.” Though she works just as hard as her husband, Roger, she has no doubts about where she stands in relation to him: “I still feel the male sex should be dominant. I want my husband to feel he is the head of the household. We decide things together, but I think the final word should mostly be his.”

Marcia also found time for social service activity like teaching Sunday school, playing the church organ, and so on. She is deeply proud of the life she has carved out for herself: “Being married and having a family were the most important things for me. I’m very happy with my profession.”

= Lynn Young is 33, attractive, unmarried and likes it that way. “I wanted to be a surgeon,” she admitted, “but a friend at Stanford medical school discouraged me. He showed me how tough medicine is for a woman.” Lynn never feels the least pressure to marry. “There simply aren’t that many marriages I envy,” she said. “A lot of women are just hanging in there for the security, but that’s a dumb reason to get married.”

= I used to call my husband, “AB—arrogant bastard,” started Eleanor Driver. “And he was, but he was strong and dominant, and I liked that. When the university offered me a job, he said, ‘Go ahead—but I want my socks washed.”

A revealing portrait of the average American housewife and her response to “women’s lib” was drawn by author, wife and mother, Sue Kaufman:¹⁶

She is anywhere from 24 to 45—a wife, a mother, a housewife. She is usually far from mad (crazy or angry), far from being wildly bitter—but also far from being satisfied with what or where she is. Though she isn’t too clear on where she would rather be, she knows it isn’t up there on the big, steam rolling bandwagon of Women’s Lib, or in the front ranks of the marching phalanx, waving banners. Much as she admires them.

And she does admire them ...

She is overwhelmed by a terrible sense of wrongness, of jarring inconsistency. There was that surging, powerful feeling in the hall (when she went to hear a prominent feminist speak), and now, stranded on the linoleum under the battery of fluorescent kitchen lights, there is this terrible sense of isolation, of walls closing in, of being trapped…

She has begun to think about the necessity of financial independence... About a job, part-time now, full-time later. If she has money of her own, she has begun to ask questions about separate bank accounts ...

But most likely she will not divorce. At least not casually, and certainly not for any principle or idea. Moreover, she like, or loves, her children, and though they are often a terrible drain on her emotions and strength, she is simply not prepared to delegate most of their care to someone else. She also likes, or loves, her husband, and though she is no longer willing to put up with anything she considers an infringement on her rights or dignity, she is not about to blow up the whole works by refusing to do what was contracted at the onset of her marriage—namely Women’s Work—which covers everything from enduring labor pains to counting laundry ...

The siren song of “women’s liberation” is complicated and contradictory. Indeed, as soon as the vote was won, American suffragists split over a proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution. Many women with a background in the social reform movement believed strongly in female differences, and feared that the ERA would preclude legislation protective of women.¹⁷ More than 50 years later, in 1972, the ERA was passed in the U.S. Congress, but then failed to receive sufficient backing from state legislatures to be adopted.

“If the feminist revolution simply wanted to exchange one ruling class for another, if it aimed at outright female domination, the goal would be easier to visualize,” concluded Bonnie Angelo in her overview of American women’s status in 1972.¹⁸ “The demand for equality, not domination, is immensely complicated. True equality between autonomous partners is hard to achieve even if both partners are of the same sex. The careful balancing of roles and obligations and privileges, without the traditional patterns to fall back on, sometimes seems like an almost utopian vision.

While nearly everyone favors some of the basic goals of the New Feminism—equal pay for equal work, equal job opportunity, equal treatment by the law—satisfying even those minimum demands could require more wrenching change than many casual sympathizers with the women’s cause have seriously considered. Should women be drafted? Ought protective legislation about women’s hours and working conditions be repealed?

WOMEN INTO THE MARKETPLACE

Complex currents of social change converged to produce the “new feminism” of the 1970s, but British historian and writer Arnold Toynbee identified an essential dilemma years earlier. Middle-class woman acquired education and a chance at a career, wrote Toynbee, at the very time she lost her domestic servants and the unpaid household help of relatives living in the old, large family; she had to become either a “household drudge” or “carry the intolerably heavy load of two simultaneous full-time jobs.”¹⁹

In 1972, though American women already made up more than one third of the national workforce, they were concentrated in lower-skilled and lower-paying positions. An average woman employed in a full-time job earned only two thirds of the salary paid to a man with a similar job. Childcare facilities were few and far between, and often too expensive. The same number of women as men graduated from high school that year, but only 41 percent of the women compared to 59 percent of the men went on to college. There had never been a woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and less than 3 percent of the nation’s lawyers were women. The first five female agents for the U.S. Secret Service were only then beginning training. And politically, women were barely visible: in 1975, only one in ten statewide elected officials and state legislators were women; and, at the national level, only 4 percent of the members of congress were women.

During the next two decades, from 1970 through 1990, all of these indicators of women’s status changed, most rather dramatically, and women are now visible if not prominent in virtually every walk of life in the United States.²⁰

=  Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982, and as of 1990 12.5 percent of all U.S. federal judges, and more than 8 percent of the judges on state benches, were women.

= In 1984, Representative Geraldine Ferraro, a wife and mother, was the Democratic Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate and the first woman in American history to run on a presidential ticket.

= In 1991, 17 percent of all elected mayors were women, up from just 1 percent in 1971. During the same period the number of statewide elected officials and legislators doubled, from 10 percent to just under 20 percent. At the national level progress has been slower: the proportion of female members of congress went up from 4 percent in 1975 to 10 percent in 1994.

