In Women Who Make the World Worse and How Their Radical Feminist Assault is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports, Kate O’Beirne exposes the damage that radical feminists have imposed on the most valued institutions in America and the lies they’ve used to perpetrate their agenda. O’Beirne relies on quantitative data to debunk the alleged wide support the movement claims to enjoy. She also unveils the true goal of the granddames of the movement — androgyny, a silly notion which denies the inherent differences between men and women. O’Beirne shows how numerous feminist legislative victories such as the Violence Against Women Act (1994) and the affirmative action decisions rendered by an activist Supreme Court have damaged the family by taking women away from child rearing; distorted education by anathematizing anyone who proposes differences between the sexes in learning skills; and weakened the military by lowering size and strength standards so that women can serve in combat roles along with men. O’Beirne identifies some of the movement’s leaders such as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Senator Hilary Clinton, Eleanore Smeal, former president of The National Organization for Women (NOW), and actress Jane Fonda. The book is replete with data that makes the reader shake his (her?) head asking, “How have we let ourselves be so duped?”
The movement’s greatest damage, according to O’Beirne, has been inflicted on males who are portrayed as predators. In many cases, especially in educational settings, natural male characteristics such as aggressiveness have been designated as anti-social. Some contend that this has caused many males to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and medicated, thus inhibiting normal development. This attitude has so alienated men that the number of males in higher education is now below 45 percent. The data clearly indicate that since the feminist initiative began in the late 1960s, the role of males has come to be deemed superfluous in society and males have practically been scripted out of the family. This has caused single parent households led by women to proliferate, wreaking havoc on family income and stability. It has left young males without role models and girls without a clue to what a good husband and father should be. Of course, androgyny, the false belief that male and female differences are due to nurture and not nature, make this concern moot in the minds of the movement’s leadership and the unsuspecting sisterhood.
Saddest of all is the movement’s adamance that women should delay motherhood, in some cases forgo ever having children or turning over their children to day care in order to achieve their career goals. O’Beirne, however, provides statistics from a Gallup pole which indicates that only 4 percent of adults will be satisfied if they never have children and that many women now realize that staying at home with their children is more important than any added income could buy them. She says even liberal academics now report that “we find it hard to face the truth that children need primary time and attention and need to sit at the center of life.” The present increase of women in their late 30’s and 40’s trying to conceive within and unfortunately outside of marriage is indicative of human nature’s natural instinct for procreation. O’Beirne debunks Hilary Clinton’s myth that “it takes a village” to raise children. She claims Hilary’s aggressive efforts in the area an attempt to enrich the day care lobby and force the collective raising of children by the state.
Naturally, there are certain issues that seem to be no-brainers such as equal pay for equal work. But, according to O’Beirne this is a ploy for women’s allegiance to the movement. Studies reveal that as far back as the 1950s, there was only a 2 percent gap in salary between never-married men and women. The oft-touted discrepancies in income are due, she says, to the type of work that men and women choose or that more women prefer to have more home time to raise their children which limits seniority and thus income.
O’Beirne outlines the egregious offense mounted against boy’s sports caused by Title IX which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal funds. The goal for “equal outcomes” according to O’Beirne openly discriminates against men “since the number of women willing to suit up is less than the number of men who are.” The silly solution has been to reduce the slots available to male athletes to equalize those of women in college sports. O’Beirne says that one obvious loss due to gender equity was that in the 2004 Olympics in Athens fewer American men were given a shot at going for the gold!
O’Beirne provides a sad commentary on the present state of the U.S. military. In the name of phony equality, she says that women in the military have been placed in dangerous frontline positions where they don’t have an equal chance to survive because of smaller size and unequal strength. She says it has been definitely determined that only the top 5 percent of women can perform at the male medium in combat. O’Beirne gives a truthful rendition of pathetic stories of Pvt. Jessica Lynch who became a cause célèbre in the early days of the Iraq War. Neither the press nor the White House dared mention that not only was she unable to defend herself but that she had been raped by her captors! O’Beirne criticizes the Clinton and the Bush Administrations for perpetrating this charade that men and women can perform equally in combat. She also reports the large number of pregnancies that occur with a mixed crew on naval vessels.
The good news in all of this, according to O’Beirne, is that Mother Nature will not be denied. She cites numerous psychological studies that recognize that men and women are wired differently. These studies show “that men are, on average more aggressive, and enjoy superior math skills, and women are, on average, more nurturing, with better verbal skills.” O’Beirne states that “the field of evolutionary psychology offers cogent explanations for men’s and women’s different traits and temperaments.” It seems that Larry Summers, former President of Harvard University, was onto something. See where it got him? Out of a job!
In addition, says O’Beirne, is that the large majority of women don’t buy the malarkey and make the world better by their common sense and contributions to society. Kate O’Beirne is definitely one of them, if for nothing else, for writing this book. The book will give ammunition to these who want to refute the sham that has disrupted nature and family life and given a wrong prescription for human well-being and fulfillment over the past 40 years. The Catholic reader will also be edified to see that the Church’s teachings on procreation, the family and woman stated in Humanae Vitae (“On the Regulation of Birth”) (1968), Familiaris Consortio (“The Christian Family in the Modern World”) (1982) and Mulieris Dignitatem (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”) (1988) are consistent with nature and valuable guides for humans to live by.
Rev. Michael P. Orsi
Ave Maria School of Law
Ann Arbor, Mich.
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