Women’s Lib Redux

As a physician I am continually in awe of how medicine can make gigantic progress in rather short order. Consider how “minimally invasive surgery” has revolutionized that field, exemplified perhaps no more dramatically than by gallbladder removal. What used to require a large upper abdominal incision and painful recovery is now virtually outpatient surgery. Technology and some creative thinking led to this marvelous advance, yet there are still some areas of human physiology and behavior we don’t fully understand.

Take the “T-shirt” test results quoted by Prof. Janet Smith in her classic Contraception: Why Not? talk. The study she quotes is from Rutgers Anthropology Professor Lionel Tiger’s book The Decline of Males. Two groups of men, half of whom were educated and employed, etc., and the other half of whom were prisoners, on welfare, etc. each wore T-shirts for a period of time and then gave them to researchers. The clothing was then submitted to two groups of young ladies, half of whom were contracepting with the pill and the other half of whom were not. Based on a “sniff test” alone the young women were asked to select who they thought would be the best mate for them. The ladies whose bodies were not being distorted by the pill’s artificial hormones chose men who were, as Prof. Smith says, “evolutionarily desirable” and the other ladies chose “the losers”. The point: We still know very little about some ways the body works such as the effect of pheromones and how they subconsciously direct us to the most appropriate marital candidates. It is another one of God’s great gifts that He even directs our libidos in the right direction! And it is yet one more example of how the law of unintended consequences can kick in and lead us in a direction ultimately quite harmful to us when we deviate from God’s plan for married love.

Another example: We  release the hormone prolactin during intercourse which intensifies our desire to bond with our mate, a natural and desirable good. The desire to bond with this person is also imprinted upon the brain permanently as a consequence of this hormone’s influence. Again, well and good. But what happens to the minds of those who have non-marital intercourse? My opinion: A lot of mental confusion and ultimately the inability to bond very well with anyone if this is a repetitive pattern. Certainly a cursory look at the current state of male/female “dating” underscores this.

The birth control pill empowers women to take control of their reproductive powers and marginalize men to the extent males are an unnecessary accessory even to have and raise children. Half of babies today are born out of wedlock, many by choice. But this choice “allows” women to forgo the beauty of an endearing and enduring loving relationship with a husband, forces them to take on all the tasks of child-rearing if they elect to have a child, and gives them the “opportunity” for numerous sexual encounters and the attendant hazards therein.

The aforementioned Prof. Tiger, in a stimulating TED interview on 3-24-11 (that you can view on the internet), grouses that we have failed to recognize what we were doing right in the past and are doing wrong now, i.e., appreciating males for who they are and how they should behave. He feels the emphasis on female studies and the empowerment of women has the additional fallout of the “feminization” of men as exemplified by drugging of young boys with Ritalin to quiet their behavior, not so subtlety portraying boys as potential predators and girls as victims (first day of college mandatory rape talk), the absence of “men’s studies”, etc. So why should we be surprised when many women have chosen to remain single. They “don’t need men any more” much to the detriment of society in general, the children in particular, and even to their personal development. Professor of Psychology, Warren Farrell, calls this “gender entitlement” and not gender liberation, and proffers that the only way we are going have a legitimate synthesis–a gender transitional movement, if you will–is for men to reassert their rightful leadership and better articulate their position. (He is the author of a number of books, including The Myth of Male Power, and is a former board member of NOW and is the Chairman of the White House Commission on Boys to Men.)

So where am I going with this? I don’t think it an overstatement to say that NFPers should realize they have the solution to our increasing societal discord. The fundamental tenet that undergirds NFP practice is the highly sensitive and very specific communication couples must have at least every few weeks regarding their sexuality which, of course, has implications for their entire relationship. And what transpires in this “primary cell of the human community” has, as we have witnessed, tremendous implications for our society at large. Women on the birth control pill have tragically closed their ears to the opportunity of having this most important conversation, and it is to their detriment, the detriment of their spouses, if married, and in due course the detriment of our culture as well.

We not only need more Janet Smith clones–witty, intelligent, engaging speakers–but we need some male leadership as well. Where are you, guys?

PS: The first few book reviews on amazon.com of Lionel Tiger’s The Decline of the Male and Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power are excellent summaries of their work.