Uhhh….Betsy,
Is there anything for which you DON’T blame the feminist sisterhood?

I mean, come on, divorce and women’s entry into the work force is caused by a complex set of forces. And divorces were already steadily rising BEFORE we got rid of no fault divorce. Bringing it back would only mean people would stay LEGALLY married in a very technical sense…it would do nothing to prevent spouses from abandoning their partners and just moving on, much like people did in Ireland until Fault based divorce was abolished.
And as for women needing to work…the weakening of the dollar has probably forced that more than anything other single factor (although, like I said, its complex).

I generally think your advice on parenting is excellant. But you really seem to fall into some cliched thinking on political and social issues.

When it comes to blaming the feminist sisterhood. . . I guess, . . . if the shoe fits? Okay, you are right in that the Sisterhood is not solely responsible for any major social change. But, that movement has played huge and demonstrable roles in very destructive social trends, ironically social trends that have most hurt women; i.e., the sexual revolution which itself weakened families so much that now close to 40 percent of all households are headed by single moms. (In the 1950s that rate was 5%.) That’s just one example.

BTW, I separate out the feminist sisterhood “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” types like Gloria Steinam and other anti-man types, from the “equity feminists” i.e., Christina Hoff Sommers and others, who did and do argue for equal rights for women without claiming victimhood status for women.

You make a point about marriage and abandonment, by the way. Spouses can be married but live apart, which also happenned before no-fault divorce. But when the “spoils” of divorce for either spouse – being able to leave, marry another, involve one’s children with the new spouse or significant other – were not as possible, living apart legally or otherwise was a last resort, NOT a first one. That’s the difference. (Plus, when abandoned but still married the wife was typcially at least better off financially than she would be if divorced.) The sisterhood is not solely responsible for rising divorce rates (and recently slightly lower divroce rates) but that movement did spearhead the no-fault divorce laws in the name of women, and those laws have profoundly hurt women. So. . . I stand by the column and my concerns about the Sisterhood – and thanks for writing

I don’t agree with everything the women’s movement has done, but I don’t think the rise of no-fault divorce or the sexual revolution can be laid entirely at their feet. For example, your despised Gloria Steinem even once pronounced the sexual revolution “anti-feminist.” And she was actually quite restrained compared to feminists like Andrea Dworkin, who was famous for her pronouncement that all intercourse was rape (though, ironically, she sort of teamed up with the fanatical Christian fundies to battle pornography).

Regarding divorce, though I can’t say easy divorce has been good for anyone – men, women, or children – there’s no real evidence it has hurt women more than men (the statement that women’s income drops 70% after a divorce while men’s rises 30% turned out to be a dud). In fact, most divorces today are sought by wives, and usually it’s not because the husband’s an abuser and/or alcoholic. So yes, I’d like to see divorces go down and confine themselves to instances where they’re really the best situation for everyone involved (say, there’s drug use or alcoholism, domestic violence or verbal marital conflict), but I don’t think blaming the women’s movement is very productive.