by J.C. Phillips 

The argument truly came as a surprise. 

I was speaking before an audience at Kansas State University and confessed that I am what is known as old school. I believe that men should be the head of the household and that God should be at the head of the house. I explained that I wasn’t referring to a division of power – of men being the boss of the house. I have been married far too long to talk crazy. 

My wife and I are partners. We work shoulder to shoulder for the family’s mutual benefit, but we have different roles. When men talk of being the head of the household, they are referring to filling the role of protector of the home and community, a respecter of womanhood and provider of a proper model of manhood in the neighborhood.

I have given this speech a dozen times always with the same explanation. That is usually sufficient to calm fears of outdated sexist ravings. But I was on a college campus after all and in such places, ideas increasingly seem to become convoluted and twisted to mean all sorts of things.

During the question and answer portion of the evening, a young white woman protested that my opinion that women should be subservient while remaining barefoot and pregnant indicated that I was woefully behind the times and anti-woman. Her friend wonderfully coiffed in a head full of sandy blond dread locks — (Fashion as protest or simply fashion? I couldn’t tell.) – sucked her teeth in agreement.

It is not only the confusion of youth that was the source of her Venetian hearing, it is the confusion of a movement. Women’s Studies departments have turned the minds of bright young women into mush by convincing them that traditional child centered marriage represents a source of oppression. It is also a perfect example of how movements are seldom one size fits all; just as the realities of race have attended a difference between conservatism and Black conservatism; those same realities produced a distinction between feminism and Black feminism. 

Women’s liberation in the Black community was never about freeing Black women from their men. Black women looked to the movement to enable them to work in a closer partnership with their men on a more equal footing. Conversely, middle class white women bored with privilege were, among other things, protesting the oppression of tradition. The rejection of tradition in the form of divorce and single motherhood has alas not been a boon to American Culture. 

Perhaps in a few years, my feminist friend will be of a different mind. I have known many women that began as revolutionaries only to become a true feminist after giving birth. When they look into the eyes of their children, their priorities change. They are still every bit the dynamic women they had been before. Now they also recognize that to raise children, to hold a family together, to grow a marriage is ennobling and of value. The idea of men at the head of the household is no longer threatening because they now understand that men have a vital role to play in the rearing of children.

Having a man at the head of her household does not relegate her to second class citizenship in the marriage community; it makes her an equal partner. She understands that when her man assumes that role he is committing himself wholeheartedly to their marriage and to her as companion, wife and lover. It means that he will provide the example of a strong and loving man to their children by being loving and supportive to them. That he will provide the example of a faithful man by being faithful with her, that he will provide the example of a hard working man by being hard working with her. 

It is only in a world of feminism gone mad that young women find a man standing on a stage suggesting to other men that we lead by example a cause for alarm.