Re: Alikit I take issue with you

"Not being a hard core feminist, I believe a woman has a right to want a marriage in which she can trust and feel loved by her husband, have her children in peace and safety, provide the best of all possible upbringing by staying at home with them, and not have to feel like she is expected to "go out and provide" as if staying at home with the couple's children was an automatic admission to lazyness and unworthyness. Although I may add, when a husband does not do his part and becomes an abuser, it is imperative that a woman have sufficient skills to be able to support herself and her children (after walking away from her source of danger and destruction = her husband)."

Regarding the above, there is no written law that I am aware of that states exactly what a "hard core feminist" is or what they think. However, feminism is one of the greatest things to happen to the human race, as women have been supressed, denied education, tortured, enslaved, belittled and put down to varying degress all throughout history. The supression of women is tied to almost everything that is wrong with this world, even the use of drugs in medicine, (which is a masculine way of dealing with the body), and so bringing feminine engergy into the forefront where it belongs is creating vast changes, and change can be painful.

Listening to the problems that the women on this forum are having with their husbands only shows that we have not come all that far...and a quick look around the world confirms this. The reason domestic work is looked down at and sneared at (which it is, both by men and women) is because it is associated with women.

I realize there is a conflict between women who have children and stay at home and those who work, and there is a need for some attitude adjustment there (on both sides), but women who stay home put themselves in very vulnerable positons...this is nothing knew either, as it has always been that way. As we search for ourselves in this new world of feminine freedom, some of the old ways must fall aside, even if they were comfortable...as slavery can have its comforts, especially if you have a kind master.

Must women be providers? In a perfect world, pregnancy would be considered an ultimate spiritual experience, and women during those nine months would live in nature, eat pure food, meditate, and be protected from stress, fatigue and worldly matters. We would be allowed to be the goddesses that we are and revered for the sacrifices we make in bringing a new life into the world. The domestic arts, and in particular the art of food preparation, would stand above the others, as they are the arts that nurture life itself. But this is not a perfect world, and we are so far from seeing women in that light that that probably sounds absurd to most, and so a wise woman would limit her exposure to pregnancy, and make sure she knows how to take care of herself and her children if she has them (for the first time ever we have choice!)even if she has the opportunity to stay home with them.

If perhaps the pendulum temporarily swung slightly to far in the other direction, it is only because it desperately needed to to create balance. After centuries of being denied equality as human beings, have a little compassion if we don't get it perfect in the first generation or two.

Women need to band together and support each other. To say that feminism denies that a woman should be loved by her husband and allowed to have her children in peace is ridiculous, and it only places another brick in the wall, dividing us rather that uniting us.