Babbette Francis

In the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible, it is written that God created mankind in His own image: "male and female He created them and blessed them and said to them ‘be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." The second chapter of Genesis gives a little more detail. After creating Adam, the Lord said "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make an help, meet for him". What precisely happened after that is not detailed, but one version I enjoy goes something like this Sensing Adam’s loneliness, God said He could make him a woman. Adam asked what a woman was. God said she would be a lovely companion. She would cook for Adam, clean his cave, love him always, bear his children never complain, always be cheerful, beautiful, indeed a perfect creature. Adam said he’d like to have a woman. God said there’s only one catch—it would cost an arm and a leg. Adam thought for a while, then asked "Well, what can I get for a rib?"

While that story is humourous, it nevertheless illustrates a profound truth—that after the Fall, none of us, men or women, are perfect. Yet despite our imperfections, indeed our imperfectability, we still bear the imprint of God’s design, and the evidence is that God designed mankind in two kinds, male and female. The sexes were designed to be complementary. In the human species, men are physically stronger and bigger and have the role of protector and provider, and women, having the functions of gestation and lactation, are superbly designed for nurturing the young.

Of course there is substantial overlap between the roles of provider and nurturer—obviously women can earn a good living and provide for themselves and their families, and men can care for and raise children, but there is an essential irreducible minimum. It is only women who can bear and breastfeed babies—and it is on this unavoidable fact that the attacks of the anti-family and anti-faith forces are focussed.

In their view Someone, it is not clear who—maybe God (when He is not being a female) or a malignant Nature or a conspiracy of male chauvinists in a patriarchal society, ensured that only women have babies. This is the fundamental sex difference that cannot be denied, so much of academic research, political energy and government funding is devoted to minimising this difference. Hence the incessant lobbying for abortion on demand, for the provision of contraception to adolescents without the knowledge or consent of their parents, and for government-funded child care but no equivalent funding for mothers who wish to care for their children at home. Women must be made as impregnable as men - and if unfortunately they do happen to give birth, they should not be expected to look after their children. Women should be encouraged or economically coerced to resume their paid careers while their children are cared for in government-subsidized creches or according to American’s first lady, Hillary Clinton, - be raised by "the village" —whatever that is.

The attack on sex roles, especially motherhood comes primarily from the feminist movement and much of it is based on false assumptions. I became aware of this during my tenure on the Victorian Government Committee on Equal Opportunity in Schools. I wrote a minority report because the other members of the Committee were basing their recommendations on two false assumptions: the first is that there are no mental or psychological differences between the sexes and the second is that women are a disadvantaged group.

Of course anyone with an iota of logic can see that these assumptions are inconsistent in themselves—if there are no differences between men and women, how did women become the disadvantaged group? As the anthropologists Lionel Tiger and Joseph Shepher point out in their book, Women in the Kibbutz, "It is paradoxical to argue that there are no differences between the sexes but that only men are effective in gaining power and retaining it."[1]

In my research on the Victorian Committee on Equal Opportunity in Schools, I found that besides the obvious reproductive differences, there are several other sex differences which are true for all cultures and in all societies, whether they are agricultural or industrial. These differences, acknowledged even by feminist sociologists, Eleanor Maccoby and Carolyn Jacklyn in their definitive book, "The Psychology of Sex Differences," published by Stanford University in 1974[2], are that males have greater physical strength and are more aggressive than females, males are also superior in mathematical and visuo-spatial skills, and females are superior in verbal skills.

These are generic differences of course and there is considerable individual variation, for example there would be many women who are good mathematicians. Nevertheless, the average differences hold true for men and women as groups. Here again we see evidence of the Creator’s design—the male hormone testosterone causes males to be more ambitious, and with their greater adventurous spirit and mathematical and visuo-spatial ability, men have the skills to explore the environment, to build houses and devise machinery. Male discoveries like electricity and inventions like washing machines have done far more to liberate women from household drudgery than all the whining of feminists over the past three decades.

Female superiority in verbal skills is displayed from a very early age—young girls talk sooner, use longer sentences and seldom stutter. These skills carry over into adolescence and is evident in high school exams—female superiority in language enables girls to have a substantially higher success rate than boys in matriculation exams. Women’s ability with words facilitates socializing of children, and the building of communities.

The second feminist myth is that females are an oppressed or disadvantaged group. You will see from the figures on the overhead that on all the indicators we use to define advantaged and disadvantaged groups, such as life expectancy, infant mortality, involvement in crime, rates of imprisonment, alcoholism and accidental death, it is not females but males who are disadvantaged. Women live about seven years longer than men—it is an unusual result for an oppressed group to outlive the oppressors. Male infant mortality is higher than female infant mortality. Men have higher rates of involvement in crime, alcoholism, drugs, imprisonment and road accidents. Indeed the only statistic which is worse for women than men is that of deaths caused by accidental falls—women in their eighties and nineties fall and break a hip and often die a few months later. The figure is higher for women because in the age group prone to falls, most men are already dead—they died seven years younger.

