Welcome to Thomistic Womanhood. In today’s video, we’re going to get into part two of why I don’t like feminism or some of the problems I see with it. So we had part one and this is going to be part two. I listed a few reasons in the first video and then now I’m just going to finish up with the rest of my reasons.

Welcome to Thomistic Womanhood. This is part two of why I don’t like feminism or the problems I see with it. I talked in part one and I gave a little disclaimer and I’m gonna make that disclaimer here, just in case maybe you didn’t see part one. Maybe you’re only seeing this video. And I would just like to make the disclaimer that one, I am only speaking of American Feminism, third-wave feminism as it exists right now, I am an American. I’ve been an American all my life. I don’t know how women are treated in other countries in enough depth I feel to be making any kind of statements on whether I think feminism is needed over there.

There are other countries where the life of a woman is intolerable. There are a lot of injustices happening. And so if you’re watching this from another country, like, do what you got to do. I’m not going to judge but as an American, I’m going to just kind of stay in my lane and talk about you know, being a woman in America in today’s day and age, videos filmed in 2020. So that’s where I feel that while a lot of progress has been made, I do feel we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns on feminism. And I do feel that maybe in the 60s and the 70s maybe there was some work to be done. But I feel like Nowadays, there is not the same urgency and need for all the outreach. I feel like we’re kind of living in the past if we want to keep being angry. I think there’s a lot less to be angry about now. So I’m going to get into the reasons I think that and I know this is controversial, but as a woman, you know, I think we all have a right to say what we think. And that’s just what I’m doing here. One of the other reasons and this is the big reason that I feel feminism has not necessarily been a net gain. We have done a lot to help women make strides in the workplace. And we have gotten to the point where we are very strongly encouraging women to take on whatever job they want, there’s been a push for women to take on positions of leadership like, yeah, you can be the Vice President, you can be the CEO, blah, blah. And that’s fine if that is genuinely what you want to do with life. But I feel like a lot of women are being pushed into a high pressure, high responsibility jobs, which let’s be real. In 2020. With the economic situation, especially after the recession. It seems like most remaining jobs after you went through the recession a lot of companies downsized, there were fewer jobs available. And I just feel like also with the general workaholic culture of America. I feel like most jobs are high stress and high pressure just because of American culture.

We are known all over the world for being a little workaholic. And I think that makes the average job Kind of high pressure. There are exceptions. But, working in America is itself a very high-stress thing. And we’ve encouraged women, and I say encouraged in air quotes because there’s been a very big push to get women into the workplace. And it has opened a lot of doors for us. Don’t get me wrong, but I do think that women are being overworked. And we’re very exhausted. Yes, there is a push around the gender pay gap, and they’re saying that we’re underpaid. I don’t know if I believe that, to be honest. If you work hard, and this is the problem, if we want to fight for more money or get more work, that’s how the labor market works. So, if you want to, if you want to talk about a pay gap, I think that’s something that needs to be considered.

But having said that, I do think that a lot of women are very exhausted. There’s one doctor, her name is Aviva Romm. She does a lot of podcasts. And she’s a doctor, she’s an MD. And she talks about how there’s basically like a silent epidemic of women who have all kinds of endocrine energy type problems, they don’t have enough energy to get through life. They have chronic fatigue syndrome. They have hypothyroidism, they have PCOS, they have these kinds of problems where they’re exhausted all the time. And while there is a problem with the medical establishment with a lot of doctors, not taking women seriously and not diagnosing them in time. And so a lot of these conditions are never treated. So, if somebody wants to make a case for patriarchy, okay, I could see a bit of a case for it there. There does seem to be a systemic problem with men taking women seriously there. But having said that, I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, why are so many women so exhausted? And I think it’s because of our push to put women in the workplace and have us work these very demanding jobs. Did you know the eight-hour workday, that was developed back in a time when most men were working? And I would make the argument that working 8-10, you know because when you add in commutes your eight-hour workday, it can easily be 10 to 12. And I would make the argument that based on the results, we’re seeing with the high frequency of women, developing these endocrine disorders, hypothyroidism chronic fatigue syndrome, adrenal fatigue, PCOS, I would argue that maybe the reason we’re seeing such an epidemic of that is because women are working too much.

Maybe we shouldn’t be working these jobs. A lot of women have been asked, if you could, would you go part-time? And they say yes. And I think that’s because, we know our bodies, we intuitively know what works for us. And, maybe a six-hour workday is better, maybe a five-hour workday is better for a woman, we made these decisions on an eight-hour workday, everybody agreed on it. But that was back when men were working,  the predominant people in the workplace. Now that we have women in the workplace, maybe we need to revisit that. And I think that feminism has kind of taken that option away from women. And it’s been encouraging us like, No, no, no, you got to work. You got to be the CEO, you gotta be this and it’s like very hard driving. And again, that one’s not all feminism’s fault some of that is just America. workaholic culture, even the men are being pushed that way as well. But I do think this is a serious problem. I don’t think we’re looking at our work choices as a possible contributing factor to this, like chronic fatigue stuff maybe, and I know as women, like a lot of us are in situations where it’s like, well, I can’t just quit my job. And it’s like, Okay, I get that, but do you have a partner or husband that maybe you could rely on and maybe cut back your hours? Could you maybe downgrade to a smaller apartment or maybe get rid of certain things? And again, especially with the student loan problem, I get that this is not an easy thing to do. You know, a lot of us have too much debt to even think about scaling back our work hours, but it’s food for thought. I do think that a lot of women are just getting sick. And I think sometimes I think we’re just working too hard. And I think that’s why we’re all getting sick. I don’t know.