= In 1991, 20 percent of then-President Bush’s Senate confirmed appointments—that is, the higher-ranking appointments—were women, up from18 percent in 1977 under then-President Jimmy Carter. President William Clinton’s cabinet is peppered with women—as of September 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno, Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala were in the Cabinet proper. Laura D’Andrea Tyson was Chairman of the prestigious Council of Economic Advisers, Sheila Widnall was Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Joycelyn Elders was U.S. Surgeon General, and the heads of the Peace Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency and Commodity Futures Trading Commission were women. One out of the five governors on the Federal Reserve Board and one out of the four commissioners on the U.S. International Trade Commission are women. There are about ten women in top posts within the Executive Office of the President, and there are more than 25 women under-secretaries in the various government departments or ministries.

= Women have also broken into the front ranks of the media, with Connie Chung holding a prized anchor position on the evening news for one of the three major commercial television networks and scores more women in the position of network reporters, and even more women anchoring and reporting for local news stations, not to mention hosting some of the most popular talk and variety shows.

= In 1989, a survey of ‘Fortune 500’ companies found that women made up 12.7 percent of corporate board membership, up from a single digit figure in 1970. And businesses owned by women soared in the decade 1977-1978, from 7.1 to 30 percent of all business.

= In education, where women have historically lagged behind men, especially in post-secondary education, over the decade from 1970 to 1990 women’s achievements converged with and in some cases surpassed men. From 1966 to 1987, the percentage of female high school graduates who completed four years of college increased from 16 to 25 percent, to equal that of men.

In 1989, the majority of degrees at all levels except doctorate were earned by women: whereas in 1970, 43 percent of the Bachelor’s degrees and 39 percent of the Master’s degrees were awarded to women, in 1989 it was 53 and 52 percent respectively. Though only 36 percent of the doctorates were awarded to women, that was a substantial jump from 13 percent in 1970.

Significantly, too, the proportion of degree in science and engineering earned by women showed a dramatic increase from 1960 to 1990. In 1989, 50 percent of all biological science degrees were earned by women, up from 28 percent in 1970. The proportion of degrees awarded to women in computer science and the physical sciences doubled from 14 percent in 1970 to 31 and 30 percent respectively in 1989. Mathematics, also a traditional preserve of men, saw an increase in degrees awarded to women during the same period of from 37 to 49 percent. And in business, 47 percent of the degrees went to women, compared to 9 percent in 1970. Though in 1989 women earned only 15 percent of all Bachelor’s degrees in engineering, this was up from just 1 percent in 1970.

In the medical and other professional areas too, women have
become increasingly qualified. In 1989, 26 percent of the dentistry degrees, 33 percent of the medical degrees, 50 percent of the veterinary medicine degrees and 40 percent of the law degrees were awarded to women.

From 1975 to 1989 the number of colleges and universities headed by women doubled, but women continued to be under-represented in the upper management of higher education. In 1989 only 10 percent of the ‘chief executive officers of colleges and universities were female. Women’s position in college faculties is likewise still insecure. In 1910 women made up 20 percent of college faculties: in 1985, a full seventy-five years later, just 28 percent of college faculties were female, and most women educators were clustered in the lower ranks, below the level of full professor, with lower pay and less job security.

A CLOSER LOOK

Western women have come out of the house and into the marketplace in full force, but a closer look raises the question as to how much of this is “liberation,” and, even more important, what is its cost in human and social terms for women and for society.

In 1990, 53.5 million women, or 58 percent of all American women, were in the labor force—three fourths of them working full time. From 1975 to 1990, 20 million women had been added to the work force. Labor force participation of all women between 16 and 65 years of age rose dramatically, but the steepest increase was among married women with a husband present in the home. In 1990, nearly 60 percent of all married mothers with children under six years of age were working outside the home. In 1980 less than 20 percent of married mothers with toddlers under three years of age were full-time workers; by 1990 more than 33 percent of these mothers were in the work force.

Though women have made substantial advances in professional, technical and administrative-management occupational areas, they are still overwhelmingly employed in the administrative support occupations, including clerical and secretarial jobs, and services (such as sales-girls, waitresses, hairdressers, etc.). In 1975, only 5.2 percent of employed females were in executive, administrative or management occupations, whereas by 1990 this had grown to 11.1 percent. Similarly, in 1975, 13.2 percent of employed women worked in the traditional professions (i.e., as physicians, lawyers, registered nurses), and 2.7 percent worked in technical and related professions but, by 1990 this had increased to 15.1 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. In 1975, 63.7 percent of female employees were confined to four areas—namely, sales, administrative support, private household and other service occupations. In 1990 58.6 percent of employed women still worked in these fields.

So, although women in America are now 13.9 percent of all police and detectives, 19.3 percent of all physicians, 36 percent of all computer programmers, 43.5 percent of all manufacturing assemblers, 44.3 percent of all financial managers and 51.5 percent of all bus drivers, they are also 99 percent of all secretaries, 89.2 percent of all textile sewing machine operators, 84.8 percent of all health aides and 80.8 percent of all waitresses.

Among government employees, though women are a minority at the highest grade levels, their representation there has been increasing sharply. For instance, in 1982, 22.4 percent of the employees in Grades 11-12 and only 9.7 percent in Grades 13-15, were women. By 1988, 31.9 percent of Grades 11-12 employees and 15.9 percent of Grades 13-15 employees were women. Still, the bulk of women in government employment are concentrated at the six lowest grades. In 1982, and still in 1988, fully 75 percent of the employees in the lowest six levels were women.

Though the pay gap between men and women has closed somewhat, and more so in some occupations than in others, discrimination in earnings and benefits remains pervasive. In 1980 women earned, on average, 64 cents for every dollar earned by men in the United States; by 1990 it was 72 cents. In certain areas, such as technical, sales, administrative support and service jobs, the male-female wage gap narrowed in recent years as much because of declines in men’s salaries (due to recession condition) as of increases in women’s wages. As of 1989, women were still more likely than men to be working at minimum wage jobs. Female workers were less likely than males to have employer or union-sponsored pension plans in 1987 (but between 1980 and 1987 the proportion of male workers with pension plans dropped by 6 percentage points).

