Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism

Rating:
Summary: Women take a stand against Feminism
Review: The author graduated from Columbia University (Law School), and went to work for the Supreme Court of the United States (I think she was a clerk to a Supreme Court Justice). She continued to work until she had her first child, then she dropped out of the work place to become a Homemaker. Her book takes every argument of the Feminist Movement, and in a very logical, educated, and persuasive manner, tears it down. For women who love their opportunity to be at home and raise their own children, this book is a confirmation of what we already know. For women who consider themselves followers of the feminist movement, it will challenge all of your convictions and "modern" ideas about "traditional homemakers." If you are a working mom who wants to be a stay-at-home-mom, this book will help you re-evaluate your reasons for working--perhaps you don't need to be away from your children and home. It's a great book that provides valuable insights to the position of women in society.

Rating:
Summary: Live and Let Live
Review: The book makes many good points. But what makes the author happy will not necessarily make the woman next to her happy. Let's just give equal opportunity to everyone and not penalize people for exercising this opportunity. Believe it or not, there are women out there who would rather have careers than children. They will be happy this way. Why marginalize them? It is not like they are committing crimes or going on welfare. The government should give women the same opportunities as men and it is up to every individual woman whether she wants to use those opportunities. As for working women being bad mothers, it was not so in my case. My mother is a doctor, but every time I think of my childhood, (she worked while I was little)I think of it with a smile. She was there for the important things. Believe it or not, she raised two happy, well-adjusted daughters. Most working women are not gung-ho feminists and actually love their families. The author kind of missed that point.

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Summary: Challenging the Femocracy
Review: There have been a number of good books to appear lately offering a critique of feminism. Perhaps one of the best is this volume. Although it has been around for some years now, it still remains one of the most comprehensive, articulate and well-researched books to take on the excesses of feminism.

A major thesis of this volume is that while feminism may appear to be anti-men, it is even more so anti-women, at least women of a certain stripe. Wives and homemakers are the real target of radical feminists, insists Graglia, and she spends a good part of this hefty tome (450 pages) in documenting this claim.

The author, who is a lawyer by profession, but a homemaker by choice, has the intellectual firepower needed to take on the heavyweights of the feminists movement. The thoughts and writings of Friedan, Steinem, Greer, Millet, de Beauvoir, and all the other major movers and shakers in the feminist movement are here carefully evaluated, and their antipathy to wives and families are carefully assessed.

Solid chapters explore the rise of modern feminism, the feminist agenda, the totalitarian impulse in feminism, the push for androgyny, and the attack on the institutions of marriage and the traditional family, among other things.

The author is especially adept at showing how women cannot have it all, at least not at the same time. The push for climbing the corporate ladder invariably takes a toll on child rearing and family, and many women have suffered as a result of buying the feminist line on this issue.

She tackles a number of other myths, such as the idea that gender is simply a social construct, and the idea that motherhood and homemaking are somehow second class lifestyles. She shows how women have been the big losers in the feminist-promoted sexual revolution. She documents how women have suffered under no-fault divorce. And she demonstrates how the push for a purely androgynous society results in all parties losing out.

While acknowledging that women have the right to pursue the feminist script if they so choose, Graglia firmly believes that feminism is really anti-women. Feminism remains a destructive and destablising social force. In the end, feminism has damaged women, harmed families, and put children at risk. Strong words, but after reading her arguments one has to agree that not everything has been sweetness and light in this major social revolution. Indeed, like most revolutions, the results are often worse than the original problem.

While many will violently disagree with the major propositions of this volume, the author's arguments deserve a fair hearing. Spence Publishing deserves credit for running with such a volume, at a time when many other publishers wouldn't dream of offering such a daring title.

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Summary: Systematically and logically trounces feminist propoganda
Review: This book is a GOD send for any Christian or traditional woman who has always wanted to put her family first, but was shamed into believing that being ONLY a stay-at-home mom was underachieving, pitifull, unworthy or any of the other nasty adjectives used to describe women who choose to pursue the most worthy of careers...that of a wife and mom. FEMINIST WON'T LIKE THIS BOOK! This book does what feminist are to scared to do. It looks at the issues and propoganda in a systematic and logical fashion, then it gives the reader a CHOICE. Before I read this book I wanted to have kids and "I was willing to make a sacrifice" and take some time off from my busy career. This book helped me see that staying home with your kids is not a sacrifice...going to work is! My outlook on the importance of the "traditional female role" was dramatically changed by this book. Now I am looking forward to having kids and giving up my career as an Army officer. In my heart, I always felt that staying home was the right thing to do, but that would mean sarificing success. Now I know that success has been defined by feminist. Feminist and the American culture would have women believe that a career is the only way to be successful. If you have been feeling guilt for leaving your kids in daycare, if you like Jane Austen, or if you have ever wondered why America's children seem to have gone so astray, read this book. Grant it, this book is not the most exciting thing ever written...but if you are searching for that missing piece, you will get excited about this book. I think this should be mandatory reading before marriage. ---One less duped female

