living islam _ Islamic tradition

"A feminist is an evolutionary anachronism, a Darwinian blind alley".

The original meaning of "feminism" was "a belief in theory and practice of equal rights for women" and a "feminist" was an advocate for equal rights for women in spheres conventionally reserved for men. The suffragettes in Britain who agitated for the right to vote were the prototypal feminists. However, since the 'sixties, "feminism" has come to mean a specific set of methods for achieving equality between the sexes. The most significant belief underlying contemporary feminism is that there are no sex differences; therefore advocacy for equal rights must be extended to advocacy for equal results or outcomes.

It should be noted at the outset that since feminism is based on a fallacy, i.e., that there are no sex differences, feminism is inextricably linked with socialism. In order to achieve the unisex utopia which they believe is their right, feminists demand increasing levels of government intervention and control over the day to day workings of the marketplace, the education system and even the interactions between private individuals.

Since feminists don't recognise any differences between males and females, any difference in the results, outcomes or achievements of males and females, and any statistical disparity in the numbers of men and women in various occupations or levels of promotion is interpreted not as a possible reflection of sex differences or the differing choices made by men and women but as a consequence of discrimination or societal conditioning. Here contemporary feminists strike their first dilemma or Fraud No 1: If there are no differences between the sexes, why have societies in all cultures and throughout history "conditioned" boys and girls differently?

"What is more, a female [apes, dicovered results] may initiate intercourse with a variety of males. This makes it possible to venture a hypothesis about what sex might have been like for the early woman in a pre-patriarchal epoch." New Internationalist

[This line of argument] does not explain where "patriarchy" came from, if there are no differences between the sexes. However it is an example of feminist hostility to marriage and the traditional family.

One of the consequences of feminist antipathy to marriage has been the advent of the permissive society: alternative lifestyles and no-fault divorce laws. ... Feminists don't lobby for policies that will enhance the stability of marriage or even the status of wives (such as income-splitting between spouses) but lobby only for increased career opportunities for women.

The abortion issue illustrates feminist Fraud No. 2. All the scientific evidence, especially since in vitro fertilisation techniques were developed, indicate that a new human life begins at fertilisation and not at birth. Yet feminists want to be able to dispose of this new life with no more regulation than covers the cutting of toenails. ...

Feminist Fraud No. 3 relates to the issue of "choice". Feminists are big on choice -- for themselves -- but not for others. ...

They demand complete freedom of choice to dispose of a baby in utero but deny employers the right to choose their employees.

... and here we come to feminist Fraud No. 4: the dishonesty of the claim that affirmative action programs which involve targets, goals and timetables are consistent with the merit principle.

Since most feminist policies are based on intellectual fraud -- the most significant being the non-admission of sex differences -- the policies cannot succeed. When feminists fail to achieve their ends, they do not admit error but escalate their demands. As abortion-on-demand, permissive divorce laws, taxpayer-funded child care centres, non-sexist education, sex-discrimination legislation, and affirmative action programs have failed to produce the egalitarian unisex utopia of their fantasies, feminists simply tighten the screws. Their latest escalation is for what is known as "Comparable Worth" in wage fixing.

Comparable Worth is based on feminist Fraud No. 5 the claim that women in Australia only earn 67 cents compared to every dollar earned by men because women are "locked" into a narrow range of "stereotyped" jobs which are then systematically undervalued because they are done by women.

Feminist Fraud No. 6, undoubtedly the biggest fraud of all, is to argue at one and the same time that there are no sex differences, but that the presence of more women in positions of power and decision-making will produce a more caring society. If women are no more caring or nurturing than men, how can a society ruled by women be any different from society at present?
And if women are more caring and nurturant than men, doesn't this explain why women choose the caring vocations of mothering, homemaking, teaching and nursing, of working with people rather than machinery or abstract ideas, the so-called "stereotyped roles" which feminists so much detest?While excoriating Christian fundamentalists for their rejection of Darwinian evolution, feminists do not follow through to the logical conclusion: if the theory of evolution is valid, then natural selection must work in favour of strong, powerful men and nurturant, motherly women. A feminist is an evolutionary anachronism, a Darwinian blind alley.

In biological terms, there is nothing that identifies a maladaptive pattern so quickly as a below-replacement level of reproduction; an immediate consequence of feminism is what appears to be an irreversible decline in the birth rate. Nations pursue feminist policies at their peril.

To do US feminists justice, many of them have publicly repudiated the ideas they once held: Betty Friedan now talks of the importance of the family, Judy Goldsmith (former president of NOW) deplores the feminisation of poverty due to easy divorce laws, and Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, laments the effects of sexual liberation and the feminist adoption of the lesbian cause: "We tried to make people proud of who they were" says Brownmiller, "...but then the sadomasochists came out of the closet and became proud of themselves"11.

Because contemporary feminism is based on false premises, it is extremely wasteful of scarce resources. However, the most destructive aspect of feminism is that it promotes hostility between the sexes and an anti-baby, anti-child mentality among women. This is something that no community can afford -- it is inimical to the survival of a society.