Crouse Delivers Speech at Princeton:A Conservative Critique of Feminism

Concerned Women for America ^ | 10/8/2003 | Dr. Crouse

[Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS]

A recent CBS poll revealed that three out of four women described the word feminist as an insult.

Another study found that the number of working women who believe that a career is as important as being a wife and mother has fallen 23 percent since the 1970s.

What has caused such a dramatic change in women's attitudes?

Cindy Crawford, the supermodel, dislikes the word "feminist." An interview in the September 2000 issue of George magazine explains, "The word feminist has such negative connotations to me."

Cindy is not alone. Experts agree that women are growing more and more uncomfortable with the current feminist movement.

What has happened to a movement that was supposed to make it possible for women to "have it all?"

Feminism has gone the wrong way, baby!

Feminism is out of step with mainstream women.

"Having it all" -- for most women -- doesn't mean: hatred for men, lesbianism, and radical politics. -- most women can't relate.

I could spend our time together giving you facts and data about the outcomes of modern feminism.

Instead, you can access and study that data in a report I wrote called, "Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century," which can be found on our website: www.cwfa.org. In that report you will find 100 years of data about women's well-being -- much of it previously unpublished.

But let's make it more relevant to your own lives. Your generation has seen the personal disaster of the feminist movement and so-called sexual freedom in the lives of the women you know. Many of you are yourselves children of divorce. Many of you have helped a friend deal with a surprise pregnancy -- perhaps even walked that friend through her abortion. STD's . . . broken hearts. . . the list could go on and on.

Let's ride the feminist wave backward a bit, and revisit the foundations of modern feminism, back to the Second Wave of the Sixties and Seventies. Let's look at the effect feminist ideals had on the lives of three founders of modern feminism. You know these women's writings; they are feminist icons. But how much do you know about their personal lives? As they say, "The proof is in the pudding."

Betty Friedan -- Friedan, the mother of the feminist movement, gave us "The Feminine Mystique" -- and the "problem that has no name." That problem - according to Friedan - is that women are victims. Being female means having delusions and false values and being forced to find fulfillment and identity through husbands and children. Friedan worked 9 hours a day - declaring that being a wife and mother was "not going to interfere with what I regarded as my real life." Even her friends describe Friedan as difficult, ill tempered, disagreeable, ego-driven, rude, nasty, self-serving and imperious. Unhappily married for 21 years, her three children had to undergo therapy to deal with what was called "the emotional fallout."

Gloria Steinem -- Steinem was the beauty queen of the feminist movement. Steinem, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate, was engaged to her college boyfriend. After breaking up with him and discovering that she was pregnant, she had an abortion. Later, Steinem founded Ms. Magazine and coined two phrases -- "reproductive freedom" and "pro-choice" -- bringing a brilliant sense of marketing to a movement that glossed over the realities of promiscuity and abortion and propelled so-called "sexual freedom" into the mainstream. Steinem famously declared that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. She remained single until her 60s -- when she recently married a divorced man with grown children.

Germaine Greer -- Known as the diva of feminism, Germaine Greer is, like Gloria Steinem, now in her 60s. Greer has two books: "The Female Eunuch" kick-started her fame and "The Whole Woman," published recently basically repudiates everything Greer had said previously. Known for her bawdy diatribes, Greer preached that sexual liberation is the path to fulfillment. Greer has had "several" abortions -- leaving her unable to have children. She was married -- briefly -- for a week, during which time, she brags, she cheated on her husband 7 times. She has stooped in recent months to getting attention by being an apologist for female genital mutilation. Greer was married once for three weeks. She bragged that she cheated seven times that week. But at age 60, she mused: "The finest time in your life was when you fell asleep in someone's arms and woke up in the same position eight hours later. Sleeping in someone's arms is the prize." Inevitably, she sleeps alone.

What do these women -- and other disparate personalities like Patricia Ireland, Alice and Rebecca Walker, Hillary Clinton -- have in common? All of these women are Utopians. They scorn the lessons of history.

The First Wave of feminism won the right to vote and the right to own property.

