Somewhere along the way, feminism lost its way, and power became the “be all and end all.” The movement forgot that “having it all” included the personal dimension. Life is not just profession and career. Success is not measured just in paycheck, power, and status. Feminism has lost sight of what it is that women really want. Most women want to love and be loved. Certainly they want the freedom to be all they can be, and they want to be treated with dignity and respect. Obviously, they also want to contribute and to accomplish. They want the opportunity to have meaningful careers and productive lives — but most aren’t willing for their ambition to harm their relationships or damage their children.

 
A recent study found that the number of working women who believe that a career is as important as being a wife and mother has fallen 23 percent since the 1970s. Apparently, women are growing more and more uncomfortable with hardcore feminism and believe that it is out of alignment with the views, values, and aspirations of ordinary women.

Let’s ride the feminist wave backward a bit and revisit a few feminist icons. How much do you know about their private lives? As they say, “The proof is in the pudding.”

Betty Friedan – Friedan, the mother of the feminist movement, gave us The Feminine Mystique — she called it the “problem that has no name.” That problem — according to Friedan — is that women are victims. Being female means having delusions and false values and being forced to find fulfillment and identity through husbands and children. Friedan worked nine hours a day — declaring that being a wife and mother was “not going to interfere with what I regarded as my real life.” Even her friends describe Friedan as difficult, ill-tempered, disagreeable, ego-driven, rude, nasty, self-serving, and imperious. Unhappily married for 21 years, her three children had to undergo therapy to deal with what was called “the emotional fallout.” She died in 2006.

Gloria Steinem – Steinem was the beauty queen of the feminist movement. Steinem, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate, was engaged to her college boyfriend. After breaking up with him and discovering that she was pregnant, she had an abortion. She remained childless. Later, Steinem founded Ms. Magazine and coined two phrases — “reproductive freedom” and “pro-choice” — bringing a brilliant sense of marketing to a movement that glossed over the realities of promiscuity and abortion and propelled so-called “sexual freedom” into the mainstream. Steinem famously declared that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. She remained single until her ’60s — when she married a divorced man with grown children, David Bale (father of Christian Bale) who died of lymphoma just three years into their marriage.

Germaine Greer – Known as the diva of feminism, Germaine Greer wrote two books: The Female Eunuch, which kick-started her fame, and The Whole Woman, which basically repudiates everything Greer said previously. Known for her bawdy diatribes, Greer preached that sexual liberation is the path to fulfillment. Greer has had “several” abortions, leaving her unable to have children. Greer was married once for three weeks. She bragged that she cheated seven times during that marriage. More recently, and evidently desperate for attention, she stooped to becoming an apologist for female genital mutilation. At age 60, she mused: “The finest time in your life was when you fell asleep in someone’s arms and woke up in the same position eight hours later. Sleeping in someone’s arms is the prize.” But the fruit of her personal philosophy and lifestyle is that in her old age, she sleeps alone.

In stark contrast, consider two female leaders from the “Religious Right” who chose a different path from those of Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, and Germaine Greer. Their circumstances were not all that different, nor were their inner drives any less compelling. Today’s young women need to hear from those who have shown that you can just about have it all, provided you have a true understanding of “all.”

Beverly LaHaye – The founder of the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization has been honored with literally dozens of accolades (several Woman of the Year awards, Religious Freedom Award, Thomas Jefferson Award, an award from the U.S. House of Representatives for her service to the country, and the list goes on and on). She is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including several bestsellers. She hosted an award-winning radio talk show and was interviewed on all the major television and radio outlets. All that work, though, is secondary to her work with her husband in conducting family life seminars around the world and to her own family of four adult children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Mrs. LaHaye has both professional accomplishments and a rich, fulfilling family life.

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