In spite of the fact that nearly half the American work force consists of women, neither maternity/paternity leave nor childcare support was by any means the norm in American firms, even in 1989. At that time, no more than 3 percent of medium and large size firms, on average, provided paid maternity leave, and this went down to 2 percent for small firms (with less than 100 employees). In 1988, more than 60 percent of American children under age 18 had working mothers, but as far as childcare assistance is concerned, no more than 10 percent of firms of all sizes provided any real benefits or support for childcare. However, 35-45 percent of all firms did provide flexible schedules and flexible leave times for parents with young children.

“Flexitime” notwithstanding, in 1987 6.2 million working mothers in America paid for childcare. Of these 750,000 had incomes at or below the poverty line, and for them childcare expenses ate up 20 percent of their income. Though mothers with children under age 21 and no father present are entitled to government child support, often they do not get it at all or do not get the full amount.

Closely related to the issue of women’s earnings and benefits in the fact that between 1970 and 1989 the number of women workers of age 16 and above holding multiple jobs increased by almost 400 percent—from 636,000 to more than 3 million. Women who worked more than one job in 1989 were more likely than men to be doing so because the additional earnings were necessary to meet regular household expenses.

THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY UNDER SIEGE

Sweeping as the change may be, the phenomenon of working mothers is the least of the shock to the traditional American family over the past several decades. Though married couple families still heavily predominate, that predominance has dropped from 87 to 80 percent in just two decades as “other family types” became more common. The “male householder with no spouse present” from 11 to 16.5 percent. This varies by race: among black Americans, for instance, only the barest majority of families were married couples in 1989. The overall result: in 1990, fully one quarter of all American children resided with just one parent.

Already climbing in the 1960s, the divorce rate in America literally soared from 1970 to 1990. In 1990, the divorce ratio (i.e., the number of currently divorced persons per 1000 currently married persons) was at an all-time high of 166 for women and 118 for men. In that year 56 percent of American women over age 18 were married, with husband present; 3.7 percent were married with husband absent; 12.1 percent were widowed; 9.3 percent were divorced; and 18.9 percent were single (i.e., never married).

Though most women continued to marry, the average age at first marriage increased from 21 to 24 years between 1970 and 1988, and marriage tended to become a kind of way-station for many, only one of several different, and now acceptable, “family types.” After entering adulthood, many women will live with a man prior to marriage. Such “co-habitation” outside of marriage, as it is called, was uncommon prior to 1970. In that year the U.S. Bureau of the Census counted 523,000 households with two unrelated adults of the opposite sex; by 1984 the number had grown to nearly two million. For most women such co-habitation is a temporary stage before marriage. But statistics do show that while at least five out of six young women in 1985 will marry, lifelong singleness (possibly in combination with one or more co-habiting relationships) is becoming more acceptable and common.²¹

Not only has the divorce rate soared, but the birth rate (i.e., the number of live births for each 1000 women of childbearing age) plunged—down from 118 in 1960 to 67.2 in 1988, a nearly 50 percent drop. By the early 1980s voluntary childlessness had become so acceptable and common—among married couples as well as among never-married women—that one researcher estimated that perhaps as many as 25 percent of the young women of the 1970s would in fact never have children.²² In 1990, four out of every ten American families contained children, though the presence of children was more common in families maintained by women than either those maintained by men or in married couple families.

Simultaneously, the number of legal abortions has more than doubled. In 1987 in the United States, 13,54,000 pregnancies were terminated by abortion, up from 5,88,000 in 1972. Approximately 70 percent of the legal abortions are obtained by unmarried women, and these women are concentrated in the lower end of the income scales. Women with an annual household income at the poverty line or below account for only 15 percent of all American women, but they account for 33 percent of the women obtaining abortions.

NATURE’S VERDICT

The equality of man and woman is one of the main concepts of western civilization. It has been in vogue in the western world for the last one hundred years, but that has been quite long enough to show that, as an experiment in living, it has been a failure. In spite of women having been legally accorded equal status with men in many countries, and in spite of advances in the educational level of women and their entry into most arenas of economic and political life, in practice they have yet to achieve an equal professional status or secure an equal footing in society. And, meanwhile, the shift in women’s role and identity in society has led directly to the breakdown of the family and a serious breakdown of public morality generally in the West.

Initially, supporters of the concept of equality of the sexes claimed that the differences between men and women resulted from environmental influences, but modem investigation shows that the cause must be sought elsewhere. Research carried out on a wide cross-section of society and over a broad range of different fields has established that this difference, far from having been externally imposed, by the environment, or through historical processes, is innate. That is to say, that it is biological in nature, something that women are simply born with and not something which is eradicable by legislation or the whipping up of popular sentiment. It is nature and not nurture which is to be blamed.

In 1981, Newsweek magazine reported in detail on the conclusions drawn from in-depth research carried out in America by both male and female investigators on the differences in the physical and mental make-up of men and women, namely, that women are emotional in their thinking and that men are superior to them in mathematics, problem solving, leadership and fighting.²³ Women’s differences are traced not to their conditioned responses to a traditionally male dominated society, but to their own biology which fits them for an altogether different sphere of living.

It has now been established that hormones play an important role in creating this difference between the two sexes. When the male hormone testosterone was experimentally injected into females, they began to develop masculine characteristics. Girls who had been injected with male hormones while still at the foetal stage showed less fondness for playing with dolls, and even developed aggressive temperaments like boys. Researchers found that hormones can change the structure of the brain itself, so that if the male and female brain structures differ, the cause may be traced to the difference in hormones.

