By the time we got to Memorial Day, the news media must have become bored with the heavy dose of anniversary stories we’ve had all spring about World War II and Vietnam, so a page 1 or 2 news story in many newspapers was a U.S. News & World Report survey of prominent women’s views on today’s men and the so-called “changing roles” of men and women. Some said men have become more “sensitive” or “flexible”; some said the feminist movement has confused men about what women expect.
Much more perceptive than any of the prominent women’s quotes, however, was a feature article in the May Working Woman called “Does the New Woman Really Want the New Man?” The consensus in this feminist magazine was a frustrated No.
The author complained that, while the New Man is no longer possessive, he’s also no longer committed. So, warns the author, the New Woman won’t find “the classic knight on the white charger” and may have to settle for a man who just benefits from her energy and follows where she leads. But, the author ruefully concludes, “her heaviest liability is a likelihood of winding up alone.”
If, instead of surveying women about the masculine mystique, men had been surveyed about the feminist mystique, it is likely that we would have heard many echoes of William Raspberry’s recent column. Commenting on the New Woman’s dissatisfaction with the New Man, he admitted to a it-serves-’em-right, you-brought-it-on-yourself attitude.
Thirteen years ago I had my first personal look at what feminism does to women and to marriage. A good friend sadly told me that her husband had just left her. She added, “I know I brought it on myself. I built a good career in real estate and he realized I didn’t need him anymore, so he went out and found a woman who does need him.”
Men need to feel needed. That’s what’s wrong with the liberal welfare policies of the last 20 years. They made the husband/father irrelevant; benefit payments come to the mother so the father isn’t needed anymore. The result has been family breakup of shocking and unprecedented proportions.
The cutting edge of the changing roles of men and women is in the U.S. Armed Services. The mission, the traditions, and the training all combine to build the stereotype of manliness, toughness in the face of adversity and pain, and physical strength to overcome the odds in all emergencies.
Our Armed Forces are NOT maintained at such great expense just to parade on holidays, or to provide “upward mobility” to those who cannot afford an education or to train in civilian job skills. Our Armed Services are maintained to defend us in battle.
This month, the first of the young women who entered our nation’s three military academies, who survived the experience and graduated four years later, will complete the five-year tour of duty which is the obligation of those who attend West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy. They are going through the throes of decision-making: will this be my life career, or will I opt out now?
The New York Times Magazine interviewed many of the 357 young women who made history nine years ago by entering the academies. The journalist found some who plan to stay in the military such as the one who said she does not want to get married and have a family, adding, “I’m not the motherly type.”
Others plan to resign because of the toll it takes on family life to build a career in competition with men and because of the change brought about by having a baby. “I don’t think you can appreciate how that little life will change your world, until she’s born and she’s yours,” said one. “I knew [then] I could never go back to sea.”
Running through the interviews was an unrealistic bitterness about the laws and regulations that exclude women from military combat duty. One wonders if the academies give cadets an adequate education about what it means to fight in combat.
The desire for a change in the combat-exclusion rule is in inverse proportion to one’s rank. It’s unfortunate that female West Point graduates agitate to terminate this rule when the ones to suffer would be the enlisted women assigned to the combat infantry.
Since Raspberry enjoys a happy marriage, he understands the eternal differences between men and women. He summed it up well when he gave this advice to the New Woman: While “feminine virtues” can be a handicap in male-dominated careers, they can be an enormous help in forming strong personal relationships because “they encourage men to do what they are best equipped to do — behave like men.”