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Summary: Great book about a shattering topic
Review: This book is the best one I know about feminism and the sexual revolution and the irrefutable connections between them. It makes clear that the goal of modern of feminism has been to destroy all differences between the sexes, in work, family life, and sexual behavior. To accomplish this, the task had to be completed in all three areas, as the feminists understood very well. Graglia demonstrates this with quotes from the leading feminists themselves. The aim is the utopian or totalitarian one of creating a completely androgynous society of emasculated men and defeminized women. In one chilling passage, Graglia claims that we are very close in American society to making the sexes "completely fungible", the three tasks set out by the feminists being near completion. The predictable results of this assault on nature have been severe damage to the family; suicidal birth rates, especially in Europe; increasing hatred between the sexes; increased sexual violence; a flight of men from marriage; and much, more. Graglia attempts probably the most comprehensive view of any of the recent writers decrying various detrimental effects of feminism and the sexual revolution; of earlier writers, George Gilder's "Men and Marriage" comes to mind. Perhaps being a woman of about seventy, she has a long personal perspective, and takes a sweeping, even magisterial survey of all the different aspects of feminism and their mutual connections and interdependences. One interesting point she makes is that the early "social" feminists, in contrast to the early and contemporary "modern" feminists, had goals diametrically opposed to the moderns: more sharply differentiated roles of the sexes in family and work, and an emphasis on shoring up distinct feminine and masculine virtues.

This book is a sleeper: it's message is so shattering, it is no wonder it has not received much attention. It is also a long and sometimes difficult book to follow, mainly because of the intricacy of the argument, one worthy of the attorney Mrs. Graglia was trained to be before she dropped her legal career for what she obviously found a more rewarding life. But it may be destined to become a classic statement about the ills that beset modern men and women. One suspects the howls of pain, especially those emanating from the fair sex, are only going to get louder. This book helps understand why. One wishes that Mrs. Graglia would attempt to write shorter pieces for magazines of opinion and even more popular outlets.

Rating:
Summary: The opposite perspective to prominent feminists
Review: This book is very enjoyable to read, especially if you are a full-time mom or homemaker. It provides detailed and well-researched arguments to support the author's contention that there are some major drawbacks to the results of the feminist movement, which began in the 60s. While the obvious advantage to the feminist movement of women being able to pursue the career of their choice is evident, Ms. Graglia argues persuasively that the feminists have denigrated the traditional mother and homemaker in the process with sometimes horrible results for children and families. The mass surrogation of childrearing and the mass exodus of women out of the home and into the workforce have had numerous detrimental effects on our society, as explained eloquently and in great detail by Ms. Graglia. This book is a must read; and although lengthy, it is easily understood and very informative. Thank you, Ms. Graglia for telling the other side to this story.

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Summary: The feminist mice have awakened a tigress.
Review: This book, like a Beethoven symphony, brings unending repetitiveness to superhuman climax. The similar book I was contemplating writing would have been scarcely more than a footnote to Mrs. Gaglia's "brief". This is enduring literature of the first rank, and not to have read it is to have been among those who said the Wright brothers didn't really fly. Overwhelming, overpowering, incontrovertible evidence on page after page after page. Not only the work of a powerful legal mind, it is an inspirational paean to femininity -- it cannot be read by a man without being challenged to be more of a man. [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Very, very insightful
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. So very enlightening and so helpful. I highly recommend this book, particularly to all women, and most especially to ALL the mothers out there. This is a book I will refer to time and time again. I cannot thank the author enough.

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Summary: An Excellent Book
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in years! I like it because it questions feminist dogma that I am always being exposed to at the university and in the major media. I've known a lot of young women who are college-educated and have been damaged by their women's studies courses that have drummed anger and hatred against the oppressors, men. The feminist have made the difficult relationship between the sexes nearly impossible. It is sad because it is harder to find love. Men are not oppressors, but are actually protectors and providers, or should be, or used to be until women abandoned their roles and so we abandoned ours. I'm really tired of universities and media presenting only the feminist viewpoint. I found this book to be refreshing because of its different viewpoint. Although there are many books on feminism in libraries, there are very few books that have an opposing viewpoint. This book helped me articulate what I vaguely felt about feminism but couldn't put into words. [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Very informative, but very repetitive.
Review: This remains the leading book against modern feminism from a non-religious point of view. That should be stressed, for it would be an injustice for potential buyers to disgard it believing it a religious fanatic's volume. It clearly manifests much of the confusion, lying, vicious fighting, and other nonesense behind the modern feminist movement. Yet Mrs. Graglia is very repetitive in this book. So much so that the last chapter is not a necessary part of it, though it certainly helps one get her points set in one's mind. Despite its faults you would do well to read it, whether for or against feminism.