Although this research has clearly established that a difference does exist, physically and mentally, between men and women—obviously indicating separate spheres of activity for them—old adherents of the male-female equality concept are still reluctant to accept the reversal of a favorite theory. As a western scholar says: “Whether these physiological differences destine men and women for separate role in society is another and far more delicate question.”²⁴

Almost a decade prior to the Newsweek report, Time magazine, in its special issue on the status of American women, asked the question: “Are women immutably different from men?” Their review of the research findings at that time, summarized in the following pages, is instructive.²⁵ Women’s liberationists believe that any differences other than anatomical are a result of conditioning by society. The opposing view is that all of the differences are fixed in goes. The idea that genetic predispositions exist is based on three kinds of evidence. First, there are the ‘cultural universals’ cited by anthropologist Margaret Mead: Almost everywhere, the mother is the principal caretaker of the child, and male dominance and aggression are the rule. Some anthropologists believe there has been an occasional female dominated society: others insist that none has ever existed.

Then there is the fact that among most ground dwelling primates, males are dominant and have as a major function the protection of females and offspring. Some research suggests that it is true even when the young are raised apart from adults, which seems to mean that they do not learn their roles from their society.

Finally, behavioral sex differences show up long before anybody could possibly perceive subtle differences between his parents or know which parent he is expected to imitate. “A useful strategy,” says Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, “is to assume that the earlier a particular difference appears, the more likely it is to be influenced by biological factors.” Physical differences appear even before birth. The heart of the female fetus often beats faster, and girls develop more rapidly. “Physiologically,” says sociologist Barbette Blackington, “women are better-made animals.” Males do have more strength and endurance—though that hardly matters in a technological society.

Recent research hints that there may even be sex differences in the brain. According to some experimenters, the presence of the male hormone testosterone in the fetus may “masculinize” the brain, organizing the fetal nerve centers in characteristic ways. This possible “sex typing” of the central nervous system before birth may make men and women respond differently to incoming stimuli.

In fact, newborn girls do show different responses in some situations. They react more strongly to the removal of a blanket and more quickly to touch and pain. Moreover, experiments demonstrate that twelve-week-old girls gaze longer at photographs of faces than at geometric figures. Boys show no preference then, though eventually they pay more attention to figures.

Even after infancy, the sexes show differential interests that do not seem to grow solely out of experience. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson found that boys and girls aged ten to twelve used space differently, when asked to construct a scene with toys. Girls often build allow wall, sometimes with an elaborate doorway, surrounding a ‘quiet interior scene. Boys are likely to construct towers, facades, with canons and lively exterior scenes. “The difference,” Erikson says, “seems to parallel the morphology (shape and form) of genital differentiation itself: in the male, an external organ, erectable and intrusive; and, internal organs in the female, with vestibular access, leading to statically expectant ova.”

In aptitude as well as in interest, sex differences become apparent early in life. Though girls are generally less adept than boys at mathematical and spatial reasoning, they learn to count sooner and to talk earlier and better. Some scientists think this female verbal superiority may be caused by sex-linked differences in the brain. While girls outdo boys verbally, they often lag behind in solving analytical problems, those that require attention to detail.

It is a paradox that even though the number of educated women is at an all-time high, the representation of women in traditionally male professions is still extremely low. Harvard psychologist Matina Horner guessed that one reason for this may be that women actively fear success, and began seriously looking into this when she discovered that the few studies that had been made of women’s motivation for achievement showed they had high anxiety. Reasonably certain that this meant women were afraid of competition, Horner decided nonetheless to test that assumption. Putting men and women into competitive and noncompetitive situations, she found that males showed a spurt of motivation in competition. Females did not. It was anxiety about competition that apparently held the women back.

There are personality differences between the sexes too. Some distinctions turn up remarkably early. At New York University, for example, researchers found that a female infant stops sucking a bottle and looks up when someone comes into the room; a male pays no attention to the visitor. Another experiment showed that girls of twelve months who become frightened in a strange room drift toward their mothers, while boys look for something interesting to do. At four months, twice as many girls as boys cry when frightened in a strange laboratory. And, according to Jerome Kagan, since similar differences can be seen in monkeys and baboons we are forced to consider the possibility that some of the psychological differences between men and women may not be the product of experience alone but of subtle biological differences.

Many researchers have found greater dependence and docility in very young girls, greater autonomy and activity in boys. When a barrier is set up to separate youngsters from their mothers, boys try to knock it down; girls cry helplessly.

Animal studies suggest that there may be a biological factor in maternal behavior; mothers of rhesus monkeys punish their male babies earlier and more often than their female offspring; and, they also touch their female babies more often and act more protective toward them.

The definitive research on hormones is still to be done, but one trait thought to be affected by hormones is aggressiveness. In all cultures, investigators report, male infants tend to play more aggressively than females. Some suggest that female may be as aggressive as men—but with words instead of deeds. However, it has been established that the female hormone estrogen inhibits aggression in both animal and human males. It has also been proved that the male hormone androgen influences aggression in animals. For example, castration produces tractable steers rather than fierce bulls.

The influence of androgen begins even before birth. Administered to pregnant primates, the hormones make newborn females play more aggressively than ordinary females. Moreover, such masculinized animals are unusually aggressive as long as they live, even if they are never again exposed to androgen. According to some experts, this long-lasting effect of hormones administered or secreted before birth may help to explain why boys are more aggressive than girls even during their early years when both sexes appear to produce equal amounts of male and female hormones.

Will there someday be a “unisex” society, with no differences between men and women except anatomical ones? Time magazine asked. It seems unlikely. According to psychoanalyst Therese Benedek: “Biology precedes personality.”

