A Domestic Activist Makes Her Case
The following is a condensed version of "A Domestic Activist Makes Her Case" by Gillian Richards, published at Law & Liberty.
We can reclaim civilization, says Peachy Keenan (a pseudonym), but only if more women become just a little more “domestic.” For Keenan, that means getting married and having kids—perhaps earlier than is expected. More women should stay home to raise their children if they can. That once-normal pattern of life is now considered extreme. Hence, the title of Keenan’s new book: Domestic Extremist.
Keenan sees this advice—for those who can heed it—as an antidote to the ailments of modern culture. These problems include the declining rates of fertility and family formation, hookup culture, pornography, and gender ideology.
Who’s responsible? “It’s women who got us into this mess,” Keenan asserts, “so it’s our job to get everyone out of it.” For Keenan, “feminism” is culprit number one. Feminism has erased the purpose of being female. The solution, Keenan insists, is to reject feminism, which for her means embracing “domesticity.”
In one sense, to be “domestic” is simply to embrace the timeless ways of being female: “as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter.” At the same time, Keenan thinks that fewer women should be in the work force—especially those with young children.
Alas, the “pantsuited girlboss petty tyrants” who’ve been bred in feminist ideology have sabotaged nearly every aspect of domestic life. They have convinced women that family and children can wait until they’ve reached financial stability (which all too often occurs after their fertility has begun to wane).
Keenan clearly sees the tragedy of women who realize that their lives could have been more meaningful had they made family a higher priority. Yet, as a sustained argument, I wished she had identified her target more precisely. Her causal explanation of feminism as the source of today’s ills, as well as her perceived opponents (“girl bosses”), seems a bit too simple.
Twin Technology Shocks
Take, for instance, the “twin technology shocks” of oral contraception and legalized abortion, which emerged during the Sexual Revolution. Mary Harrington argues that these technologies marked the end of the feminist movement, properly speaking.
A hyper-individualist strand prevailed with the advent of abortion and the pill. Feminists like Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millet promoted these technologies, which they saw as key steps in women’s full liberation, including liberation from the natural fact of pregnancy.
These feminists eschewed a competing view within feminism: that personhood is rooted in nature and obligation. For Harrington, what we’re really up against is “bio-libertarianism.”
Expressive Individualism
We might have different names for the threat we now face. Author Carl Trueman argues that the developments of the sexual revolution stemmed from an earlier philosophy of expressive individualism. This philosophy—germinated in the soil of Rousseau, Marx, and Freud—has now planted roots across our culture. All these thinkers believed human identity is formed by convention rather than rooted in nature. De Beauvoir put a feminist spin on this thinking when she said, “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman.”
No doubt, feminists such as de Beauvoir contributed to expressive individualist thinking. Yet, the basic notion of freedom as separation from the body goes far deeper than modern iterations of feminism. Whatever we call it, it’s clear we’re up against intellectual undercurrents that have shifted our views of human nature.
Economic Shifts
Keenan’s account could also have been richer if she’d made room for the economic shifts that contributed to the conflict women face between work and home. In the pre-industrial era, the home was the main locus of economic activity. There wasn’t such a strict distinction between “men’s work and women’s work” as there was in, say, mid-20th century industrial America.
The homemaker-breadwinner model, which emerged in post-war America, was not necessarily “traditional” or viable for everyone. Many women had to adapt to a changing economy by hedging their bets. They had fewer children and tried to keep a foothold in the workforce when their kids were young.
Keenan can’t capture this complexity in tracing all modern shifts back to “feminism.” She’s right to point out that women have a unique bond with their children. But to reclaim this bond, we must offer workable solutions, not merely reject a caricatured feminism.
Sex-based differences reveal specific vocations men and women have in parenthood. But these differences needn’t dictate rigid and predetermined “roles” for men and women in every society.
Rather, the two sexes must work together—in marriage, as husband and wife—and in childrearing, as mothers and fathers. In reclaiming the vocation of wife and mother, Keenan’s latest account is powerful and stirring. But successful domestic extremists must recognize the home as the source of responsibility for both women and men.
Gillian Richards is a research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies.
