Graglia against Feminism: 8

A continuing series; see here for the introduction, and here for more on feminism in the Catholic Church in the UK.

From Domestic Tranquility p121.
[The feminist] Friedan's precise complaint was that despite their availability, women did not want careers. Nothing more clearly exposes the pretence that feminism's goal was limited merely to allowing women to make free choices than its unremitting disparaging and disadvantaging of the housewife. As one feminist baldly put it when discussing social security, the law should not make it psychologically comfortable to be a housewife because this will impede feminist goals. Whatever subsequent apologists might argue to mitigate feminism's excesses, status degradation has been the purpose of its attack. Far from being the enemy, it was men that feminists admired--at least in the public sphere. The enemy is the housewife...

Descriptions of housewives by feminists (pp121-122):
Gloria Steinem: 'housekeepers, or dependent creatures who are still children.' 'parasites'.
Helen Gurley Brown: 'a parasite, a dependent, a scrounger, a sponger, ...a bum'.
Nena and George O'Neill: her 'horizons are inevitably limited by her relegation to domestic duties' which 'programs her for mediocrity and dulls her brain.'