“Nature has been the oppressor,” observed psychologist Michael Lewis. Women’s role as caretaker was the evolutionary result of their biological role in birth and feeding. The baby bottle may have freed women from some of the tasks of that role, but, says University of Michigan psychologist Judith Bardwick, “the major responsibility for child rearing is the woman’s, even in the Soviet Union, the Israeli Kibbutz, Scandinavia and mainland China.” Furthermore, though mothering skills are mostly learned, it is a fact that if animals are raised in isolation and then put in a room with the young of the species, it is the females who go to the infants and take care of them.

“Perhaps the known biological differences can be totally overcome, and society can approach a state in which a person’s sex is of no consequence for any significant activity except child bearing,” admits Jerome Kagan.” But we must ask if such a society will be satisfying its members.” As Kagan sees it, “complementarity” is what makes relationships stable and pleasurable.

Psychoanalyst Martin Symonds agreed. “The basic reason why unisex must fail is that in the sexual act itself, the man has to be assertive, if tenderly, and the woman has to be receptive. What gives trouble is when men see assertiveness as aggression and women see receptiveness as submission.” Unisex, he sums up, would be “a disaster” because children need roles to identify with and rebel against. ‘You can’t identify with a blur. A Unisex world would be frictionless environment in which nobody would be able to grow up.”

The crucial point, however, is that a difference is not a deficiency. As one biologist put it: “We are all human beings and in this sense equal. We are not, however, the same.”

AT WAR WITH NATURE

In practice, men still have the upper hand. The cause is not social conditioning, as feminists would have us believe. It is wholly biological and psychological. It is the biological factor which—we are forced to conclude after 100 years of feminist struggle—is the stumbling block in according women an equal position (that is, in the outside world) with men. It is the cruelty of nature rather than the cruelty of society which is to blame. Now that this has been established, the more militant among the feminists have started demanding that, in the womb itself, the science of eugenics should be applied to changing the genetic code in order to create a new biological system which will in turn produce a new breed of women. They maintain that, in this way, the male-dominated society could be replaced by one in which the sexes are equal in ability and performance. This suggestion is rather like saying that fish, like goats, should be able to produce milk, and then, when, in spite of every encouragement the fish fails to produce milk, proclaiming that one will create, with the help of medical science, a new strain of milk-producing fish. Exactly like goats.

If, one fine day, it occurred to a doctor that the mouth should be situated not on the face but on the stomach, and he thereupon set about removing the mouth from the face, the world would ridicule his foolishness, for the places which nature has allotted to-the various physical features are unalterable. Our successful control of them depends upon our dealing with them as they are, and not in attempting to reshuffle them to suit man-made concepts.

This fanciful repositioning of women in society is rather like trying to juggle with the unalterable features of the human physiognomy. Similarly, when modern civilization began to draw up a new map of life, one of its features was to bring about complete equality between man and woman. The whole family and social structure had to be turned topsy-turvy in order to turn the fanciful supposition into a reality. In the end, women have come out of their homes, but they have been unable to become the equals of men in practical life. The reason is simple—nature did not obligingly go along with the human imagination.

The Russian scientist, Anton Nemilov, who himself desires to see total equality of the sexes become a reality, admits that this desire of ours has no basis in biology and agrees that this is the reason for this idea never having materialized. Citing scientific experiments and observations, he writes:

Very few people will agree if it is said today that women should be given limited rights in the social set up. We, too, are wholly against such a suggestion. However, we should not deceive ourselves in thinking that establishing equality between men and women in practical life is a simple matter. Nowhere have more attempts been made than in the USSR to establish this equality. Nowhere in the world have such unbiased and generous laws been made than in the USSR, yet it is a fact that the position of woman in the family has hardly changed for the better.²⁶

He goes on to say:

Up till now the concept of inequality between men and women has been so deeply rooted not only in the lesser educated people but also in the highly educated Soviet people as well as in women themselves, that if, on occasion, women are treated as having full equality with men, this is attributed to men’s weakness and impotency. If we pursue the thoughts of any scientist, writer, student, businessman, or hundred percent communist, we shall soon realize that he does not in his heart of hearts regard woman as his equal. If we read any recent novel, however free a thinker the writer might be, we shall certainly find something or the other in it which will expose as superficial his concept of woman as equal to man.²⁷

The reason is that this revolutionary concept clashes with an extremely important fact, i.e. that in respect of biology, both sexes are not equal, both are not meant to shoulder an equal amount of burden.²⁸

Deviation from nature not only fails to achieve any positive gain, but also entails the loss of desirable features of human existence. The correct place for a thing is that assigned to it by nature. Any bid on our part to displace or reorient it inevitably leads to a variety of evils.

This is exactly what has happened in the case of women who have been taken out of their homes in order to make them men’s equal. The result has not for them been the achievement of equal position. The result has been their becoming the objects of a flood of licentiousness and pornography.

Of this situation, Anton Nemilov writes:

The truth is that all signs of sexual anarchy have become apparent in the workers. This is a situation fraught with grave dangers threatening to destabilize the whole socialist system. It should be countered in all possible ways. Great difficulties will be faced to fight on this point. I can cite thousands of instances of sexual licentiousness, which goes to show that this has spread not only in the lower echelons but also on the top rungs of the ladder as well as among the intellectuals.²⁹

Nemilov’s view, published as long as fifty years ago, has been substantiated by recent experience. In fact, his words may be applied with even greater force and accuracy to the state of affairs prevailing today.

Modern man, regarding the old concept of man and woman as outdated, attempted to create equality between the two sexes. But this amounted to waging war with nature itself, to clashing with reality and his efforts proved counterproductive. Far from ‘achieving equality between the two sexes, efforts made to reach this artificial goal paved the way to the spread of various evils in society.

SOME EXAMPLES

Here are some examples of the grave results of deviation in the matter of women under the influence of western civilization.