The Second Wave won no-fault divorce and abortion on demand.

The Second Wave drove their political ideology, but its not just about being Democrats. I want you to think beyond partisan politics and see the motivating ideology at work.

Tonight, look beyond the surface debates over the issues that capture the headlines and roil the waters - abortion, gay rights, eating disorders, comparable worth -- and think about the animating spirit - the gravitational pull, if you will -- that keeps the waves crashing on the beach.

Perhaps that is why the Organization of Women Leaders has as part of its mission statement to rewrite the definition of feminism, transform people's perceptions, and challenge the conventions about women's roles. You are a group of remarkably gifted, talented young women. The goals and aspirations you have for your lives are exciting. And you will, just as you have planned, change the world in many ways. Living in American society today offers unprecedented opportunities for women. These opportunities were hard-won. We owe a great debt to the early feminists. Because of their work years ago, women today have incredible horizons.

But from my vantage point, having walked ahead of you through many of life's opportunities and challenges, I am equally aware of the pitfalls you face because modern feminism ignores the relationship between decisions/choices and consequences. For instance, more than 10 times as many women cohabitate now as when I graduated from college. And most have no idea that these relationships generally last a mere 18 months. Most are clueless about the fact that when living together turns into marriage it is almost always the guy who makes the decision and those marriages are 50% more likely to end in divorce than are the marriages where the couple did not live together before marriage.

So, the so-called sexual freedom -- a basic tenet of modern feminism -- has been disaster for women. Your generation recognizes that even better than mine. And, you are leading the effort to reconstruct feminism, to repackage, and reposition the movement into a Third Wave of feminism. I understand that OWL recently had a discussion about "what is feminism?" I am going to guess, from looking at your goals and activities as an organization, that you would broadly describe your agenda as falling under a rubric of empowering women. Frankly, most people would join you in that admirable goal. As you pursue that laudable goal, I want to challenge you NOT to repeat history.

To that end, tonight, let's review two historical 20th century Utopian experiments -- communism in the east and feminism in the west.

Origins

Both movements originated as a result of discontent with flawed social, economic and political systems.

Communist Discontent originated over the barely subsistence wages given to labor and the unequal distributions of wealth. Marx, in writing "Das Kapital," his monumental critique of capitalism, argued that capitalism was fundamentally exploitive and so hopelessly flawed that it would collapse under the weight of its contradictions. Marx offered a shining vision of an egalitarian socialistic society where the output of the community would share according a noble, altruistic principle: "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs."

The feminist theorists of the mid 20th century also put forward a Utopian vision of the "good society" based on often-savage critiques of the existing progressive social order. Feminist Discontent originated in women's dependence on men and their unequal opportunities. The feminists' Utopia was a blend of sexual and economic equality, borrowed from earlier First Wave champions of women's rights, and social justice borrowed from the civil rights movement, which had just come into full flower with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Obstacles

Both movements rebelled against deeply entrenched obstacles.

It is worth noting that communism first came into being via the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 -- a rebellion NOT against a system of free market capitalism -- but against the dictatorial monarchy of Tsar Nicholas II.

The Marxist rebellion, then, was against a dictatorship and a cruelly class-stratified society; it was an attempt to end poverty. To communist thinkers, once the workers' paradise was fully established, poverty would disappear and the temporary dictatorship required by the transition to socialism would become unnecessary and the state would wither away.

The feminist revolution rebelled against inequality and the domination of patriarchy. To feminist thinkers, the great obstacle to progress toward a sexless, egalitarian society- where women could be free to realize the fulfillment of their heart's desires-was patriarchy and all elements of the social order that supported it, particularly marriage and religion. The males in society had to be reeducated as to their proper roles relating to women and, where necessary, coerced into letting women pursue their professions on a "level playing field." In the event that sexual activity resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, abortion on demand would be readily available. In those instances where a woman chose to have children, institutional arrangements had to be put in place so that the rearing of those children would not be burdensome or interfere with career aspirations.

