Dear Dr. Laura,
Last week I was invited to attend the Bat Mitzvah for a young Jewish WOMAN. I say "woman" because her whole community followed thousands of years of Jewish religious tradition and declared her to be a woman under Jewish law. The age of a Bat Mitzvah, the age when a girl is declared to be "woman" under Jewish law is around 12 or 13. In New Mexico where I lived for 20 years the legal "age of consent" in that Catholic traditional state was 12. Until feminism declared "all sex is rape" in the middle of the 20th century, everyone knew that teenage women were ready to be married with children. Until feminism, it was the standard of Jewish and Christian alike. Only during the feminist domination of the last half of the 20th century have laws been re-written to make it a serious crime for men to marry or do sex with teenage women. You continually ignore the religious tradition and preach the feminist revisions.
A few years ago I was friends with a traditional Italian family from a traditional Italian neighborhood. The 5 generations of women who still were a family had averaged 16 years between generations. That meant that they had been married and getting pregnant at age 15. Before feminism that was the standard, that was NORMAL, that was how everyone lived. Before feminism everyone knew that a young women should get married and start a family of her own.
You often complain loudly about abortions, and about young women who do sex without husbands. Those behaviors are the inevitable result of feminist dogma and feminist social revisions. The highest rate of "teenage pregnancy" in the US since statistics have been kept was in 1957, one of the last years before feminism changed our culture. In 1957 almost all the "teenage mothers" were married and having their families. In 1957 there were a few "unwed mothers" but they were very few compared to the NORMAL behavior of waiting until marriage for sex. And waiting until marriage did not mean waiting decade after decade for young women full of mommy hormones. It meant getting married and getting on with their lives when their Jewish or Christian church and their bodies said they were ready. It did not mean postponing marriage to follow the false feminist goal of education and career.
Biologically, women are most ready to bear their children from about age 14 or 15 until about age 26. A widely published recent major study shows that female fertility starts to decline after age 26 and declines rapidly after age 30. Women who follow the false feminist goal of education and career before marriage aren't even beginning to have their families until their fertile years are already past, and their ability to bear children is in decline. Look around you at all the "fertility clinics" that now cater to 30-something women who have finally figured out the emptiness of a business career, and are trying to have the children they put off for feminist goals until it's too late. One of the saddest and most screwed up women I know is a NYC lawyer who put off her family while she went to school, went to college, went to law school, went to the city to practice law, became a film producer, and became a successful lawyer. When she finally got around to being a WOMAN, it was too late. The fertility clinics could do nothing for her. Now in her late 40s she cries almost every day for the children she never will have, and for the lost life she chose not to have.
Biologically, and by religious law, young women are ready for their families when their bodies are ready. Yes, young women are often emotional basket cases. Yes they are not as mature as they will be ten years later. But women in their 20s are not as mature as women in their 30s, and women in their 50s are not as mature as women in their 60s. So where should we as a society draw the line. By Jewish law the line is drawn at the Bat Mitzvah. Yes, the young woman who had her Bat Mitzvah is still immature by several standards, but a lot of that is because her body is full of mommy hormones and she wants badly to have her babies. Forcing her to wait usually doesn't work. Millions of young women still get pregnant because hormones take over from judgement. Millions of these young women are getting abortions because they have not been permitted by the feminist culture to have a husband and family. Millions more become "single moms" for the same reason, they weren't permitted or encouraged to have a husband by a feminist dominated culture. It's really hard to fight biology. Half a century of feminist dogma and social revisionism can't change the biological drives of young women who's baby making years are in full swing.
The false feminist goals of education followed by a career and then think about family doesn't work for all the reasons mentioned already. Young women are declared to be adults by Jewish and Christian law, but kept confined in an extended childhood for longer and longer periods. Instead of being supported in marriage as respected mothers, they put off their families while satisfying sexual drives and making unwanted babies. It's a societal disaster of monumental proportions, with millions and millions of kids and abortions paying the huge price. Conversely, the Italian women I mentioned above were grandmothers in their middle 30s. They still had 50 years to go to college, get that Masters degree, and pursue any intellectual interest they wanted to pursue. Their married daughters were looking after their grandchildren. Any woman can postpone her college education until her 30s, but most can not postpone their families until her 30s. Biology and sex drives don't work that way. Fighting mother nature doesn't work no matter how strongly women believe the false feminist dogma.
Often I have heard you advising a mother that she should report a young man to authorities for criminal prosecution because her 16 year old daughter had been intimate with a young man. I am greatly offended by the radical feminist misandry in that advice. It's right out of "all sex is rape." It criminalizes young men for acting like normal men and being attracted to normal young women. It is raging feminist hate dogma, and that's all that it is. It is often proceeded or followed by your loud condemnation of feminists. That claim, to oppose feminism, falls way short when you so loudly preach and follow the misandrist dogma criminalizing young men and condemning parents who haven't done the feminist thing by running to police to make a normal young man into a criminal "sex offender" for the rest of his life.
It is entirely NORMAL for young women to be attracted to older men, men who are old enough to support them and their child. A man's role is to have a career and to have amassed skills and resources sufficient to provide for the young mother and her children while she stays home and takes care of them. A young man just starting out, just after his Bar Mitzvah is not old enough or experienced enough to take on a wife. It is normal and traditional for young women to mate with men a few years older than they, men who are educated, in a career or trade, and who can support them. It's normal for a young Jewish man to live with his parents until his middle 20s before being established enough to take on his own wife. Yet you, Laura, call them "rapists" for wanting to mate with the very women who nature and society has made into the women they should be mating with. Once more it's raging hypocrisy and blatant feminist misandry.
It's time to re-think your attitudes and morals, Laura. Are you a religious woman who follows thousands of years of Jewish Law, or a 20th century fem-nag who condemns men because "all sex is rape?" Are you a traditional religious woman who supports families and women who choose to be mothers, or do you promote the faux feminist dream of postponement of family in favor of college and career? Are you in favor of the abortions and single mother children that are the inevitable results of the feminist attempts to confine young women during their biological breeding years, or are you willing to give up the feminist misandry and dogma and support young women who give up the career path to choose the mommy, married with children, life?
Sometimes, Laura, you offer good advice, but I get so tired of the raging hypocrisy. Jewish law declares girls to be WOMEN at the Bat Mitzvah, but Dr. Laura calls them "children," condemns their lovers and demands young men be called "criminals." It's time to re-think your positions. Do you follow tradition and religious law, or are you another feminist demanding that people follow the feminist dogma you continually preach?
Bob
Dr. Laura's reply:
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Mon, 26 Dec 2005 07:25:36 -0800
"Dr. Laura" <116@drlaura.com>
"Bob Allen"
Re: Feminist hypocrisy
misinformed, incorrect and just silly. have a nice day. We don't forward silly stuff to DrL - she is the only true supporter of men (rights and respect) in the media today. For anyone who listens to her - you look nutty. For those who have not yet heard her/read her books (like THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING OF HUSBANDS) you damage her ability to help/support them...shame on you. Have a nice day. Staff