Communism has collapsed in Eastern Europe after 45 years – 70 in the old Soviet Union
– of destructive presence.

Feminism, in its modern and similarly destructive form, has a shorter (though related)
history, but already the informed critique is exposing it and presaging its certain eventual
collapse.

Betty Steele has now contributed a second book (after The Feminist Takeover published
in 1987) to the growing anti-feminist literature.  It is a more hopeful book.  Together
Again is subtitled Reuniting Men and Women, Love and Sex, Mothers and Children.

Not lengthy (236 pages of text), this book is not superficial either.  It has 32 pages of
endnotes and references to further reading.  Yet it is very readable and emphatically
suited to the thoughtful non-expert.

The introduction contrasts the 18-month relationships (average) and the bed hopping of
young adults with a growing curiosity for purity and stability.

It also notes the fivefold increase in divorce rates during the feminist years (in Canada),
and the growing awareness that single-mom children are much more inclined toward a
life of crime.

It acknowledges the old ‘me-first’ stance of feminists for job and raise and promotion and
the present rediscovery of the greater fulfillment to be found in a loving family where not
self but others are put first.

Hoodwinking

Part I has six chapters concerned with men and women.

Chapter 2 deals with the hoodwinking of women by zealous but deceiving activists, who
made them believe they were mere “house slugs.”  The author, past editor of a prestigious
national magazine, retorts that home making “can be the most challenging…work in the
world, demanding…far greater skills, indeed, than most women would ever require in
their one-dimensional workplace jobs” (p. 235).  A U.S. observer states that the sole-
supporting husband today earns 18 per cent more relatively than in the 1950s, weakening
the argument that a second income is necessary.

Another chapter deals with the vilification of patriarchy.  Still another with reverse
discrimination, based on the false forcing of men and women into identical moulds.

A further lie, androgyny, claims we are both the same, and that sexual stereotyping is a
cultural ‘sin.’  But the dictionary describes androgyny as “mongrel, hybrid, epicene,
denaturalized.”  So much for our schoolbook pictures where Mom wields a monkey
wrench to fix the family car while Dad changes the baby.

Wife and child abuse are discussed in Chapter 6; in Mrs. Steele’s view they are
exaggerated evils.  We are told that only 5 per cent of charges of sex-abuse by fathers is
founded.  Even less for accused wife abusers (p. 107).

Love and sex

The three chapters of Part II deal with love and sex.

The first is a grim discussion of rock and free sex and amorality.  Chapter 8 on “Sexual
Warfare” documents the hatred of feminists for men.  The tragic figure of feminist
Germaine Greer, who later did an almost about-face (“Sex and Destiny,” 1984), appears
here, and many more revealing personalities.

Part III is last, with five chapters on mothers and children.  We learn in chapter 10 that
the pop group The New Kid on the Block joined hands backstage and huddle in prayer for
two minutes before each show, where they sing of faithful love, the value of children, and
rejection of drugs.

A chapter on motherhood likewise affords nuggets of optimism.  But Chapter 12 is an
ominous essay on the childless, lesbian, bitter-hearted leaders of feminism.  The
“Throwaways” (Ch. 13) is about children diminished by abortion or daycare or emotional
scarring or single parentage.

It’s heavy!

What relief next to read “Homecoming” in Ch. 14.  Betty Steele has done another great
service to the human family.  Together Again is not to be missed.

Father Stephen Somerville is parish priest of Blessed Edith Stein parish, Toronto.