Any discussion of grand strategy, international politics or "the big picture" opens the way to a wider discussion of social issues. A reader prompted by Trivial Propositions and the Big Picture challenged me on the issue of feminism and the defense of the West. The reader asserted that feminism - rather than totalitarian socialism - is the most dangerous ideology of modern times. Is such an assertion remotely plausible?
My 1943 Webster's New International Dictionary (Second Edition) defines feminism as: "The theory, cult, or practice of those who advocate such legal and social changes as will establish political, economic, and social equality of the sexes; [especially] propaganda or activity favoring the emancipation of women."
In this definition we find two important concepts: (1) equality and (2) emancipation. Please note: one may be emancipated without being equal; one may be equal without being emancipated. The question of equality is further complicated by prevailing disagreements over biologically based sexual differences. (For a full discussion of this subject, see Taking Sex Differences Seriously by Steven E. Rhoads). Some feminists blame the inferior status of woman, past and present, on societal brainwashing. Since time immemorial society has identified women with nurturing and childrearing, while the men took care of politics and war (i.e., the sphere of power). Therefore, men have always had the power and women the short end of the stick (or so the argument goes). The only exception to this is the story of the Amazons as told by the Greek historian Herodotus. The Amazons were group of women marauders who earned themselves the name "man-killers." (They eventually married Scythian men, but never gave up hunting and using weapons.) Throughout history the men have fought wars, governed and voted. Mass female participation in politics is a recent development. The mass mobilization of women for war has yet to be attempted, though women have been trained as soldiers by several modern countries with mixed results.
As traditionalist stereotyping breaks down in the face of newly empowered feminist ideas, conservative thinkers (like Patrick J. Buchanan) decry the disintegration of the family and the West's falling birth rate. In his book, The Death of the West, Buchanan blames feminism as a creed that opposes traditional marriage, large families and motherhood. "If the preservation of ... Western civilization ... were up to the feminists, Western Man would have no future," wrote Buchanan. "In short, the rise of feminism spells the death of the nation and the end of the West." According to Buchanan, feminism has a destructive potential akin to nuclear and biological weapons. Buchanan quotes Katerina Runske's statement that feminism is "a Darwinian blind alley." Some conservatives blame feminism for triggering an irreversible decline in the Western birth rate. If present trends continue, societies that oppose feminism will supplant societies that adopt feminism. Consequently, feminism is a doomed ideology because feminism leads to the elimination of the society that emancipates women from motherhood and childrearing.
A feminist might answer in two ways: (1) most women will choose a traditional role. Let those who wish to follow a different path have their freedom; (2) make feminism triumphant in all societies. Lead it to victory in Mexico, India and the Arab world. Make the birth rate fall in every country, so that the anti-feminist nations won't overtake the West. With the obvious and rapid decline of motherhood in the West, the first point evades the issue of falling birth rates. As for the second, there are two problems with feminist imperialism: (1) How many armies, and how many battles, and how much blood would flow to impose feminist values on Arab, Hindu and Latin patriarchies; (2) at the end of the day, with the global imposition of feminism, the birth rate of every tribe would fall and the human race itself would dwindle. The freedom of the woman from motherhood is the freedom to deny procreation. How can society, let alone civilization, survive this type of freedom when the birth rate falls below that of replacement (as it already has in some Western countries).
Even if we admit that woman would be happier without children, the biological circumstances of the species as well as national competition demand motherhood (just as it demands mass military conscription at times of grave national danger). Therefore, the humanistic correctness of feminism has a self-negating aspect. What significance would feminism have if the feminist creed leads to national or ethnic extinction? If this is hyperbole, then look to the more obvious multiplication of one nation while another remains numerically stagnant. The facts are these: wherever feminism takes hold the birth rate falls. Ergo, the future belongs to those nations that oppose feminist innovations.
It is odd that feminism should view the given biological function of women as a form of oppression. It would be as if men decided that marriage and fatherhood were a form of slavery. Well, it seems that our narcissistic age has produced such men in large numbers. (See NonMarriage.com and DontMarry.com). If recent reports can be trusted, young men are turning away from marriage and fatherhood. If either sex "goes on strike" against procreation the result is the same. Justifying emancipation from motherhood or fatherhood on individualist grounds doesn't change the fact that the mass adoption of such attitudes amounts to societal suicide. It may be true that the generation that dispenses with children will die "with more toys" and have more fun. But does one generation have the right to break the chain of being formed by hundreds of generations?
In the current crisis, grand strategy must soon take notice of feminism. In terms of childbearing, the Muslim world is overtaking the European (formerly "Christian") world. This is not an academic problem. Those born of European heritage today will live in a world in which Europeans face non-Europeans armed with weapons of mass destruction who are angry about the colonial past. They will live in countries starved for labor and bound to important millions upon millions of non-white workers who will, in time, bring their folkways and ideologies to compete with the dying folkways of the European. This process inevitably leads to a new strategic situation, to a grand ethnic conflict transformed into a class conflict, and a religious conflict - a nightmarish collage of Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and the Crusades. Can capitalism and democracy continue to function when Europeans become a minority population in their native lands?
I don't know the answer to these questions, but the situation is worrisome. Toleration between racial, religious and ethnic groups does exist in certain times and places. It also has a tendency to break down, with tragic consequences. A recent film on the subject of racism, titled Crash, puts forward the idea that racism is deep and ever-present in all racial groups. While the plot of the movie is contrived, its basic theme rings true. One only has to look at the conflict in Yugoslavia. Here we find people of the same race and language, divided only by the religious identification of their grandparents (since the present generation is largely secularized), massacring one another by the thousands.
Feminism touches on all these questions because the family, the tribe and the nation are root and branch of the same tree (whether we recognize it or not). And the concept of "mother" (as well as father) remains fundamental to all. The very concept of patriotism is dependent on the realities of patriarchy. It is difficult to imagine the one without the other, and it is impossible to have either without mom.
