[Sam the Sham]

The explosion of divorce was NOT caused by feminism.

The household labor saving appliances of the 50's meant that now men could have clean clothes and hot meals without a wife. The popular culture of the time often depicted wives as fur-coat obsessed, shopaholic parasites who drained the virility from their husbands and reduced them to "yes, dear" servility. Men responded by deferring marriage, spending their new disposable income on the swinging single hep cat bachelor pad, on Playboy and Thunderbirds and martinis and Dave Brubeck albums on their new hi-fi stereos.

When the sexual revolution hit, no fault divorce meant that professional and upper class men were free to ditch their redundant wives and enjoy the new freedoms. It was this that triggered feminism because the popular culture of the early 70s was full of horror stories about suddenly destitute middle aged women without marketable job skills being dumped by divorce onto the job market. Younger women saw that marriage was no guarantee of lifetime socioeconomic security. The only guarantee that you would always be able to support yourself was to never stop working and thereby always have marketable job skills.

[jocon307]

"The explosion of divorce was NOT caused by feminism."

Thanks for sticking up for us females on this thread. It never fails to amaze me how these anti-divorce threads become bash-a-thons against women.

I venture that the stat showing 75% of divorce actions being initiated by women do not at all indicate which party desires the divorce. It is still considered extremely "bad form" for a man to divorce his wife, so even if he is the one who has abandoned the marriage she will still likely be the complainant of record.

I know there are a lot of lousy dames in the world, but I think statistics clearly show there are more bad men than women. I readily concede the courts are prejudiced against men in divorce proceedings and I strongly agree that throwing people in prison for failure to pay child support is probably unconstitutional.

[SweetCaroline]

When the sexual revolution hit, no fault divorce meant that professional and upper class men were free to ditch their redundant wives and enjoy the new freedoms. It was this that triggered feminism because the popular culture of the early 70s was full of horror stories about suddenly destitute middle aged women without marketable job skills being dumped by divorce onto the job market. Younger women saw that marriage was no guarantee of lifetime socioeconomic security. The only guarantee that you would always be able to support yourself was to never stop working and thereby always have marketable job skills. THANK YOU, YOU EXPLAINED IT SO WELL!

[Stellar Dendrite]

Sam,
You need to do some reading on the intended goals of the Feminist movement, and more importantly Antonio Gramsci's "Planned Destruction of the Family Unit".

III.Antonio Gramschi, 1891-1937
A.The New Order (L'Ordine Nuovo)
1.Italian Communist newspaper, founded 1919
2.Co-founder of Italian Communist Party, 1921
3.Pre-Prison Writings, ed. Richard Bellamy (Cambridge, 1994)
4.Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Intl. Publishers, 1971)
B.Lenin was wrong, and the Leninist revolution will fail
1.The workers will see the revolutionary government as a new boss
2.When the revolution fails, the west will re-import Capitalism
C.Gradual revolution: infiltrate, Co-opt, Subvert
1.Infiltrate the State: elective & appointed office; judgeships
2.Infiltrate the military: enlist & subvert from within
3.Infiltrate justice: undermine and discredit state constitutions
4.Infiltrate education: professors & administrators
5.Infiltrate & discredit religion: scoundrels as clergymen
6.Register, then license, then confiscate all privately held weapons
D.Form or infiltrate international organizations to promote goals such as
"global understanding," "economic development," "transfer of resources"
E.Both Capitalism and Judaeo-Christian culture must be destroyed before a
Communist revolution can succeed
1.Religious sentiment cannot be destroyed through legislation, as
Lenin believed, but must be redirected from the divine to the state
a.Terror will only drive Religion underground
b.Religion will then reemerge when Leninism fails
c.So Religion must be destroyed in the minds of men
2.Infiltrate religious academies and become priests and clergymen
a.Subtly promote heresy within religious organizations
b.Infiltrators must act so as to discredit the church
(1)Cause financial and sexual scandals
(2)See that this is given a high profile in the news
(3)Like-minded infiltrators in the media will cooperate
3.Once religion is discredited from within, continuously promote the
idea that only the state can solve the problems that have been
traditionally brought before the church
F.When propagating revolutionary ideas, cloak them in polite terms
1.National Consensus
2.Popular Mandate
3.National Pacification
4.Pluralism
5.Global Community
6.Economic Justice
7.Economic Democracy
8.Liberation Theology
9.Direct Action
G.Marxists "must enter into every civil, cultural, and political activity
in every nation, leavening them as yeast leavens bread."
H. Subvert the existing hegemonic culture and replace it with
a "counter-hegemony" that is based on the revolutionary
culture of the oppressed masses

---

The "Sexual Revolution", which was nothing more than a product of cultural marxism, of which the seeds were first planted by the Frankfurt School.