Dr. John Bowlby in two definitive books, "Maternal Care and Mental Health"[3], published by the World Health Organisation in 1951 and "Attachment and Loss"[4], published by Hogarth Press in 1969, described the harmful effects on babies and young children of being deprived of maternal care. The feminist movement has launched a continuous attack on his work—their objective is to somehow prove that infants do just as well when cared for by strangers in child care centres as do infants cared for by their mothers. Unfortunately government policy in many western countries is based on this dangerous fallacy—child care centres are lavishly subsidized while mothers who care for their children at home receive little economic recognition, and the single-income family is further penalised in the tax system.

The health benefits of breastfeeding to both mother and Child are well known so I only mention them briefly. Breastmilk protects infants from gastric and ear and upper respiratory tract infections, and very recently there has emerged evidence that breastmilk kills cancer cells. Researchers looking at the effect of breastmilk on bacteria in lung cancer cells in test tube experiments noticed the milk was killing off the cancer cells. There has been some encouraging work on animals, and human trials will follow. The relevant protein that has this tumour-killing capacity is Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made Lethal to Tumour cells, named HAMLET for short.[5]

Breastfeeding also has long-term benefits in protecting against obesity, asthma and other allergies. But mothers benefit from their babies too—it is a symbiotic relationship. Breastfeeding helps the uterus to contract after childbirth and reduces bleeding, and a long-term benefit to mothers is a reduction in the risk of breast cancer.

Perhaps the most significant benefit however, according to a meta-analysis of 11 studies covering 7,000 children, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is thatbabies who are breastfed score 5.3 points higher on intelligence tests than formula-fed babies. This is regardless of their mother’s IQ, education or other socio-economic factors.[6] It is considered that this advantage is because of the presence in breastmilk of arachidonic acid AA and docosahaexonic acid (DHA) long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids which are present in human milk but not in formula milks.

I have emphasized breastfeeding because the politically correct policy lobbied for by feminists and the social-sciences establishment and subsidized by western governments, is long day care where infants will be cared for by strangers while their mothers are in the paid workforce. This is counterproductive in socio-economic terms because the pre-school years are when children most need their mothers—that is the time when the "hard wiring" of the brain is established. The infant’s nutrition in utero and nutrition and emotional stimulation after birth are crucial to the child’s IQ in later life. We know this from the experience of treating children born with lens cataracts. Unless they are operated on early in life, they will not be able to see even when the cataracts are removed, because the nerve connections to the brain, i.e. the hard wiring, has to be established early in infancy, whereas if an adult develops cataracts, vision is restored when the cataracts are removed because the hard-wiring has already been established.

Children also need their fathers.  In a magnificent 1999 Pentecostal letter entitled "Fathers and Sons",[7] His Grace Dr. George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, wrote: . . .Fatherhood is a vocation, a special calling, in which God asks men to make a gift of themselves to others. . .A father generates life. His authority in his family comes from his love and loyalty to his wife and children. Being a good parent means being disciplined and teaching children discipline, wisely and justly As every child comes to understand, a parent who does not discipline is not interested in them A good lather will also be a fighter for his family, protecting them from harm. In co-operation with his wife, he works hard to provide for their material needs. He needs courage not to lose heart when under pressure, and the courage to offer guidance even when it is not welcome.

"A good father gives his daughters and sons knowledge and wisdom about the world. He teaches them how to battle against suffering rather than running away from it. He tries to offer a good masculine example, which as much recent research shows, is important for both boys and girls. In doing this for his sons in particular, he demonstrates how masculine strength can be used to create good citizens. . ." 

Archbishop Pell deplored the media images of men, often depicted as buffoons or as violent and exploitative. Archbishop Pell rightly attributes these unfair media images to the anti-male ideology of some feminists.

His Grace could almost have been prophetic—just as John Bowlby’s research on the importance of mothers has been criticised by feminist sociologists during the past few decades, barely a month after Archbishop Pell’s Pentecost letter, there was a strong attack on the role of fathers in the June 1999 issue of "American Psychologist,"[8] the official journal of the American Psychological Association Authors Louise B Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach, in an article titled "Deconstructing the Essential Father", criticise the work of pro-family social scientists who have said that fathers are essential to positive child development and that responsible fathering is more likely to occur in the context of heterosexual marriage. Specifically, Silverstein and Auerbach target the work of David Blankenhorn, author of "Fatherless America: Confronting Our most Urgent Social Problems",[9] and David Popeno, author of "Life Without Father",[10] both of whom argue that fathers play an essential role in the lives of their children and that children do best when raised by two parents in a married couple household.