Note that in both of these systems of thought, the source of the problems-the obstacles to progress-were faulty institutional arrangements, factors external to the individual. Defective institutions produced defective behavior that produced negative outcomes. The solution was not individual moral accountability for greed, oppression, and exploitation. The solution was to change the institutional arrangements, which would then produce positive behavior and outcomes.

Outcomes

Who is not inspired by the thought of an egalitarian society, where an equal distribution of wealth, power and influence is the norm . . . and NOT a mere utopian dream? Who is not inspired by the elimination of poverty? The elimination of patriarchy?

But, everywhere that Communism has ruled, it has been via a totalitarian regime established by force, never by free elections. As Mao famously said, "All power comes from the barrel of a gun." Well, let us visit Utopia and see the outcomes. Let us ask the residents of Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

• In Russia, to usher in the worker's paradise, Stalin engineered a famine in the Ukraine, which is estimated to have killed 7 million.
• Mao's man-made famine in China killed more millions than died in the USSR.
• Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians, 25 percent of the population. He literally emptied the cities in his attempts to produce an agrarian Utopia during the mid-1970s.
• Another 2 million are estimated to have died in North Korea . . . so far!

Stalin is quoted as having said, "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." Utopian schemes produce a lot of statistics.

Let's try to grasp those statistics:

• Line up a million people in a column 10 abreast with each row 3 feet behind the one in front of it; the column would reach the 51 miles from Princeton to 5 miles beyond New York City.
• If the column marched by us at 3 miles per hour (that's 20 minutes to walk a mile), it would take about 19 hours for it to pass.
• This is just one million.
• Some estimates of the total number who died under communism in the 20th century put the number as high as 100 million.
• We are not talking about war casualties here; we are talking about totalitarian regimes killing their own people. And why? This was done in the name of establishing a Utopian workers' paradise.

How ironic. Marx had promised: Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

It didn't work out quite that way.

The Marxist rhetoric was high sounding and noble, but in the forced labor camps, individuals are insignificant and expendable.

How does this relate to feminism? We are confronted with another utopian ideal, whose animating principles ---- women's rights, sexual equality, and the fulfillment of women's potential- are high-sounding and noble.

But like the tragic irony of communism, feminist ideals have betrayed us and produced massive damage both to women and to their children:

• Divorce upon demand since 1970 has meant millions of homes have been pried apart, leaving some 35 million kids bereft, longing for the return of their absent mother or father, and the majority of them living in poverty.
• Abortion upon demand has meant the end of life for 43 million babies. . . and untold pain for the women who would have been their mothers. To the abortion provider these babies are inconvenient bits of tissue whose removal is a source of revenue in the same way that the removal of tooth decay is a dentist's livelihood. But to the woman, it is the beginning of a recurring nightmare that knows no end.
• 10 million adults under the age of 25 will contract an STD this year.
• The skyrocketing increase in out-of-wedlock births is the defining characteristic of the demographics of the 20th century -- one-third of children are born out-of-wedlock.

How is possible to start out with high sounding, noble ideals and end up with so much wretchedness? What are we to learn for the examination of these two massive Utopian experiments? There are two sources of difficulty.

The first is metaphysical: the origin and nature of evil. I've already alluded to this issue by my observation that both of these systems of thought ascribed negative, evil outcomes as being the result of faulty institutional arrangements external to the individual.

The second source of difficulty is the fact that you cannot ignore nature, specifically human nature.

The Utopians deny the fact that human nature makes demands on all of us -- that there are realities that we all have to deal with in life. They naively believe that they can shape the world to fit their utopian vision. They want a world where they can control both their actions and the consequences of their actions.

But of course, choices do have consequences and we have to lie with them - for good or ill. We frequently use that phrase when we want to emphasize avoiding negative consequences. But tonight, I want to emphasize to you, that there is a tried and true path to positive consequences in your life. Not to Utopia - but to a life of fulfillment and positive accomplishment that benefits both you and society.

I chose a different path than Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, and Germaine Greer. But my circumstances were not all that different; nor were the ambitions and inner drive any less compelling. I want to share my story because your generation needs to hear from someone in my generation how you CAN just about have it all.