NOT GETTING MARRIED—A MISTAKE

It is thanks to erroneous western concepts that marriage has come to be equated with bondage. This, in turn, has resulted in the emergence of a permissive society with all the attendant social and familial evils. One such problem is typified by Greta Garbo, a Swedish film actress who was one of the most famous Hollywood personalities of her time. In her heyday she had been greatly sought after, but when she grew old, her charms faded and her friends, one by one, deserted her. On the 18th of September 1980, at the age of 75, she celebrated her birthday all by herself. Her biographer, who was present at that time, asked whether she regretted having opted for a single and, consequently, lonely life. Greta Garbo replied sadly: “Not getting married was a mistake.” ³⁰

In their prime, such women attract people by their youthful charm. But as they advance in years, they lose their attraction for the opposite sex, and their friends forsake them like rats leaving a sinking ship. It becomes less and less possible for them to continue to enjoy all the different kinds of entertainment which had formerly engaged them day in and day out. Too late, it dawns on them that all their past activities have been of no value. They had been living in a dream world from which they have now been rudely awakened. It is only at this point that they realize the futility of regarding permanent loyalty as an obstacle to the enjoyment of life. The delights of youth are replaced by the emptiness and boredom of old age. Pets become their only solace, as there is no life partner with whom to share their joys and sorrows, and no children to give them tender, loving care. There is no one of their own who will keep their name alive when they leave this world. There is not even anyone to whom they can bequeath their life’s savings with any degree of satisfaction. There is no one to love and no one to return their love. They find themselves left alone and bewildered in a world which abounds in life. For them there can be no greater punishment than this.

BE A GOOD WIFE

Frank Borman, an American astronaut went into space with a woman astronaut in the same spacecraft. After his return from the voyage he said: “Having women on the spacecraft was okay except that it would be upsetting to put a male and a female too close together for a long time.” Borman’s comment certainly upset the feminists. One American lady remarked in the course of a fiery speech: “Mr. Frank Borman would never have existed had his parents not come together.”

Scientific research together with the realities of practical life have shocked the cherished concepts of feminists leading some of them to rethink their ideals. An American lady, Mrs. Marabel Morgan, a mother of two, recently published a book entitled Total Woman. Here is the simple magic formula she divulged to her American sisters so that they may lead successful married lives. “Be nice to your husband, stop nagging him and understand his needs.” In less than a year this book sold three million copies. To the writer the perfection of womanhood lies in her ability to become a good companion of her husband rather than seek an independent life.³¹

The truth is that the total woman is one who can be a total companion to her husband.

ADMITTING DEFEAT

Another example of the baneful consequences of western civilization’s deviation from nature’s course is that of Jean Seberg, an American actress who also achieved extraordinary fame and popularity because of her charming personality. Not only in the U.S., but also in Europe, she was the cynosure of all eyes. At an early stage in her career, she opted to become an object of entertainment to millions in preference to making a home for herself on the traditional pattern. But when her diary was gone through after her death, the last line turned out to be: “I wish I had stayed home.”³² How ironic that such a “successful” career should have ended in helpless failure.

God has endowed everything pertaining to the world of matter
with particular characteristics. The objects of His creation are, therefore, able to perform satisfactorily only if they function strictly in accordance with their own particular properties. In the same way, God has created man and woman with their particular traits, and they can lead proper lives only when they act in consonance with their respective natures. Any deviation from this course will cause them to surrender their true place on life’s map.

A woman’s capacities are clearly different from those of a man. This very fact is a proof that the spheres of men and women, in general, are not the same. The man’s sphere is basically outside the home and the woman’s is within. If both change their spheres of activity, both will lose their respective identities and their ultimate meaningfulness in the context of society. Each, in displacing the other, will have a sense of disorientation.

ENDLESS PROBLEMS

The Lonely Lady, a novel by Harold Robbins first published in the U.S., throws light on one of the weaknesses of the highly developed society of America which causes an unmarried woman to end her life in a state of insufferable loneliness. It is the story of a beautiful, young, American woman who, dazzled by the glamour of the film world, abandons her married life to become an actress. Her perfect femininity helps her to climb the ladder of success and she quickly reaches dizzy heights of fame and wealth. She has a host of fans and is surrounded by luxuries, but the climax of her success does not bring her peace. Now she discovers the bitter truth—that “fame has a way of fading, and friends a way of disappearing when they are most needed.” ³³

With a sigh, she says, “Only a woman knows what loneliness is.”³⁴ The main point made by the novel is that a woman cannot afford to find herself in such a situation. Making vast sums of money working in films and securing an independent life may seem very attractive propositions, but as a woman ages, her friends no longer see any charm in her and this, to the woman, proves an unbearable shock.

 She may have amassed all kinds of wealth and material objects, but still lacks what she most needs—peace of mind. This is something which can only arise from the stability of a permanent companionship, but now there is no man in her life who could give her just that. Too late, she realizes what it means to possess no family of her own. “Here is a loneliness born of independence, of honest individualism in a society where only dishonesty brings profit.” ³⁵

The system of human life is a web of extremely delicate balances and counterbalances, in which even a minor change can wreak havoc. It is no different from the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms in which the secret of success lies in never deviating from the pattern laid down by nature. Achieving the desired result is possible only when the established structure of nature is understood and accepted. But the very people who adhere strictly to this precept as regards the world of matter, forget that this is an eternal truth which applies to their own lives too. Nature’s system for men and women takes shape in the institution of marriage. A woman’s physique, psychology, familial urges and social relations all demand that she led a married—and, therefore, moral—life. This is a pattern which has been laid down for her own good.

Being free and independent seems an attractive phrase when applied to a woman, but the practical experience of personal liberty can range from the purely unpleasant to the downright disgusting.

