Counterculture, Gen-Z, Arizona Girl Stands for Femininity & Life
Being a counter-culture feminist in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s meant pushing abortion, unrestrained sexuality, and singleness. For many young women today, being counterculture means longing for a more traditional view of femininity, including marriage and motherhood.
For those of us promoting the cause of life for many years, it’s important to hear how younger generations view these issues. In this blog, hear from Eden Vandenboom, a high school senior, honor student, award-winning writer and speaker. She also volunteers time educating girls her age about the sanctity of life and the dangers of abortion.
I challenge you to read her thoughts and then think of how we can better discuss these issues with our daughters and their friends, encouraging them to be a voice to their generation.
~ Debi Vandenboom, AZWOA Life In Action Director, and mom of this week’s Guest Blogger, Eden Vandenboom
Over the last fifty years, the abortion industry, Hollywood, and social media have pushed the greatest smear campaign against one of the most beautiful parts of life: motherhood. From the time we were little, girls my age have been plagued and indoctrinated with “girl-boss” culture at the expense of our most innate feminine desires, like love and motherhood. We have been told that femininity is shallow, love makes us weak, and the most virtuous thing a woman can do is be a single CEO in an empty mansion. It is considered cool and independent to say you don’t want, or in some cases hate, children.
Everyone says that the media they grew up with was the best, but when I say that, I am right. As a Zoomer (member of gen-Z), my early childhood was defined by the High School Musical franchise. Among many pieces of media from that era, the “girly-girl”, Sharpay, is cast as the villain of the story. If you were blonde, liked pink, or wore dresses, it was assumed you were both mean and dumb. Traditionally feminine hobbies, like ballet or cheerleading, were consistently portrayed as shallow, while more masculine hobbies, like video games and skateboarding, were put on a pedestal. The coolest thing a girl could be was “not like other girls”.
Tragically, most of the girls who fell prey to this trap only did it for male attention, not because they actually liked it. Nothing is wrong with being a girl who prefers pants or likes sports, but unfortunately, the pretend tomboys gave everyone a bad rap. Being sensitive or quiet was an invitation to be made fun of, not by the boys, but by insecure girly-girls masquerading as tomboys. This childhood ridicule seems insignificant, but it had a major effect on my generation’s view of femininity.
This crusade against femininity was not limited to the children, but affected adult and young adult media as well. Shows like Friends elevated things like career and casual dating, while denigrating marriage and family. The most ironic part of it all is, if the characters end up single, it doesn’t sell. In Friends, the only character who wasn’t married by the end was Joey, and people are still mad about it.
Even the pinnacle of girl-bosses, Katniss Everdeen, caved. Throughout the entire Hunger Games trilogy, she confidently stated that she did not want to get married or have children, and guess what she did at the end? She got married and had children. Why is that? It is because no amount of girl-bossing or feminist education can outrun human nature. Female audiences want our protagonists to end up together, because we just love love. My generation is sick of the narrative that love is a weakness.
When I, a 17-year-old senior in high school, am asked what I want to do with my life, I feel the immense pressure to talk about corporate ambition instead of what excites me most, which is marriage and family. Girls younger than me are told that motherhood is a waste of potential. Girls my age are told that the most important thing we can do is focus on college and career. Girls a little older than me are told that motherhood will ruin their body and their career, and they should just get an abortion.
Thankfully, my generation is waking up to these lies. With the development of 3D ultrasounds, there is no mistaking that the baby inside the womb is a person, not just a clump of cells. Nowadays, the abortion advocates do not even claim the baby isn’t a person, they just say that they have the right to kill them.
This progressive rot has affected some people to the point of celebrating abortion as a fundamental feminine right as if being a “successful” woman means we must be able to end the lives of our children at any time. This inhuman attitude towards the unborn has turned off a third of my generation to the Planned Parenthood agenda. While a minority of us believe abortion is morally wrong, the divide is stark, and the number is growing.
Right now, there is a deceitfully named ballot initiative here in Arizona called the “Abortion Access Act”. It would allow children to get an abortion without our parents’ knowledge, let alone their consent. With no age limit, minors younger than me would be able to get an abortion up until the moment of birth without even telling our parents. This initiative would make Arizona one of the most radically pro-abortion states in the country, alongside California and New York. That’s not the Arizona I want to inherit.
The attack on femininity was not accidental. We know that it was a part of a larger attack on motherhood in general to help the abortion industry make more money at our expense, and if there’s one thing Gen Z does not like, it is deception. We want honesty and genuineness. We want to hear the good stories about marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and raising children, not just the horror stories. We want you to tell us that there is nothing more honorable or beautiful than the sacrifice of motherhood and that it is something to look forward to, not something to be avoided at any cost. ~ Eden Vandenboom