This is Part One of a two-part series from RD&T’s contributor, Dr. Eva Bell, exploring her take on Women of the New Millennium.
Expectations regarding women of the new millennium are very high. The world envisages a radical change in lifestyle; a transformation that cocks a snook at traditional restrictions; a social environment encouraging the masculinization of women; a narcissistic self-love that hopes to demolish the last vestiges of patriarchy and establish a new order of superwomen.
However, the world is in for a surprise.
Womanism and Feminism
Womanism is on the comeback trail. It has been mercifully retrieved from the jaws of militant Feminism. Why have women become disillusioned by the latter? Because “Feminism has turned women into second class men,” according to writer Soheir Kasshogi. The type of Feminism doing the rounds over the last couple of decades is anything but complimentary to women. The post-Liberation ironies of a woman’s life, of free living and free love, the abolition of marriage and family, have degraded time-honoured values of decency and sensitivity, of responsibility and relationship.
“Ms,” the maritally ambiguous prefix, dictates that the best interests of self must take precedence over husband and family. Feminism, with its revolutionary rather than reformist agenda, has set out to politicize women. The distasteful consequences are seen in the social, mental and spiritual tragedies enacted, wherever the long arm of the movement has reached.
And so, at the beginning of the new millennium, one must introspect over the better part of prophetic wisdom.