• I grew up the oldest of 7 children.
• My teenage parents were happily married and provided an ideal childhood in very modest circumstances.
• I was gregarious and driven to succeed from my earliest memories.
• Even though my friends dreamed of marriage, white picket fences and children, I knew that marriage meant full-time responsibility -- preparing 3 meals a day, laundry, housecleaning and staying home. In short, to me, it meant the end of "fun."
• During college, my friends counted 67 guys that I had dated. I was definitely NOT going to "go steady" and get serious. I had places to go and things to do and marriage, household drudgery and a passel of children did not fit into that picture.

THEN ALONG CAME GIL

Gil Crouse decided that he wanted me for his wife and he set about to win my heart.

• He studied me; he asked questions and probed my psyche until he knew me better than I knew myself. He understood what made me tick.
• And, over two years time, I learned to trust him and knew beyond any doubt that he would put my interests and needs ahead of his.
• I began to care about him so much that I wanted to put his interests ahead of mine.
• I chose to limit my career options in order to marry a man of integrity and character. I made the decision fully aware that it meant compromise.
• Neither of us brought into our marriage sexual experience or emotional baggage. And while we have had other marriage adjustments and problems typical of two hardheaded, hard driving individuals, I will frankly tell you that the sex has never been a problem; it's always been superb.
• Ironically, whatever elusive "freedom" I gave up by loving Gil was far overshadowed by the opportunities I have had by forging a partnership with him.
• Each of us is a stronger more successful person because of the influence of the other.

THEN ALONG CAME KIDS

• Neither of us was in a hurry to have children; with my teaching at one of the best schools in the city and his graduate studies, it simply wasn't something we were ready for. But after a couple of years, as they say, I "found" myself pregnant. We were both relieved when I miscarried at about 3 months along. Don't think for a minute, however, that that was the end of it! I have relatives with children the age that miscarried child would have been and I have not forgotten. Strange how those hormones affect our emotions and how long lasting are those feelings.
• Imagine our shock then, about 6 months later when in the middle of the night I began crying in Gil's arms wanting to have a baby! Where in the world, we wondered, had THAT urge come from?
• This was an instinctive drive that had no basis in logic or planning - we were surprised by the instinctive need for children.
• We ended up with two children: Our daughter is finishing up her dissertation for a doctorate at the University of Virginia. Her area is political science and she is a writer and television commentator. Our son is a Ph.D in aerospace engineering; he is founder and president of Davinci Technologies. He has produced award-winning software packages for designing airplanes.
• They are both happy and well adjusted. They are both happily married. Our son has 2 little boys and our daughter is expecting baby #5 this month.

From this brief overview, you can see that the things motivating me were not different from Betty, Gloria or Germaine. You can also see the different values, priorities, and the different choices we made and the different outcomes. All four of us started out with the same hard-driving ambition, but we had different priorities and different goals.

• I don't have the fame or fortune of those feminist pioneers.
• I do have a husband who cherishes me and whom I cherish.
• I have children who love to come home and grandchildren who squeal in delight when they see me.
• I have a career that is very fulfilling. While some of my goals are out of reach and some of my dreams remain unfulfilled, I have more opportunities than I have time to accept.
• Three out of four is not too bad! On my scorecard; the three 2nd wave feminist icons have, at most, one!

WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE?

• Like the three feminist icons, in this country I had the freedom to make choices, to determine my priorities and establish the beliefs and values that would guide my life - and so do you.
• I chose to marry a man of integrity and character -- I made certain that he was a person I could trust and respect. Also, I determined to be a person that he could trust and respect.
• Together, we made a covenant to make our marriage a priority, to put each other first, and to grow together in our interests and activities.
• Together, we made the sacrifices necessary to nurture our children, to instill values and to develop character in them.
• Together, we made the sacrifices necessary for both of us to get the education, credentials and experience that would prepare us for excellence wherever our careers took us.

What do I think is wrong with feminism? I think somewhere along the way, feminism lost its way. The movement forgot that "having it all" included the personal dimension. Life is not just profession and career. Success is not measured JUST in paycheck and status.