Silverstein and Auerbach dub this the "neoconservative essentialist" position and claim that their research on "gay parenting couples" has convinced them that neither mother nor father is essential. These two researchers concede that children do need some "responsible caretaking" adult, but that one or both of these adults could be a father or mother, and they don’t believe that heterosexual marriage is the social context in which responsible fathering is most likely to occur.

Their evidence is skimpy indeed—they have looked at 200 men from 10 different subcultures, including Caribbean men who were not married to the mothers of ther children, they have examined the "fathering" practices of small south American monkeys called marmosets, plus some studies on the parenting practices of gay and lesbian couples, and some studies on children of divorced parents. Silverstein’s and Auerbach’s attack on the traditional family would be almost laughable if it were not part of a larger assault by the social science establishment, which for decades has been attacking the two-parent family as a patriarchal anachronism.

All the available hard statistical data in regard to emotional and social stability, and educational and employment outcomes, indicate that children do best in a married two-parent family, and that they are at risk in alternative settings, particularly in a household where the adult male is not their biological father. But Silverstein at least is not too keen on looking at hard data. In the October 1991 issue of "American Psychologist"[11] she pleaded for "a cessation of the research agenda that searches for negative consequences of non-parental care and maternal employment", i.e., no more research on children dumped in child care centres while both parents are in paid work if the result is likely to be politically incorrect.

I mention the work of Louise Siverstein in some detail because what appears in the "American Psychologist" today will possibly be government policy tomorrow—as has happened with child care funding. The androgynous view of humanity espoused by Silverstein and her colleagues is being implemented at the United Nations level through treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which calls for the elimination of ‘stereotyped", i.e., the traditional roles of men and women, and demands that this be achieved through education and changes in textbooks.

The practical implementation of this convention under the previous Australian Labor Government was evident in the "Accreditation Guidelines" for child care centres—centres had to comply or lose accreditation and funding. The guidelines stated that boys should not be given "stereotyped" toys such as trucks and trains to play with, and a girl should not be told she had a pretty dress. Presumably it was acceptable for girls to play with trucks and trains, and for boys to be told their clothes were pretty.

Many governments have signed and ratified the Convention on Women without consulting ordinary citizens, and the UN is now asking countries to adopt an "Optional Protocol", i.e., another treaty which will enable feminists and special interest groups to complain to the UN if they are not satisfied with their country’s implementation of the original Convention. The UN Committee monitoring the implementation has already berated countries which have not legalised abortion, telling them they are in breach of the Convention and are discriminating against women, although abortion is not even mentioned in the Convention. The Committee has criticised Slovenia because less than 30% of children under three years of age are in formal day care, and has urged Armenia to use the education system and electronic media to combat the traditional stereotype of women "in the noble role of mother."

UN Conferences are currently dominated by groups opposed to faith and family. My hope is that this "World Congress of Families" will enable the voices of families around the world to be heard and so influence governments and the UN itself. This is not just an issue of a pro-family agenda—if we want an economically successful and dynamic society in 30 years’ time, we have to ensure a healthy birth rate and healthy parenting now.

When a father does something as simple as reading to his young child, he is sensitizing at least five core functions of the brain, the hard-wiring I mentioned before. By scientific imaging we can physically identify which sections of the brain are being stimulated.

Professor Fraser Mustard, Co-chair of the Early Years Study said in the Final Report (April 1999) to the Government of Ontario: "The new evidence on brain development is a celebration of what parents have always known—that babies and young children need good nutrition, stimulation, love and responsive care. What is fascinating about the new understanding of brain development is what it tells us about how good nurturing creates the foundation of brain development and what this foundation means for later stages in life."[12]

I’ll conclude by showing a few overheads: This is a traditional picture of Madonna and Child—it is a Murillo painting from the Pitti Palace in Florence. But notice how mother and child are looking at the artist, and not at each other. This second one by Batoni is better—mother and child are focussed on one another. However, my favourite is this one from the Chicago Art Gallery, by American artist, Mary Cassatt, of a mother breastfeeding her child. The child’s eyes are focussed on the mother’s face and not on the food supply. We are the only mammalian species where the infant can look at the mother while nursing - the prominence of the human breast enables this, as does the distance the infant’s eyes can focus. It is a miracle of design—this eye contact is vital for the socialization and mental development of the infant, and is one reason why humans are more intelligent than all other species.

This is one of a father playing with his son—notice how differently fathers play—mothers never hold their children up high like this - and children need this kind of adventurous play also.

Too many families today are refugees—my final overhead is this simple picture of the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt. I like to think that in human terms the Holy Infant survived that arduous journey from Bethlehem to Egypt because He was protected by his foster-father and breastfed by His mother. Thank you.

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