IV. Herbert Marcuse, 1898-1979
A. Bourgeois Capitalist civilization must be overthrown by
discrediting existing beliefs and replacing them with
revolutionary or proto-revolutionary beliefs.
B. Founding Father of Political Correctness
1. "Free Expression" is actually repressive, because it permits
the bourgeois capitalists and other counter-revolutionary
or anti-revolutionary individuals and groups to express their
beliefs and values - values that must be overthrown.
2. Advocates "the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly"
for conservative or Christian individuals and groups
a. Denounce them as hate groups, atavistic, fascist,
or intolerant.
b. Denounce conservative or Christian speech as hate speech
d. Do not allow colleges or universities to become "forums"
for politically incorrect speech
3. Advocates "Liberating Tolerance"
a. "intolerance against movements from the Right,
and toleration of movements from the Left."
b. "new and rigid restrictions on teaching and practices in
the educational institution" to indoctrinate students in
"progressive" values
c. Speech Codes on campuses
d. Reject the values of Western Civilization as "regressive"
e. Reject the "Western Canon" of literature as "regressive"
f. Promote Marxism as "progressive"
g. Denounce and discredit those who resist this "progressive"
agenda as "reactionary" or "fascist" or "racist" or
"the extreme right" etc.
-------

The media and educationaly institutions are used to promote and indoctrinate individuals with these perverse principles.

Finally, according to the 1963 congressional record, here are a few of the communist goals which pertain to the subject matter we are discussing here.

http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

[woodb01]

Dear Sam,

You have an interesting proposition, yet it is wholly unsupported by the facts. It is more of the same propaganda pushed by the left. My friend Judy Parejko (who wrote the book "Stolen Vows"), and I have thoroughly researched this issue and it shows that the rise of divorce was DIRECTLY correllated with the rise of feminism and the no-fault laws.

Unfortunately for those who would like to believe differently, or simply want to endorse a position not supported by the facts, this IS well documented.

And before you start firing at the hip on this issue, please be aware that I can point you to US House Congressional testimony, legal briefs, and several years worth of research that I PERSONALLY have done.

Feminism pushed the issue, and most would be surprised that it has come STRAIGHT from communist Russia, to the Women's Lawyer's Association in the 40's, who pressed until the 60's to find an opening, and the rest is well known.

It also has its roots in the "free love" movement of the late 1800's, by a couple of avowed communist feminist sisters who wanted marriage done away with. Harper's weekly ran several GREAT illustrations about the family butcher that Communism was at that time...

Learn the TRUTH, and it is the TRUTH that shall set you free. NOT the propaganda and prevailing "wisdom" of the day...

See the ANTI-DNC Web Portal at ---> http://www.noDNC.com

[valkyrieanne]

The explosion of divorce was NOT caused by feminism.

The household labor saving appliances of the 50's meant that now men could have clean clothes and hot meals without a wife.

Interesting point. Wars always stir things up, too - like the WW I song went, "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm / After they've seen Paree?" In some ways, conventional morality was also a casualty of WW II. Men came back from the war with a very different perspective on life than when they left.

[viaveritasvita]

I can tell you from personal experience that your post is true, altho I also think there were other factors that contributed (i.e. no-fault divorce, the so-called sexual revolution [which I think "benefited" men more than women], Roe v. Wade, and women in the workforce).

My dad once told me that we (the '60's gen) were setting outselves up for loneliness and relational failure, that women would find they didn't need husbands for financial/physical security and men would find they didn't need wives for sex or setting up households. I think that turned out to be true.

I think there are valid reasons for divorce (adultery, abandonment, physical abuse), but irreconcilable differences is much too vague! It seems to me, now, that it was yet another '60's case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Thank you, Sam, for looking deeper into this issue and recognizing that there were other factors involved in the downfall of morality and families in our nation.

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