By Tom Klocek

At one point, feminism meant being able (in many cases, being “allowed”) to compete with men in the workplace. It meant being able to assert the rights of all human beings regardless of their sex. Helen Reddy’s song “I am Woman” was a rallying cry.

I remember when the goal of feminism was presented as “empowering women.” One aspect of this was supposedly giving women the strength to say “No” and that “No means no.” It wasn’t long before this warped into the concept that, in order for women to be successful, they had to become like men. They had to become as rude and crude as many men in business and public life were. They had to give up their womanhood and the God-given power of being mothers. Now that has warped further into the actual denial of their feminine character. They have to celebrate their abortions. Some say abortions kill half the unborn women, but in fact girl babies are aborted more than boys. We have toxic feminism. We get comments like, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support (read: ‘don’t vote for left-wing’) women.”

For a while there was a battle to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers to debunk statements like, “Girls aren’t good at math.” Yet look at the women in the public eye: Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Whoopi Goldberg and the women on “The View,” and cackling Kamala Harris. None of them has any STEM background, not even Kamala for all of her gushing about Venn diagrams (political science is not a STEM course). So, many women still end up with degrees in non-STEM fields. Pew research indicates that women now account for slightly more than half of the college-educated workforce, but they make up only 28% of the STEM workforce. And who is at fault for this? The American Association of University Women in its report on why so few women are in STEM says this: “Teachers, who are predominantly women, often have math anxiety they pass onto girls.” As teachers all went to college, it seems like there is a problem within the ranks. I must say this: Having worked in the STEM field, the women I worked with there were every bit as competent as the men, and I learned much from working with them.

But while this isn’t getting at the problem we see today, it does give some insights. Women and girls today are blasted with the idea that they are not good enough. And so a recent report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) tells us 57% of female high school students experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Additionally, the report states that 30% of high school females considered attempting suicide in the past year. Similar statistics for males were much lower for the same categories (roughly half).

And now we read that the Secretary of State’s International Woman of Courage (IWOC) Award recipients include a biological man who identifies as a woman (DNA doesn’t lie). On International Women’s Day, no less. And who was awarded one of USA Today’s women of the year? Yes, another biological male identifying as a woman.

Additionally, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has allowed a biological male to compete as a woman in swimming. And to top that off, in a competition in which he tied with a woman, they bumped the woman from the stage and presented him with the award. Several women in Connecticut protested losing to biological males in competitions and their protests were stifled.

And here’s a twist. A judge in Minnesota ruled in favor of a transgender powerlifter, a male who identifies as female. He sued in state court in 2021 after USA Powerlifting’s sex-segregation policy barred him from competing against women. The court found that the USA Powerlifting’s policy violated state anti-discrimination law. And, get this, here’s the reasoning behind the judge’s ruling, “The harm is in making a person pretend to be something different, the implicit message being that who they are is less than. That is the very essence of separation and segregation, and it is what the MHRA [Minnesota Human Rights Act] prohibits” (emphasis added). Who is doing the pretending?

It’s no wonder that girls today are struggling and depressed, despite the heroines in many popular movies. The real-life examples that are put forward tell them that it takes a man to be a successful woman. Not that long ago, laws were being passed to protect women and (I thought) womanhood in the workplace and in many other areas (like sports). And now they are being edged out with the Left using those same laws to do it. And here’s another kicker. We read that college-educated women overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. They are destroying themselves and can’t even see it.

And where can you find true respect for women, femininity, motherhood, etc.? You find it in Christian churches. Christians understand and respect the complementarity of men and women. “Jesus said to them, … from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (Mark 10:6-7). True Christians understand the importance of the family — that the family is the foundation for any successful society. There are those who claim the opposite because women are not admitted to the priesthood, but they don’t understand (or, in most cases, don’t believe) Jesus Christ and God’s plan for humanity. Witness the efforts by the Left to eliminate even the constitutional protections for religious beliefs. It’s these same young people who make up a large portion of the “nones” these days (Pew estimates that 31% of people raised Christian become unaffiliated between ages 15 and 29).

And now they want to resurrect the defunct Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) with the deception that it will improve their situation when it will actually exacerbate the impact of transgenderism against real women. There are many states that have passed laws to protect women by not allowing men who identify as women to participate in women’s sports. Some states require people to use bathrooms in accordance with their biological sex in order to prevent cases where such men have used women’s facilities and then raped women in them. The ERA would negate such laws and thus remove the last vestiges of protection for womanhood. And those supposedly educated women on both sides of the aisle are at the forefront in advocating for this.

It’s no wonder girls and young women are depressed and thinking of suicide when even educated and successful women support policies that keep telling them that they are not good enough, that they are “less than.”

If you value women and womanhood, encourage your politicians to stop this ERA sham.

“Life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself.” —Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae