Melissa Persling tells a sad story.
And from what I see online and elsewhere, hers is a common one — she realizes she has been betrayed by feminism.
She posted her story on Business Insider, saying she wanted an urban career when young, but in her early 20s married her childhood sweetheart who wanted a simple, traditional, small-town household with a wife focusing on it and on motherhood.
That caused conflict they could never resolve.
“We were young, foolish, and sweet, thinking our love would allow us to overcome our differences. We were also very wrong,” she wrote.
After about a decade, they divorced, with Persling then entering a minimal-commitment lifestyle with an older man — “We took trips, drank nice wine, and stayed out late,” she wrote.
“Without the expectation or duties of a shared mortgage or a family, we simply enjoyed our time together. When we were apart, we did our own things.
“Those were great, easy years,” according to Persling.
They eventually broke up, with Persling in her late 30s realizing she was beginning to yearn for a traditional lifestyle, with marriage and children. “I hardly recognized myself,” she said.
Is feminism a destructive ideology?
After her Business Insider article, she posted a video, displayed by Fox News, in which she said she her article prompted hundreds of comments, messages, emails and texts from men who described her as selfish.
Fighting tears, Persling said, ”I wrote a lot of that article, like truly scared. Like, I really did think, like, wow, you’ve missed your opportunity. You are gonna be alone. You’re not gonna have a family.”
So many of the men’s comments disparaged her as a feminist, but Persling said he doesn’t describe herself as one. And the comments prompted her to write an as yet unpublished article “about the downfall of living a selfish, me-focused life.”
She continued: “For me it definitely started to feel hollow and meaningless, and, you know, it’s taken me to this point in my life to realize that’s not a life that’s going to bring you happiness.”
Persling said that perhaps her former carefree lifestyle works for some people — although she voiced skepticism about that — and is thankful she realized her errors perhaps in time to turn things around.
“I feel unbelievably betrayed by feminism,” Persling declared. “And I don’t want to put it on the movement, because I believe you make your own choices, and everything I’ve done up until this point in my life has been my choice, and that’s on me.”
She indicated she believed her mother’s strength and determination following divorce influenced her.
“I was constantly fed this idea that women can do everything! We don’t really need men! Women can have the great career and have the kids that they like and change the tires and do this.
“I mean, I grew up thinking — and men are great — but, like, I can do all the same things,” she said. “But, like, I really — I really feel — I do feel, in many ways betrayed by that line of thinking.”
So, non-feminist Persling confesses total buy-in to standard feminist thought (pardon the oxymoron).
And she is experiencing the biblical concept of reaping and sowing as she recognizes the emptiness of her life.
Thankfully, Persling has realized her errors and perhaps can salvage her hopes.
“If I thought I would spend the rest of my life alone, [if I] didn’t think that I would get married and have children I would be devastated…I don’t want to wake up at, you know, 60 by myself and go, ‘well, I had a lot fun,’ you know.
“I want to wake up at 60, next to the love of my life, raising a family, you know, doing the things that are really important, things that really matter,” she said.
“Yeah. I don’t think you’re gonna be on your deathbed one day and look back and go ‘I wish I went to more parties’ or spent more time, you know, shopping.”
It’s a commonly-repeated story. And a sad one.