The 2003 young businesswoman of the year, Gabrielle Molnar, explained that she didn't want to be called a feminist because feminism doesn't support the cause of women.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Feminism has lost sight of what it is that women REALLY want. Most women want to love and be loved. They want the freedom to be all they can be and they want to be treated with dignity and respect. They also want the opportunity to have meaningful careers and productive lives -- but most aren't willing for their ambition to harm their relationships or damage their children.

I'm grateful that you are working to change people's perceptions of women - bright, talented women have plenty of opportunities for professional growth today and you have more flexibility than the women who preceded you. What is needed most -- at this point in history -- is the chance to revel in being feminine and to relish a fulfilling personal life.

More power to you as you take all that into account as you redefine what it means to be a woman and what it means to "have it all."

I'd like to conclude with a brief story:

A couple of years ago, I was speaking at a liberal arts college convocation. The President of the college and I stood at the front of the auditorium watching the students as they arrived. He turned to me and said, "Janice, do you realize - THERE IS THE FUTURE OF AMERICA?"

I'm tremendously impressed by your ambition; by your talent and your dedication to excellence.

I admire your willingness to accept the challenges of leadership.

BECAUSE:

Tonight as I look out at you, I am very much aware that:

"YOU ARE THE FUTURE OF AMERICA."

May God bless you and, through you, may God bless America.

[Lorianne]

No it doesn't. Not any more than freedom of the individual and equality under the law makes one e a radical or a chauvinist. In fact many people still consider our way of life in the USA "radical" and they don't like it one bit. We happen to be in a culture war with these people at this very moment.

If we want to review whether or not our core values as Americans equal good outcomes, we can have that discussion and perhaps change things. Until then, the basic assumption our society operates under is that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" ... equality and fairness under the law. If those values equal "bad" outcomes (as many people in the world would argue), then perhaps we should go back to theocracies, dictatorships, monarchies, fuedalism, rigid caste systems, etc.

It seems to me what SOME people are deathly afraid of is allowing other people the same rights and freedoms that they want for themselves.

Our entire country was based on RADICAL notions. Go back and study history. People at the time the USA was formed thought we were entirely nuts to set up such a system of government. It was revolutionary, radical, and even treasonous to state that one agreed with the our Founding principles ... punishable by death!

Change is radical. Freedom is radical. Representative democracy is radical. The notion of the rights of the inidividual over the collective is a radical concept still today in most parts of the world.

[Lorianne]

Oh yadda yadda yadda. There is nothing sacred about "this Republic". This is one giant experiment. Even our Founders admitted that. They had no idea how long it would last. Lots of things almost destroyed it and there is no gaurantee something won't destory it yet.

There have always been plenty of Chicken Littles around screaming that the sky is falling. Meantime, other people who really believe in our system are making sure they get a say in making it work.

Nothing is perfect, including our system. But what is the alternative? Should we go back to a system of elite rule based on biological or hereditary determinism? Considering all the bozos of both sexes out there influencing politics todya, it may not be a half bad idea.

Where would you fit in?

[Lorianne]

Oh you get real and grow up. We're not talking here about your inability to keep your marriage together. We're talking about larger concepts. Your personal problems are your own.

[Lorianne]

You know what? At the very most, only about 3% of women are lesbians. And even that number is disputed as high.

Why would 97% of women cede their numerical political clout to 3%? I certainly never have and I don't know any women who have. I know plenty of strong women in all walks of life and as far as I know none of them are lesbians. They have families, kids, some have careers some don't. NONE of them have succumbed to "men hating" or any of that.

My personal experience just doesn't square with the power some here claim this tiny 3% of women have. I just don't see it. I see women going about their lives and doing what they think is best for themselves and their families ... just like their male counterparts.

I really don't see this radical lesbian fringe influence everyone is so scared of. I didn't even see them when I was in college. Where are they hiding? I must hang around in different circles or something because all the women I know are just regular people living regular peaceful rather hum-drum lives and expecting the same basic rights and freedoms as everyone else in the USA, no more, no less.

