Anzac Day not feminine enough?

I attended an Anzac Day ceremony (the day Australians commemorate those who served in the armed forces) and thought it was very well done.

But I was floored afterwards when I asked two female friends what they had thought of the service. One gave the reply that she worried that it glorified war. This attitude surprised me as the mood of Anzac Day has never struck me as militaristic. People are encouraged to be quietly reflective and to remember the human loss of the wars that were fought.

The other response, from a lovely young woman who is not at all political, was that Anzac Day is not feminine enough. I pressed her to explain what she meant and it seems that her complaint is that it is too focused on men and not women.

That's a sign of how a liberal mentality has penetrated her mind. In a society that was focused on holding together, men and women would recognise a common cause. The women of that society would think of "our men" and the men would think of the women as "our women". They would not be two groups set radically apart.

Liberal society is not focused on holding together. Its view of life is based on the idea of a self which is defined by its wants and preferences. This leads inevitably to a focus on who is advantaged or disadvantaged in pressing forward such wants and preferences. The natural solidarity is broken and replaced by a fracturing along group lines.