In her youth a woman may easily fall prey to what strikes her—because of her inexperience—as an appealing way of life. But, as she grows older, and goes from one bitter experience to the next, she realizes that she has made a wrong choice. But this dawns on her only when things have gone too far for her to make amends. Now her only alternative is to console herself with her pet dogs, cats, parrots, etc., as it is too late to find a life partner with whom to share the ups and downs of her daily existence. When she finally leaves this world, it is in despair.

THE END OF PLEASURE

Married to John Kennedy (1917-1963), America’s 35th President, Jacqueline Kennedy basked in the limelight of her husband, and enjoyed the fame of being America’s First Lady. But this did not last for long, because Kennedy was shot dead in November 1963, just three years after being elected President. Jacqueline was suddenly bereft of all the fame and honor that went with her place in society as wife of the President. But, not long afterwards, the same feminine charm which had attracted John Kennedy in her younger days now brought to her side the Greek millionaire, Aristotle Onassis (1906 -1975), whom she subsequently married. At the time of her marriage, she was forty years of age and Onassis was 60. But this marriage was not a success. They soon began to live separately, until after a prolonged illness, Onassis died in 1975. Jacqueline was not even present at his deathbed during the last hours of his life.

Jacqueline found everything but happiness. Her biographer, Kitty Kelly, speaks of her “incurable desire to buy happiness, even if it meant spending as much in one hour as 3,000 dollars.”³⁶

This shows that even marriage cannot make a woman happy if what her mind is truly set on is not conjugal bliss, but wealth, fame and all the attendant worldly pleasures.

Marilyn Monroe (b. June 1, 1926), one of the most famous women in America, started her career as a photographer’s model and soon rose to fame as a film actress. Thanks to her extraordinary attractiveness, she became renowned as the “sex goddess” of the film world. Her films were all a tremendous success in that they never failed to draw crowds.

The last film she made was called The Misfits—a title which, in a sense, applied to her own life, because she frequently had a feeling of being out of place. In the midst of even the largest crowds, psychologically, she was alone. Photographs showing her smiling and laughing were regularly published in the newspapers, but, in reality, she was often sunk in depression. Finally, her mental and emotional state became unbearable and, on August 5, 1962, she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was just 36 years of age.

Such women appear to be happy on the stage and screen, but in their heart of hearts, they live with a sense of persecution, for they belong to everybody, but nobody belongs to them. They make others happy, but they have always to contend with the feeling deep down inside them that there is really no one with whom they can share their innermost thoughts, no one to whom they can pour out their hearts. At social gatherings they appear to be fulfilled as individuals, but in reality, their lives are empty. The initial spectacular quality of their lives is dimmed, bit-by-bit, until at the end, life seems little more than a dreary vacuum.

It is a fact that women are temperamentally unfit for solitude. Few women can endure loneliness over long periods of time. But the path along which western civilization pushes a woman can lead to nothing but isolation. Islam, on the contrary, leads a woman to a life where she is never alone, but a member of a united family. The Islamic way is natural, that of the western world quite the reverse.

THE BURDEN OF FAME

Brigitte Bardot (b. 1934), the most famous star in the history of the French cinema, scaled higher peaks of renown than even Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich. It was said that she brought more currency into France than the Renault Motor Company, and some even declared her to be the most famous Frenchwoman since Joan of Arc. English writer Tony Crawley calculated that by 1958 her photograph had appeared no less than 29,345 times on the covers of European and American magazines.³⁷

Film followed film, her popularity soared, and, at times, she even gave up trying to go out because the crowds of photographers outside prevented her from doing so. Every day, she was swamped by fan mail, so that it became impossible even to read a selection of the letters which poured in.

Despite all this ostensible glamour, she was so unsatisfied from within that just the fact of being a celebrity became a burden to her. One night, worn out by her own fame, Brigitte swallowed an overdose of tranquillizers. Even at that crucial moment, when her life hung in the balance, photographers forced the ambulance which was rushing her to the hospital to stop halfway so that they could take pictures of her. BB (as she was known in the film world) was once reported as saying that she never really felt at ease in front of the camera.

At the age of 39, after making 48 films, she suddenly ended her career, refusing even to accept the most enticing offers from Hollywood. She sold her Rolls Royce and went to live alone in her house on the Riviera “to cease to be considered a beautiful object and become a human being like any other.” 

The truth is that to become a heroine in the outside world and attain fame goes against the feminine grain. By nature, a woman is home loving and at heart she is a housewife. It is, in fact, her birthright. That is why it so frequently happens that women celebrities, who lead artificial lives outside the normal limits of the family, drop everything in favour of living in solitude either somewhere in the middle of their careers, or at the end. Where they finally find peace of mind, after a temporary exposure to bright city lights and glittering society, is in their very own homes, and not in the outside world.

What Islamic law lays down with regard to women is protective of their true nature, and is in no way cruel or repressive, as has been suggested by the uninitiated. When, after experimenting with a life and a career in the outside world, a woman finally realizes that her place is in the home, she has reached the point which Islam encourages every woman of marriageable age to reach at the very outset by way of following her natural womanly inclinations. Islamic law is designed to steer women away from the ordeals of the crassly competitive and brazenly immoral world in which only men can successfully make their way.

AN ENFORCED WITHDRAWAL FROM THE FIELD OF ACTION

Everyone, be it a man or a woman, is rewarded according to his or her abilities and performance. When women in search of equality emerged from their homes, they expected to be able to function in areas which had traditionally been masculine strongholds, and attempted to take up jobs as pilots, drivers, engineers, professors, administrators, police officers, military commanders, etc. But, biologically, women did not have the capacity to perform these tasks and proved sadly deficient in managerial skills. Their incapability having been demonstrated, the question arose as to what they should do now that they had left domestic life behind them. They began, sooner or later, to enter those spheres in which they could demand a price for their femininity, for instance, in advertising and on the stage, screen and television. But here, again, they were prevented from leading totally satisfactory lives because of an inherently feminine drawback: when a woman began to grow old, she found herself unwanted. In the world of entertainment, only young women were in demand, and the moment they lost their youthful attraction, no further value was attached to them as personalities.

