to light. I was wrong. For the list of feminist complaintsnproved to be endless, and each grievance was as important asnthe others. Five minutes into a discussion of equal opportunitynin the work place (which feminists quickly contorted intonthe demand for quotas and the concept of “comparablenworth”) and you were hearing about “psychological rape,”nthe rights of lesbians to adopt children, and the pressingnnecessity for gender-free terms like “chairperson.” Fivenminutes more and it had been decided that all institutions,nroles, and responsibilities required nothing less than radicaln”redefinition.” Every human relationship was politicized;nand in the process, the public image of men became almostnas repellent as the public image of women.nFeminist redefinition offered not only the self-fulfillednwoman (so long as she wasn’t Phyllis Schlafly) but also thenreconstructed man: open, sensitive, “unthreatened”—ancomposite of those ubiquitous movement tag-alongs, PhilnDonahue and Alan Alda. The sexist male was replaced withnthe honorary woman. And if you managed to snag one ofnthese guys, or remodel the wreck you already had lyingnaround the house, what a utopia was yours. After a dayncareering and a session with your (female) lawyer to discussnyour latest sexual discrimination suit, you could come homento your own personal Phil-Alan, a husband who was perfectnbecause his dearest desire in life was someday to be exactlynlike you. (If you were one in a million, like Mrs. DustinnHoffman, you had a husband who went all the way, whiningnin public about being denied by biological fate the joy ofnever bearing a child. Some girls have all the luck.) Children?nNot counting Phil-Alan, you had one; but unfortunately—nit really wasn’t fair—you had been forced to agonize a greatndeal about your life-style and listen to the loud tick-tick ofnyour biological clock before deciding to become a mother.nOnce your child got here, your first question was, naturally,n”Who’ll take care of him?” Not to worry. There was alwaysnPhil-Alan, and infant day care, and various “support systems.”nAnd if you suffered a little conflict over this situation,nif something—love? common sense? instinct?—told younthat no matter what system was supporting you the emotionalnburden of your child’s day-to-day well-being was firstnyours, his mother’s, well, you could simply demand fromnPhil-Alan a pledge to fully share your conflict.nThis was the cure? Then bring back the disease, whichnmight be kept in check with a simple back-to-basics regimen:nJudge people one at a time; live by the Golden Rule whennpossible; when not possible, employ the Other Rule, mostnsuccinctly expressed on the streets of Chicago during mynyouth in that wonderful city, to wit: Don’t take nothing offnnobody. This three-part program was reasonable, workable,nand—holy cow! — sex blind. Best of all, it freed both mennand women to look upon children as something more than anpredicament, a problem to be reassigned, redefined, ornpalmed off.nBy considering children always as abstractions, thenwomen’s movement raised an obvious question that nevernwent away: Did feminists enjoy kids? If they did they keptntheir pleasure well-hidden, for they discussed children withnall the humor, all the joie de vivre, of a collection ofnhypochondriacs. The absence of humor was the least of it,nhowever. Any movement that will reduce the rights ofnchildren to political barter while flaunting its concern fornchildren’s “welfare” is a socially untrustworthy movement.nBut feminism had revealed itself as exploitative and opportunistnlong before the movement decided to rescuenAmerica’s youth (a frightening decision, since the mess fromnwhich America’s youth were to be rescued was one feministsnthemselves—though this fact escaped them—had helpedncreate).nToday’s activist leadership never brings it up, but somenwomen remember: Early feminists depicted motherhood asnan awful condition, suffocating and degrading—psychicnsuicide. Motherhood: Just Say No. When it became obviousnthat this wouldn’t wash, that nature had a voice of its ownnand many women were going to go right on having babiesnand making families, the movement shifted its “focus” tonthe lives of the women it once maligned and the children itnonce rejected. If mothers wanted to complete their Selvesnwith a meaningful career, then they and their children had anright to adequate support systems. This one hit the fan withnamazing speed, when it was discovered that every career isnalso a job and, even with Phil-Alan on the scene, you couldnexercise your options right into a state of nervous collapse.nCornered again, feminism then shifted its famous focusnonce more, this time to lower-income and single-parentnfamilies—women who, by economic necessity, had tonwork. It turns out that these are the women who need thensupport systems, and theirs are the children with the right tonadequate care. And maybe this time it’s true. If so, thesenfamilies can only hope that feminist history does not repeatnitself, that they don’t end up “doing worse” seven years fromnnow than they are today. But the situation does not looknencouraging, because present feminist ideology demandsnthat women have the right to equal treatment without regardnto gender, and also the right to special consideration for theirnunique difficulties as women. Contained somewhere withinnthis conflicting, politically self-serving ideology is, we are tonbelieve, a solution to urgent human problems, including thenproblems of children.nThe fact is, the feminist record on children stinks. Nevernonce in its history has the women’s movement come outnunequivocally on the side of children’s abiding needs. Thenreason for this is plain enough: Children’s abiding needs putna real crimp in the feminist conception of “women’s rights.”nThe ultimate example of the feminist value of children is, ofncourse, unrestricted abortion. Rights work both ways or theyndon’t; human life is expendable for the sake of conveniencenor it is not. The women’s movement exists on the belief thatnthey don’t and it is. And why not? When the right innquestion is to control one’s own body, it is merely an act ofnjustice to remove all impediments to that right. If feministsncould sue fetuses before aborting them, they’d probably donthat too. Not that abortion is easy. We must never assumenthat abortion is easy. One of the requisite support systemsnfor emancipated women is counseling for “abortion trauma.”nWomen, it seems, deserve not only the right to controlntheir own bodies, they deserve understanding and sympathynfor the emotional consequences of exercising that right.nRecent developments on other fronts have revealed evenna feminist limit to women’s management of their reproductivenlives. The limit is surrogate motherhood, which feministsngenerally oppose because it reduces women to “wombsnfor rent.” Whatever one thinks of surrogate motherhood—nnnJULY 1988/7n