[disclaimer]

You talk about freedom for the individual as you defend feminism - the promoters of socialism in this country. Feminism DOES NOT PROMOTE FREEDOM - IT CREATES INDENTURED SERVANTS TO THE STATE. Feminism is not about equality and fairness, it is a power grab that doesn't give a crap about who they crush along the way. Dream on in your fantasy world - the reality is feminism NOT a force for freedom but the exact opposite.

[Little Bill]

It ain't a personal problem when you are married for 27 years and your wife has a longing to rediscover her lost oppertunities and want to see the things that she did not discover in her youth.

Oh the pain, the pain, all she had to do was ask, I gave her everything else she asked for. We are talking about larger concepts such as using my daughter as a front in the divorce and then abandoning her to my care after she had a breakdown, womyn are wonderfull. If you want to suscribe to my pay my daughters medical bill fund FReep me.

Love, Bill

[Corin Stormhands]

Janice is a personal friend. She is indeed a treasure.

[Skooz]

She could do a lot more good for others saying what feminism is REALLY about.

Post #7 IS what feminism is really about nowadays. Your views of a benign feminism were extinguished by the mid-1980s, when the hate-mutants radicalized the feminist movement beyond redemption.

I would say that your views (equal pay for equal work, etc), are better described as common sense and very conservative ideals rather than "feminism."

Yes, post #7 is about the "radicals," but the radicals now run the show. It is their movement now.

[Lorianne]

Whatever. We could go tit for tat with personal anecdotes but ... I'm not interested.

It's obvious you're a collectivist on par with the so-called feminazi "man haters" given your blanket comment about "women".

It seems you've joined the "I'm a victim of the opposite sex club" just like the radical fringe we're talking about. Berating people just like yourself is irrational at best.

[Lorianne]

Post #7 IS what feminism is really about nowadays No it is not. I and many more like me haven't said uncle yet. :) Some keep expecting us to surrender and retreat, but that's not going to happen. Watch and you'll see.

[Skooz]

In that case, I hope for the best for you.

Good luck, and I truly mean that. It would give me great joy to see the Feminists For Life crowd displace the NOW and NARAL goons as the voice of the feminist movement.

[Little Bill]

"I'm a victim of the opposite sex club.

I have never been a victim, and being accused of being "A collectivist" is an insult. I am much more radical than you could possibly imagine. It is you in the feminist left that are the destructors, you destroyed marrige, it is you that destroyed the trust between man and wife, it is you that dumped a lot of kids down the toilet to a fatherless future for your own vanity, J'Accuse, J'Accuse.

[Lorianne]

Here is an example of REAL feminism, alive and well:

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031004_177.html

_________________________________________________

Twelve to Be Inducted Into Women's Hall of Fame

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. Oct. 4 — Mildred Robbins Leet is an unusual philanthropist. She's not wealthy. And for 25 years, she's given away just $50 at a time.
But her "micro grants" have helped transform tens of thousands of lives around the globe. They buy fishing rods or frying pans, a farm animal, a sewing machine or a barrel of seeds, enabling "the poorest of the poor" to launch their own businesses.

Leet is among 12 women who were to be inducted Saturday into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

The hall was established in 1969 in this village in western New York where the first known women's rights convention was held in 1848. Women won the right to vote in 1920.

This year's honor roll includes Gertrude Ederle, who in 1926 became the first woman to swim across the English Channel; Sheila Widnall, the first woman to command the U.S. Air Force; and Stephanie Kwolek, who formulated a chemical solution in 1965 that led to Kevlar, the stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests.

Leet tries to find aspiring entrepreneurs among those least likely to have startup capital. They live in urban slums in India, remote villages in west Africa, a blighted island in the Caribbean.

And they make good use of their good fortune most enterprises are still running years later.

"Every once in a while you meet somebody and they say, `$50? Are you kidding?'" Leet said. "And you say, `Don't worry, there are people to whom $50 will make the difference.'

"For some, they never had $50 before in one lump sum. For others, it's psychological 'God, they believe in us!' That's really it you just have to trust in people."