Thanks to “women’s lib” having done away with all barriers between men and women in western countries, women now find themselves in the marketplace. It is only those who have obvious feminine charms who attract attention, become popular and manage to make something of their lives as objects of entertainment. Once launched on such a course, they begin to regard marriage as an obstacle to their further progress. They have no further taste for the quiet satisfaction of domestic life, preferring the glamour of the outside world.

But the glitter of such a life is short-lived, for the moment their youth shows signs of waning, these women find themselves cast off like so many rags. Having shirked all domestic responsibilities at an earlier, marriageable age, they can now stake no claim to domestic comfort and bliss. Forgotten and deserted, such women of the western world live on into a forlorn state of decrepitude.

The kind of life that takes shape from being associated with the family is very different from the above example. When a woman begins her life as a wife, she finds herself at the center of all activity, being in charge of everything and everyone within the domestic sphere. In her own little world, she builds up a reputation for herself as a wife, mother and grandmother. Each day adds to the honor and respect shown to her by her family, and she goes on increasing in worth in the eyes of her husband. If she shone as a young wife, how much greater is her luster as a mother and grandmother. This position of the woman is quite natural. That is why in the western world itself in circles where the matrimonial fold is still intact, a woman on the strength of nature, comes to acquire the same position. Here is an explicit example from the life of Ronald Reagan, former President of America. According to one American report published in the Hindustan Times: “Mr. Reagan is known to be deeply attached to his wife, whom he calls ‘mommy’ away from the public, according to their close associates.”³⁸ Having made the home and the family her whole world, a woman can certainly count on familial support in her middle and declining years. None of the sorrows of solitude for her!

While western civilization supports the liberated woman only for the early years of her life—her youth being her sole attraction—Islamic culture, being family-oriented, attaches value and gives its support to the married woman right throughout her life.

THE EXAMPLE OF JAPAN

In Japan, about 15 million women are employed in offices and factories. Far from enjoying a position equal to that of their male counterparts, they serve as assistants and subordinates.

Two Japanese women were, of course, elected to the Cabinet a few years ago, but that was thanks only to the institution of Women’s Year in 1985. Of the 608 diplomats in Japan, only twelve are women. Even to this day, Japan’s society is male dominated. It is significant that a woman minister noted in a recent report on the condition of women in Japan that “a bill, yet to be passed by the parliament on ending discrimination against women, is considered by many of its male critics to be reverse discriminatory.”³⁹

In former times the spheres of men’s and women’s activities were considered separate. In modern times, however, this clear demarcation has been dispensed with, one of the grounds being that a nation cannot progress if women are not offered equal opportunities in its construction. But the experiment of giving women a free hand has not contributed either to nation-building or to the progress of civilization. In countries where women have already been offered equal opportunities in every field, all of the more important and advanced fields are still dominated by men.

Those who subscribe to the view that a nation will fail to march ahead without the participation of women—who constitute almost half of the population—need only look at the example of Japan, one of the most developed countries of the modern world. They will be forced to change their ideas when they consider that all of the major developments in Japan have taken place without women’s involvement as equal in non-domestic activities. Japan’s example is the greatest challenge to the feminist view. Its continuing to be a male dominated society clearly shows that the development of a nation does not depend upon equal participation by women—a view erroneously held by feminists the world over. Ms. Sharmon Babior, an American, acknowledging the difference between Japan and America in this matter comments: “I don’t think American women would tolerate the Teishukanpaku (the husband is the ruler of his home) behaviour.”⁴⁰

Notes

1. Time, March 20, 1972.

2. Ibid., p. 26.

3. Ibid., p. 28.

4. Ibid., p. 47.

5. Ibid., p. 47.

6. Ibid., p. 89.

7. Ibid., p. 47.

8. Ibid., p. 47.

9. Ibid., p. 47.

10. Ibid., p. 33

11. Sara M. Evans, “Women in Twentieth Century America: An Overview,” The American Woman 1987-88. A Report In Depth, Ed. Sara E. Rix (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987).

12. Time, op. cit., p. 29.

13. Ibid., p. 55.

14. Ibid., p. 30.

15. Ibid., unnumbered pages following p. 29.

16. Ibid., pp. 70-71.

17. Sara M. Evans, op cit., p. 34.

18. Time, op cit., p. 28.

19. Ibid., p. 27.

20. All of the data in this and the following two sections has been taken from two sources: The American Woman 1987-88. A Report in Depth, edited by Sara E. Rix (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987), and The American Woman 1992-93, A Status Report, edited by Paula Ries and Anne J. Stone (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992).

21. Andrew Cherlin, “Women and the Family,” The American Woman 1987-88, A Report in Depth, op cit., pp. 74-75.

22. Ibid., p. 76.

23. Newsweek, May 18, 1981.

24. Reader’s Digest, October 1981.

25. Time, op. cit., pp. 43-46.

26. Anton Nemilov, The Biological Tragedy of Woman (London, 1932), p. 76.

27. Ibid., pp. 194-95.

28. Ibid., p. 77

29. Ibid., pp. 102-103.

30. The Hindustan Times (New Delhi), September 21, 1980.

31. The Times of India (New Delhi), February 8, 1978.

32. Ibid., November 8, 1981.

33. Harold Robbins, The Lonely Lady (London: New English Library, 1976), p. 448.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.