“Those who feel called out to join the movement in favor of woman’s rights and the so-called dress reform might as well sever all connection with the third angel’s message”.  This statement taken from Testimonies for the Church, volume 1, page 421 may be criticized by some as being extreme and shortsighted.  To say that one must sever all connection with the people of God if joined to the movement for women’s rights seems to ignore the important accomplishments of that movement.  Because of feminism women now have the right to vote, to own property, to obtain an education to be able to support themselves.  Isn’t that worth something?

However we may view the statement from another vantage point.  Just as we reject wine though it contains water and grapes which have beneficial properties, so may we reject feminism though it contains elements that have benefited our culture.  The intoxicating elements of both merit the warnings of inspiration.  As we may fully enjoy water and grapes without any damage to the mind, so may we appreciate the reforms that have benefited women, yet fully recognize that the elements saturating the movement on a whole are dark.  With the penetrating vision of prophetic insight the Lord has warned us away from this movement because of purposes that were yet unseen, unrecognized, undeveloped. The warnings are even more valid for our times than when first given.

Often while writing I am myself overcome at the depths of feminism’s effect on us a people. Dazed and silenced – sometimes staring mutely into the walls I realize that this was me. There is a darkness that is incomprehensible in this movement.  It transcends culture and goes beyond gender.

This will be a difficult read.

So subtlety have the webs been woven that humanity has been taken unawares. Those liberating promises were supported by reason and seemed to offer hope to women.  Yet as they have developed over the past several decades this vision has faded.  It is becoming more obvious that this was merely a deception meant to take us down to the deepest pits of hades.  I have been there in that place of dismal darkness propagated as freedom.  But by the grace of God we can help each other to awaken.

We begin by awakening.

“The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Freidan in 1963 is largely attributed with promoting what is termed the second wave of the feminist movement, the focus of which encouraged women to leave home for personal fulfillment.  A best seller from the outset – it startled the publishers by selling 3 million copies in the first 6 months.

 From Wikipedia’s article on ‘Second Wave Feminism’ we read, “In 1963 Betty Freidan, influenced by The Second Sex, wrote the bestselling book The Feminine Mystique in which she explicitly objected to the mainstream media image of women, stating that placing women at home limited their possibilities, and wasted talent and potential. The perfect nuclear family depicted and strongly marketed at the time, she wrote, did not reflect happiness and was rather degrading for women. This book is widely credited with having begun second-wave feminism.“ (1)

 Several modern books attribute the encouragement and enticement of women to leave their children to enter the workforce as one of the most significant contributors to the state of affairs we are presently experiencing.  (2)   The removal of the mother from the home left vacant a vitally important bulwark against immorality.  ‘Latch-key’ children were created who had very sparse parental nurturing.  Instead, many were left at home alone to be nurtured by various forms of digital media which have become more debased with each successive version.  A morally amorphous generation has been created, “without natural affection” (3) (4).  We are all stunned by the seeming ease with which some children can take machine guns and calmly murder complete strangers with terrible accuracy.  Gay and lesbianism has saturated our culture, and ‘coming out’ has become quite vogue.  The debauchery that exists today must surely rival that of Sodom.  Empty, immoral and without chart or compass this generation is ripe for the satanic mysticism of spiritual formation and the Emergent church.

 But you may ask, “Can we place all this at the feet of women?”  Certainly not.  I would never want to covey the thought that all the blame falls on women.  The causes of our demise as a culture are complex and multifaceted, and both men and women have profound failures to acknowledge.  We also must realize that our world is spiraling toward the end of time, so there are also circumstances that are far beyond our control such as famine, war and economic crises.  The cultural quagmire we experience has been orchestrated in reality, not by feminists, but by the prince of darkness.

 Yet we must also begin to recognize that a march has been stealing upon us for well over a century.  Many of us have been totally unaware of its malign intent.   I know that I did not understand the far reaching and baleful implications of feminism until just recently.   My hope with these blogs is to cause us all to begin think about how we have all been personally affected by the forces that have created so much suffering in our world.  As women I hope that we will especially take time to rethink our place in the world and seek the Lord for mercy..for grace..for hope – if we have been led down paths which end we know not where.

He has given me hope and peace, great peace.  It is possible to find the way back home.

References

1)      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism

2)      Here’s a list of some of the fascinating books which discuss in part the impact of mothers leaving home to work:

1. Home-Alone America –The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and other Parent Substitutes by Mary Eberstadt;
2. What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us-Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden;
3. Seven Myths of Working Mothers-Why Children and (Most) Careers Just Don’t Mix by Suzanne Venker;
4. Feminist Fantasies by Phyllis Schlafly

3)      See 2 Timothy 3:1-3 and Romans 1:22-32.

4)      This is an expert of an article which discusses how long a young child may be left alone at home.  But are they really asking the right question?

Child Home Alone Laws in California  by Caitlin Donnelly, Demand Media

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-home-alone-laws-california-3166.html

“One third of United States’ school-aged children are home alone for some part of the week, according to U.S. census data cited by the NYU Child Study Center. The number of “latch-key kids” continues to rise as the strain of the economy forces parents to work long hours and the cost of childcare skyrockets. With no state law guiding them, this predicament leaves many California parents questioning what the appropriate age is to leave their kids home alone.”