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Oct 21, 2003 Worse for America and Europe than any flu epidemic, the spread of Women's Liberation has led to enormous numbers of middle age women who are childless and/ or unmarried. All throughout history, in all cultures, men have preferred to marry women who are younger, weaker, less educated, and earning less money than the men themselves. Of course, there are exceptions, but the tendency is very strong. With more than half of all bachelor's and master's degrees, and half of law degrees now being granted to females in the U.S., divorced or never-married women are headed toward being the majority (if they aren't already). "Affirmative action" for women and intense emphasis on women's sports are bound to make this situation even worse. More and more children will be brought up by mothers struggling to earn a living, overworked by childcare added to their jobs, and deeply depressed. All of these trends are galloping along at frightening speed, as anyone can see from events in the news. The whole revolution, along with the hippy philosophy, was started at Columbia University. The main thrust behind it was supplied by Prof. Margaret Mead, one of history's most successful liars. She briefly visited natives in the South Sea Islands and then wrote several books that are now famous, including "Coming of Age in Samoa" (1928) and "Sex and Temperament In Three Primitive Societies" (1935). The conclusion from this supposedly scientific research was that noble savages, uncontaminated by Western civilization, had the key to long-term happiness. Industrialization, capitalism, and Judeo-Christian beliefs were bad. On the other hand, getting closer to nature, sharing, and increasing sexual freedom were good. This philosophy has now been widely promulgated, through social studies courses in high schools, and in many different types of college courses. It provided the key ideas behind the New Left and hippie philosophies. The "Sex and Temperament" book purported to prove that women were the dominant sex in the primitive Arapesh culture, and this arrangement worked out just fine for everyone involved. Therefore, although males are dominant in almost all animal species, that is not necessarily the "natural state" for humans, she claimed. Mead became a heroine among liberal thinkers, who were quite happy to believe that all people are basically equal, and many honors were bestowed upon the young professor. She became President of the American Sociological Society, and few other scholars had the nerve to disagree with her, until after her death. Modern scholarship, starting with Prof. Derek Freeman in Australia, has clearly shown that Mead simply lied. She actually did not learn the language of the islanders as she had claimed, she did not get accurate testimony from young Samoan women, and females are not dominant in the Arapesh culture. (For example, read about the Arapesh in "The Encyclopedia Britannica," either paper or web editions, and you will see no mention of dominant female behavior there, except for beliefs in the occasional powers of witches.) Many recent books have been written about this, such as "Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth," by Derek Freeman, Harvard Univ. Press (1983). Also see Hiram Caton (Editor), "The Samoa Reader," University Press of America (1990). Several articles in the U.S. news media have documented a startling increase of depression among working women, especially if they have children but are not married, or if they never had any children. Examples that can be quickly found in any public library include "Single Women: Coping With A Void," by Jane Gross, page 1 of the April 29, 1987 New York Times, and "Fed Up: Executive Women Confront A New Kind of Midlife Crisis," by Betsy Morris, in Fortune, Sept. 18, 1995. Evidently, although a very few women can "have it all," most definitely can not. It's ambition or family, but usually not both. Another pertinent but very sad report is the book "Working Women Don't Have Wives," by Terri Apter, St. Martins Press, 1994. The whole trend is scarier than Halloween. ------------ Visit http://homepage.mac.com/shanefield/Resume1.html or email Daniel J. Shanefield: shanefield@ieee.org Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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