Feminist Fantasies

This book is a very important publication. Finally women are standing up, speaking strongly out against unreasonable demands from feminists, who are nothing but a small, however verbally strong group looking for advantages solely out of the fact, that they are women. Such feminism has nothing to do with gender equality, it is only a man-hating philosophy of life. This book, written by a woman is really a great book, I recommend it to everybody.

I disagree with the Publisher Weekly critical review wherein the author is criticized by asserting that certain presumptions attach to her writing, i.e., that the subject is "white, middle-class, and educated." Again, it's the old liberal argument from subjectivity: if someone writes from a single perspective (which everyone does), it automatically invalidates the thinking for all other perspectives. False. Or, the other liberal falacy: if one disagrees with the lefty position on a given issue, that person is ipso facto white, middle-class, and educated -- as though these were themselves intellectually neutralizing characteristics. False. In point of fact, however, the author, Schlafly, was not middle-class or educated when she started out. She worked her way through college and became the first female student admitted to Harvard Law School. She was described uniformly by her professors as 'brilliant.' She is a real intellect insofar as she allows her disputation, her arguments, to stand for themselves, unlike the tireless feminist self-marketers like Sontag (who is this self-appointed "intellect" anyway? -- she has said not a thing that makes any sense in four decades and her prose is insipid and pretentious) and Gloria Steinem (who admits she slept with a powerful publisher merely to get a loan for her magazine -- a highly hypocritical prospect, given the feminist philosophy). These feminists market themselves. They want, one senses, more to make money than to find out intellectually defensible philosophies. Schlafly leaves them in the dust, intellectually. She's the real thing. The lefty media will have to resort to their primary debate tactics with regard to this book: name calling. It's logically unassailable.

If there is one name in America that strikes terror in the hearts of most feminists, it is Phyllis Schlafly. For over four decades she has championed the cause of faith and family, and has resisted the radical social engineering of radical feminists, the homosexual lobby and other coercive utopians.She is perhaps most famous for almost single-handedly knocking down the feminist Equal Rights Amendment. Her 1964 book on what women really want, A Choice Not an Echo, sold 3 million copies. This volume is a collection of her columns, articles and essays written over the years. Arranged topically, they cover a number of important issues, including affirmative action, women in the military, the importance of marriage and family, women in the workplace, and so on. The offer some of the most insightful and challenging remarks found on these vital issues. Each pithy essay (there are around one hundred) is a minor classic.Take for example her 1987 piece, "Why Affirmative Action is Wrong for Women". The first two (of seven) reasons are worth citing: First, "the woman receiving the benefit is not a woman who was ever discriminated against. The benefits are not targeted for the victims. Nobody should be entitled to receive a remedy for any injury suffered by someone else."Second, "it is based on a theory of group rights as opposed to the American tradition of individual rights. Women are not a monolithic, cohesive group in which a grievance suffered by one woman should translate into a right or a remedy granted to another woman."Or consider the so-called glass ceiling. Says Schlafly, "Just because there is a small percentage of women in senior management does not prove discrimination. It proves instead that the majority of women have made other choices - usually family choices - rather than devoting themselves to the corporate world for sixty to eighty hours a week."The short essays contained in this book will not take long to read. But they will provide much food for thouht, rattle a few cages, and cause much mirth (depending on where you stand on the issues). With the overwhelming proliferation of the feminist worldview in the media and elsewhere, it is reassuring to know that countering voices still exist. And this is one of the best.

Author, Phyllis Schlafly, tells a compelling story about the feminist movement and details how their empty promises have misguided and disappointed thousands upon thousands of women. It is a "must read" for all high school and college women as they plan and make choices for their future.

I'm not surprised that the Publisher's Weekly review cited above is a slam....Phyllis Schlafly has been slammed in the media her entire career. Yep...Phyllis Schlafly pretty much single-handedly stopped the Equal Rights Amendment. But before you label her a right-wing zealot, did you know that the ERA would have made young women (even young mothers) susceptible to the military draft?The fact of the matter is that this is a very sensible book, written by a very sensible and intelligent lady. While the P.C. forces of the world try to convince us that women aren't really THAT interested in having kids, and that kids are just as happy to be in daycare as they are to be with their own mothers, Schlafly brushes aside the baloney and speaks the truths we all know so well (but some of us refuse to admit).The fact of the matter is that "feminism" has been judging the success of females in strictly MASCULINE terms for the last 35 years...focusing more on material wealth and power than on children and family. Schlafly demonstrates over and over again how the so-called "sexual revolution" did more to HARM women than any other social movement since WWII, what with the explosion of no-fault divorce, abortion, and single motherhood.This little old lady has some important things to say. I am glad that I gave her a listen.