"Empowering" women

Two facebook friends--both acquaintances from my time at the university--posted things having to do with the empowerment of women.  One was a typical rah-rah media exhortation to continue "empowering" women so we can close the gap (???) and have equality, blah blah.  Funny they don't mention the "gap" between the number of men and women attending college, or the less-than-equal treatment that boys get in public institutions.  Pshaw!  Never mind that.

You know, if we could all just pretend that men and women were exactly the same--if we could imagine a world where there were no gender differences--what would we accomplish, exactly?

In order to create the illusion that men and women are identical, we have to pretend women aren't women.  First, there's the little matter of child-bearing.  How unfair it is that biology made women the bearers and nurturers!  Goes to show that there is a God and he's male, right?  It's so hard to deny that fact, what with the whole pregnancy and breastfeeding thing.  We can do it, though!  We can keep "empowering" women to believe that their biological and spiritual urgings are wrong:  they don't want children!  They want an income, independence and lots of travel.  Talk about fulfilling!

If they do fall into the trap of motherhood, for sure women don't want to raise their own offspring:  they want balance! The kind of balance that comes at the price of the poor kid who's stuck in daycare all day, every day, only to see his parents for an hour in the morning and a few hours at night.  Show that kid who's empowered, and then he'll never want to bring another poor soul into existence.

My other FB friend posted something along the lines of how she feels like she's "getting away with something" every time she drops her toddler off at daycare.  This child whom she waited decades to have, the one she wished for as she was burning through PhD exams, publications and her dissertation.  Now she plunks him in daycare so that she can have her career and balance.  She's bought it all, but in spite of all this culture's sophistry, her conscience still rubs at her a little.

May God help us all.  It's a twisted world we live in to be sure.

Can someone tell me why it's empowering to women to deny their fundamental, biological realities?  Why is it empowering to deny that women are different than men?  Why do we reduce the natural inclinations of a mother to "societal guilt and pressure" and pretend that women don't want to take care of their babies?  Why bemoan the notion that some women choose (and many more would choose) their families and homes over some career and some fleeting accomplishments?

I thank God for allowing us to raise two daughters to strongly resist such "empowerment."  Real women is what we're all about here.