De Tocqueville predicted that if America embraced the ideology of Feminism, America would decline. After a century and a half Feminist values have become the norm for Americans. Women left the home in droves because men abdicated their responsibility to lead, protect and provide for them. Women also left their homes because they were seduced into believing the feminist ideology which says women can only have true value and fulfillment if they compete with and even lead and protect men in the marketplace. Tragically, we have women leading men even in the military, police, firefighting and other dangerous jobs.
Many children are parentless while stuck in daycare. American children are spending large amounts of time outside of the four position foundation-the family unit-"the school of love" as Father defines it.
By taking women out of the home and putting children into daycare, and old people into nursing homes, we are reaping terrible fruits-the disintegration of the family and therefore the nation. Some religious leaders are correctly seeing this as a sign of the last days. TV evangelist Pat Robertson points out how sick our society is every day on the 700 Club. But things are so bad that even some politicians and social scientists are calling our situation a crisis. Congressman Newt Gingrich says in a recent article in Commentary magazine: "American civilization cannot survive with twelve-year-olds having babies, fifteen-year-olds shooting one another, seventeen-year-olds dying of AIDS, and eighteen-year-olds graduating with diplomas they cannot read."
More and more social workers pinpoint the cause of these problems to the breakdown of the traditional family. Dr. Brenda Hunter is a renowned psychologist, author of Home by Choice. She has appeared on radio, national television, and before congressional staff. She says in an interview with The World & I magazine:
"For the past twenty-five years, the mother at home has been massively devalued by the culture. The eighties was the era of the superwoman, and it also was the time when the notion of quality time developed, was demythologized, and disappeared. You don't hear anybody talking about quality time now. What I'm hearing more and more is employed mothers talking about the reality of being too pushed, too pressured.
"Instead of believing in quality time, we have developed what I call the myth of the infinitely resilient child. This child can enter day care at three weeks of age, experience a succession of care givers until he enters school, come home to an empty house during his school years, and then emerge at age eighteen with a strong core sense of self. Everything I know tells me this is not accurate. Children need an enormous amount of committed, on-line parental time. A legion of mothers know this and are choosing to stay home.
"What I'm seeing as a therapist is this: Adults who in their childhood experienced rejection by their mothers have difficulty establishing close interpersonal relationships. The mother is the architect of intimacy. I've come to see this more strongly as I've been working as a therapist. The mother really is the architect of intimacy."
Father says the role of mothers, these "architects of intimacy," are "central": "The key to world peace is to bring mind and body into unity and also man and woman into unity, which is another form of mind and body. The core of the American problem lies in the family, and the center of the family is the mother. If the mother plays her role correctly, then that is the way to restore the family."
Father is saying there is a role for women different from the role for men: "When you blessed couples start a family, the husband should lead a public life (life of service) and the wife should be in charge of the family life (the domestic life). Will you be a representative and exemplary family?"
Father constantly speaks about us all being model families which will have the power to witness to and lead others. What are the values which create these exemplary families? The beginning value is the division of roles in the family of the man as the hunter and the woman as the nester.
Please don't misunderstand us. We are not advocating that women spend all their time in the home. We believe that a crucial responsibility for women is a commitment to do church and community work. This work, however, is to be completely for service. It should not be motivated by a need to provide for and protect a husband and children. This is when the family becomes out of order.
We should take our cues from the True Family. Mother and the True Daughters have never had to provide for, protect or lead Father. The role of provider, protector and leader is always for the man. In Jin Nim is getting a Ph.D. but it is for the sake of world service, and she will never take the role of provider, protector and leader away from Father or her husband (who is quite as accomplished as she).
Father often says the role of men is to lead: "Women in the Unification Church should clearly know that man is subject and woman is object." He says America is sick because men and women are out of order: "The sickness of American women is due to the selfish desire just to receive love from the husband. The master of the American family is woman. Men are overpowered by women in the family. The man dresses the woman instead of the woman dressing the man. It is a total inversion."
Father says women are to focus on the home and make it a sanctuary for the man to come home to after fulfilling his role of provider: "When the husband comes home from work, the wife who has spent idle time at home commands the man to do things. If the wife greets her husband with a joyful, welcoming heart and invites him to eat right away, happiness dwells with the family."
The woman's primary role is to help her husband be successful by being "his greatest supporter": "The wife should make her husband successful; that is to say that she should be his great supporter."
In her book The Way Home Mary Pride explains how for several generations Christianity has not taught the proper role of women (Titus 2:3-5): "Although the Bible teaches distinctly what a wife's role should be, this teaching had been getting more and more muted in the churches until it was almost muffled entirely. Women did not know their calling, or why it was important. They became restless. ... Today we are reaping the fruits. Role obliteration is the coming thing in evangelical, and even fundamentalist, circles. If women can't be women, by golly they will be men! All because two or more generations have grown up and married without ever hearing that the Bible teaches a distinct role for women which is different from that of a man and just as important."
The ideology of Feminism not only dominates Christian thought but the media, education and government, too. As we write, our movement's focus is to witness on college campuses. One of the hottest issues discussed, everywhere from politics to talk shows, is the topic of family values. World CARP, WFWP and the UC must speak with an educated united voice on what are the proper, principled roles for men and women. We often say we are beyond Feminism but Feminist thought often appears in our church publications. For example, Rose of Sharon Press published (and our seminary distributes) Prof. Thomas Boslooper's book The Image of Woman which, among other things, links Mary Daly, America's leading feminist theologian (and lesbian) with True Parents and the Divine Principle.