The Radicalization of the American Woman
We've come a long way since Mary Tyler Moore
I admit to being a default pessimist, especially in matters of American culture, and there is hardly a thing that disappoints me more than the feminist “women’s liberation” lies told and subsequently believed by women since the 1960s; it has done much to destroy American families, the culture, and values. Wives, mothers, and daughters are the backbone of the family and we are capable of so much more than the hapless victim or the scorned oppressed those grifters in the Movement would have us believe. But I have the incredible good fortune of working with some incredible young ladies where I work — ladies who are much younger than I and are starting out on promising journeys including careers, marriage, and families. It gives me great hope to see them rejecting the grievances cast upon them by those in older generations and go forth with courage, boldness, and joy.
Nearly 52 years ago, on September 19, 1970, The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered on CBS. The show featured Mary Richards, a 30-something single, independent, career woman living in Minneapolis. It was — and still is — seen as groundbreaking television, set in the era of second-wave feminism. But Fate seems to have subtle ways of forcing a second look when coincidence seems to be an inadequate explanation.
American feminism has changed immeasurably from the day Mary Richards tossed her hat on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis to fifty years later when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020. The seething hyper-political environment in defense of abortion and the myth of women’s inequality permeates media outlets, entertainment, and politics. The broad arc from Roe, Title IX, attempts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, and to the feminist sex wars and #MeToo, has settled on strange ground where the very definition of a woman has been taken out of simple intuitive knowledge and placed in the realm of the impalpable phantasma of theoretical complexity.
Being a woman is not defined by biology but by ideology.
We now have a clear-eyed view of just how radicalized the feminist movement has become in response to Justice Ginsburg’s death nearly two years ago and through the interim leading to the dissolution of Roe v. Wade.
When political movements become a quasi-religion, the most ardent supporters are consumed with its tenets. So it is with modern-day feminism. What once started as the pursuit of voting and civil rights devolved into a zero-sum game of abortion and rage at the patriarchy. No matter how many times another layer of the glass ceiling is broken, the only women who gain credit are those who hold views in line with the perpetually leftward pitch of the loudest voices. It should come as no surprise that a movement now based on sexual grievances and myths of cultural oppression has been commandeered by two factions: the transactivists and abortion-on-demand extremists. And now the radicalization of the American woman threatens the very equality we have achieved and the happiness and fulfillment we pursue.
As a former Division I college athlete (I swam distance freestyle at the University of Minnesota), I was appalled and profoundly disappointed when the NCAA and USA Swimming allowed a transwoman — Lia Thomas — to compete in the NCAA championships in March. I wrote about it for National Review here and here. Everywhere was celebratory preening from the media as they fell over each other to taut this new era of inclusiveness and they reserved their harshest criticism for anyone who dared question Thomas’ legitimacy, and it was rolled up in LGBTQ activism.
Any questioning of so-called trans-rights was an attack on the whole activist community. This NBC story, couched in the context of “LGTBQ trailblazers” is a perfect illustration. Two ESPN broadcasters even expressed their solidarity against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill (misleadingly called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill) by staging a moment of silence on air at the Women’s NCAA basketball tournament. Women and everything Title IX represents, were collateral damage. Dr. Rachel Levine — formerly Richard — was praised as the first female four-star Admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and just last month, transgender skateboarder Ricci Tres won the Boardr Open street skateboarding competition – this on the heels of other wins by transgender women in the sport as well as competitive surfing. Who knew it would take a man to prove the old feminist adage that women make less money than men for doing the same job?
The feminists whose unrelenting screams at the oppressive patriarchy were suddenly and tellingly silent. And as the feminist mystique turned into feminist hysterics around the Dobbs decision with unhinged and exaggerated claims that women’s rights were being taken away, the Biden administration was doing real, actual damage to women’s equality. In their June 1 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Jennifer C. Braceras and Inez Feltscher Stepman wrote
In perhaps the most sweeping change to federal law ever enacted by unelected bureaucrats, the [Biden] administration’s draft rules redefine “sex” to include “gender” and “gender identity.” This would require every educational institution that receives federal money to allow biological men into women’s locker rooms, sororities and other previously female-only spaces. Any school that attempts to prevent the next Lia Thomas from competing on a women’s team will have its federal funding snapped back—under the same law that once required schools to increase athletic opportunities for women and girls.