Leet, an 81-year-old New Yorker, started Trickle Up Inc., a volunteer, nonprofit program, with her husband Glen in 1979 after decades working for anti-poverty, social justice and community development groups.

Taking $1,000 from their savings, the couple linked up with an aid worker and created 10 businesses in Dominica, a struggling Caribbean island.

Each entrepreneur who drew up a simple but promising "business plan" got $50. One group of women formed a thriving banana-chip cooperative.

If a business is still going a few months later, the owner can file a one-page "business report" to apply for another $50 check. After that, "they're off on their own," said Leet, who locates people via churches, women's groups or aid agencies.

Funded by donations, Trickle Up has spawned an estimated 115,000 businesses and disbursed more than $3 million, Leet said. There is one exception to the $50 limit: in the United States, grants can rise to $700.

"You try in different ways to reach people to help themselves by using skills they already have and they do," she said. "It's not a giveaway. It's almost like a scholarship you learn by doing."

Leet said the "business report" provides a measure of control "after a while you can spot a phony really easily." And surveys have found some 70 percent of businesses were still operating several years later, she said.

Most of the ventures are modest basket-weaving in Ghana, quilting in El Salvador, a home bakery in Bolivia. One woman in Cameroon started out by selling chicken eggs, soon made enough money to buy a bicycle and later opened a small variety store.

The program got started in the apartment of Leet and her husband, who died in 1998. It now employs 14 people.

"We have far more demand that we can meet," Leet said. "But you keep going. I never thought we would go this far."

[Lorianne]

Au contraire! It is YOU (as in not me) who made blanket assessement of "women".

Personally, I'm a positive person. I believe the vast majority of people are good and fair and decent. Both sexes. I don't judge large swaths of humans by what a few do.

We've all had our personal ups and downs. You're not special in that regard. It's not about YOU.

Enjoy wallowing in bitterness. I'll pass. Au revoir

[Lorianne]

Thank you!

[Little Bill]

Personally, I'm a positive person.

You would never know it from all the man bashing posts I have seen under your name in the past. I don't care what you views are for the most part, I can only go by what I have seen in my life time.

What I see is the breakdown of the Family because of those and those like you. I am an exteme individulist except when it comes to family and that is what, it seems, that you and your ilk are trying to destroy. I was around at the beguining of the feminist thing and it was a sorry collection of leftists.

Burn your bra, let gavity take over, and live to a lonely old age. I am living with my wifes descisions, broken kids and a lot of hate.

[Lorianne]

Look, I didn't break down your family and I've never done anything to destroy any family. And this thread is NOT ABOUT YOU, okay?

Get a grip on your bitterness before you're eaten alive by it.

Good luck.

[FlyVet]

Steinem was the beauty queen of the feminist movement. Steinem, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate, was engaged to her college boyfriend. After breaking up with him and discovering that she was pregnant, she had an abortion. Later, Steinem founded Ms. Magazine and coined two phrases -- "reproductive freedom" and "pro-choice"

Founded her own Relief of Guilt religion. I hope she's happy now.

[Little Bill]

Generally these threads are about you and your ideas, believe me I could care less, any problems that I have had are long gone. One of the nice things that I have discovered about FR is people don't cut you a lot of slack, which is a good thing.

You seem to have few bad rows to hoe and have taken an antimale stance. Grow up and live with it, I like women in principle but after my last experience will never wed again, once betrayed ever armored.

[disclaimer]

What I see is the breakdown of the Family because of those and those like you . I am an exteme individulist except when it comes to family and that is what, it seems, that you and your ilk are trying to destroy.

That's right Bill.

Lorianne tries to paint an innocent portrait of herself as she tells us she only wants 'equity'. What more 'equity' do you need Loraine?! What is your grievance that still needs remedied to make women 'equal'?? All you feminists have now is propaganda to build your pity-me case. Being a feminist you are a member of the most corrupt morally empty union of self-centered narcissistic soul-less group think frauds that the world has ever known. You don't want equity, you want institutional discrimination against those you oppose and superiority under the law.