So the other thing that I’m concerned about is the high rate of antidepressants that we’re prescribing to women. I think this is also another sign that the world that feminism created for us women. Maybe it’s not the world that makes us happy. And what I mean by that is I was reading there’s a statistic here, let me pull this up. So Harvard health publishing estimates that 1 in 10 women ages 18 and over are on antidepressants, 1 in 10. Back in the 60s, Betty Friedan wrote a book called The Feminine Mystique, and that was like a feminist classic. And in that book, she made the case that women are very unhappy being housewives and they’re all on tranquilizers, which was the 60s, word for antidepressants. I’m going to quote it here on page 31 of The Feminine Mystique. She states “some doctors told their women patients they must get out of the house for a day to treat themselves to a movie in town. Others prescribe tranquilizers, many suburban housewives, were taking tranquilizers like cough drops”, and then she quotes one of these housewives. You wake up in the morning and you feel as if there’s no point in going on another day like this. You take a tranquilizer because it makes you not care so much that it’s pointless. Okay. So, Betty Friedan’s, making the point that you know, being a housewife is unfulfilling to a woman to the point where she has to take medication to get through the day. Does that sound familiar? Now we’ve reversed it, you know, we’ve given women the option to not be housewives. And now we are all out working. I’d say the vast majority. Well, I don’t know what the statistic is. It might be 50/50 maybe it’s half and half, but there’s a lot of us working. And we’re on antidepressants still, like I said, the statistic, 1 in 10 women ages 18. And over.

Now let’s look at the demographics of the US. So, the United States and this is from Wikipedia. The United States is the third most populous country in the world with an estimated population of 329,227,746 as of January 28, 2020. So let’s see one in 10 women, which means we have 32,922,000 women on antidepressants. I don’t know, Betty Friedan was making the point that in the 60s, women were all on medication to get through life and it doesn’t sound like we’ve improved. We had the feminist movement. It was supposed to make women happy, and we’re right where we were before. Has it really been a success? Food for thought.

the Other thing and this is probably my last point that I’m concerned about, I think and I’ve alluded that to this a little earlier when I talked about the career choices that we make. But I feel like as a woman, we’re always being pushed for more and more and more, you should be an astronaut, should be president, like, you can do this, you can do that. It’s like, we have unrealistic beauty standards, but like, I feel like we have unrealistic life choice standards too. everything is like, it’s like you’re not good enough. If you just want to, be a painter or something or like, let’s say you do want to just get married and have kids, you face a lot of shame. And people look down on you for that. And it’s because we’ve created a society where women are supposed to be out working and we’re supposed to be climbing the career ladder, and we’re supposed to be doing all this stuff. And it’s like as a woman, we’re just constantly being urged to do more and more and more. And that’s been great for our economy, the American economy has just absolutely boomed. In the last 60 years, we had a bunch of women enter the workforce. And yeah, it’s been amazing for material economic growth.

But again, as we see with the rate of antidepressants being prescribed, as we see with the rate of endocrine illnesses that women are going through our physical and mental health doesn’t seem to be doing well with the life that we’re expecting women to lead the standard American life choices that women are being expected to make. I’m gonna make the argument that I don’t think they’re helping us as we see with our mental and physical health. I don’t know, I don’t know about this. You know, and like, just as a couple of examples, I recently saw there was a fitness ad. I do n’t know if it was Nike, but I was watching a YouTube video, and a fitness ad came on and it was showing Pregnant women, like running marathons. And I was like, are we never good enough? Even when you’re pregnant, you’re growing a new human being inside your body. And you’re supposed to be running a marathon. Like what? I mean, it’s not even safe per woman. So again, I find this concerning, we’re constantly raising the bar on what we expect of women. And I don’t think that’s fair to us. I don’t think it’s always in our best interest. And so that’s one of the things that concerns me about feminism. We’re always pushing women to do more and more. I don’t think it’s good for us.

Anyways, yeah, In conclusion, those are the areas of feminism that concern me. I didn’t even get into the common ones that get brought up. There still A very raging debate on abortion. I don’t think that’s been a good idea. And then also, there’s the whole debate about stay at home mothers, you know, should you work? Should you be a stay at home mother with a lot of stay at home mothers reporting that they feel marginalized and overlooked and like disrespected by society. So those are two areas that I didn’t even bring up. These are just totally stuffs I’ve run into as a single woman. I mean, there’s even more stuff I could get into. But yeah, so anyway, I just wanted to make this video. I know it’s going to be controversial. But I just feel like as women, we need to scrutinize the way we live our lives and the ideas that we assume are good ideas, and we assume they’re good ways to live our lives. I think it’s important to question them and kind of think them through Be like, does this make sense for me? In my life, maybe you have a career and you enjoy it. And maybe you have good health and you’ve never needed antidepressants. And you’ve never had any kind of chronic fatigue or anything and maybe you’re watching this and you’re like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you know, this is, this has been great for me. And that’s fine. No judgment. But I would like to discuss and kind of just open the conversation about some areas of feminism that I don’t think have been positive. And I do. I said this at the beginning of the video, and I’ll say it again. I think with feminism we are past the point. We’re well past the point where it’s providing diminishing returns. I don’t think about the reasons I’ve laid out. I don’t know if it’s, it’s been good. And I think I know that kind of one of the big fights right now is the gender pay gap and I don’t know I feel like these things I listed I feel like those are issues that maybe we ought to be looking at instead of the gender pay gap. I don’t know, you know, so anyways, Food for Thought I know that’s gonna ruffle some feathers but I just wanted to say what I was thinking. Yeah, so anyway, I guess you can like, share, subscribe, you know, do all things.