But unhinged radicals are too busy cosplaying The Handmaid’s Tale in front of Supreme Court Justices’ homes to realize the real threats are coming from their own side.
The landmark case Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, became the house of cards that would serve as the base for the radical feminist movement for decades to come. Not only was it the established doctrine for feminist leaders such as Gloria Steinem and bell hooks, but it was also the new litmus test for leftist politicians and a new type of commercial branding that indicated a Modern Woman. For this, Justice Ginsburg was the perfect golden calf. She was a mascot of the #Resistance. Her unfailing support of the leftist cause, proven by staying seated on the Court through a Republican presidential term even to the detriment of her own personal health, lifted the Notorious RBG to near Joan of Arc martyrdom.
For a time, her death-defying rebounds after bouts of serious illness made her a legend. But in doing so she allowed herself to be objectified by the feminist left. She was more an iconoclast from the She-Ra Man-Haters Club than the custodian of justice and protector of individual rights granted in the Constitution. To cling to some leader of a movement predicated on a house of cards so unstable, it seemed her frail hands were the only thing keeping it upright.
The abortion rights “discovered” in the Constitution became the unconditional issue of the feminist left and is the driving force behind the emotional hysteria tied to Dobbs. When Robert Bork was interrogated in front of the Senate in 1987, it was the first indication of the depths of savage political warfare the Democrats and leftists were willing to engage in to defend the decision. In every conservative nomination since, it has been the leading issue for nominees.
It was defended so ferociously because it was the only tether keeping leftist feminists afloat. For them, motherhood is tantamount to enslavement. It is an obstacle to the path of fulfillment through a woman’s vocation. Feminist leaders promised abortion would free women from the chains of oppression. With sexual freedom would come intellectual freedom, political power, unprecedented independence, and happiness. Instead, we have corporations vowing to fund women’s abortion travels, guaranteeing a pregnancy won’t inconveniently interfere with the piles of paperwork and reports that are supposed to offer meaning and fulfillment in a way having a child and family never could…wait, what???
As a mom to a ten-month-old, I can tell you there is no comparison between the feeling of checking off a work To-Do list and the tender hug from my son.
But after decades of following the same radical feminist narrative – even if a woman chooses to have a family of her own – she must prove her devotion to the sisterhood by supporting abortion “rights.” But decades after women’s liberation, women aren’t happier. And studies have shown that even as women gain political, economic, and social freedoms, they are less happy than their 1970s counterparts.
The optimism and hopeful naiveté of Mary Richards has given way to a humorless coven of gray-haired professors and political activists. They are somewhere between the bitterness of Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham and Bette Davis’ demented Baby Jane, tortuously imprisoned by her nostalgia in the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Even in a television show lauded for its innovation and feminist-centric central character, the show was never overtly political. In fact, Mary was comfortable showing demure femininity. The newsroom of WJN was a reflection of a more typical office space in which comradery and compassion mixed well with humor and sarcasm. The audience connected with the situations presented and had the freedom to laugh with the characters as they navigated life.
If it were made today, I doubt if The Mary Tyler Moore Show would make it. The chronically unfunny Michelle Wolf and Samantha Bee are held up like some Late-Night Dashboard Feminist Messiahs, whose only talent seems to be mocking conservatives and using their platforms to celebrate abortion. Michelle Wolf, who headlined the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner went so far as hold an abortion “Independence Day.” So much for safe, legal, and rare. When the media refuses to give coverage to the revelations of abortionist Kermit Gosnell — one of the most gruesome cases of inhumanity and depravity in modern history it is enough to inform the conscience that there must be something to hide. The endless euphemisms for the act of abortion, the attacks on churches and pro-life centers across the country, and the attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh, all illustrate how far to the radical extreme the left has moved. All while Americans mostly fall near the center of the pro-life debate and support bans on abortion, with an exception, after 15 weeks.
As the nation lays to rest a Supreme Court Justice and feminist hero, it’s worth reflecting on how much the power of the Court and the ramifications of Roe v. Wade influenced the radicalization of feminism. When Mary confesses in an episode, “I get concerned about being a career woman. I get to thinking that my job is too important to me. And I tell myself that the people I work with are just the people I work with.”
No leftist feminist icon today could dare think those words, let alone say them out loud. So give my regards to Mary Richards as the mob turns their pitchforks on any strays who don’t tow the company line. Tell her Ruth sent them.