caught somewhere between real life, simple faith, & raw emotion
The Thing About Feminism That No One Wants to Talk About
Okay, here it goes. I’m going to talk about some things that are VERY uncomfortable: feminism.
What place does feminism play in faith? Often culture tells us Christianity seeks to devalue woman by giving them demeaning roles based solely on their gender. In many ways, modern feminism was born in direct contrast to this alleged injustice. I understand the conversation. But let me tell you about my experience a little.
In many ways, feminism really messed me up. Now I want to try to be respectful to my mother, while talking about important dialogue in order to find the truth. That’s what I do on all issues.
Like many my age, I grew up the product of divorce, a child born into the self-discovery, experimentation, and indulgence of the Social Revolution that defined the 60’s and 70’s. All I ever heard (and often still hear) from my mother were women’s issues. I constantly got statistics on rape, molestation, work-place inequalities, unequal pay, sexism, men cheating on woman etc. As far as I could tell, all the problems in the world stem from rich white men.
But here’s the real problem, feminism hasn’t served its purpose. In all its efforts to empower women, it has failed in my life. Growing up I never had an effective teacher, a healthy relationship on a consistent basis with my Mom (which we are both working on these days, and I am admittedly not very patient or kind at times), or a mother-figure, to guide me and teach me how to value and respect women. Growing up, women were only ever distant and cold.
So now I am married to an amazing woman. She is the woman of my dreams and she has given birth to our 3 children. So now I have to work 10 times as hard to figure out how to be a good husband because I developed a warped view of women.
So I hate to say it, but feminism hasn’t really done anything positive in my personal life. My wife and I have the goal of teaching our kids how to appreciate and treat the opposite sex the best way we know how from our experiences: by staying together, being sacrificial, and putting our marriage first in our home. We believe that building from this will be the best example for our kids to follow.
This is the direction feminism as taken in our home. We both try to give 100% to the marriage and family. Hopefully this will teach my kids to value woman better than any list of stats can or affirmative action could.
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Andrew-
Thanks for stopping by. This wasn’t about complaining. It was simply about presenting a different perspective–an insider look.
I also didn’t blame feminism for divorce. I simply pointed one byproduct as manifested in my life. Of course, women have a right to be happy. What does that have to do with my comments? I in no way implied that marriage was the only permissible context for that. But are you implying a woman is lesser for finding happiness there?
And in truth, I think you yourself are a bit condescending toward woman by calling them brown-nosers. If feminism seeks to empower woman, than whatever a woman thinks should be acceptable (whatever position that is). Or is this really just about lining up with a specific agenda? Does feminism, as you define it, HAVE to represent certain positions? If so, that’s just agenda. It has nothing to do with empowering a woman, right?
Dude, to hear a man complain about feminism is a little like a white person complaining about how the black civil rights movement didn’t help them at all.
As my mom used to say: This song ain’t about you. The very premise of feminism is questioning the unearned privilege of (white) men, so men are obviously inherently “disadvantaged” per se. Feminism does have positive benefits for society as a whole. For example, it draws into question perceived gender norms, which gives boys more opportunities to define their worth and value as human beings as more than being tough or macho or whatever, but ultimately, such effects are incidental to the relative advancements it provides women. But that’s all ok. Men are used to ownership, literal or symbolic, over women, so obviously there are going to be a few hard feelings over having that whittled away. But it’s all gonna be ok you guys. The women aren’t out to get you. They just want economic, social, and political equality.
Also, I really don’t think that feminism is at fault for divorce. Such a statement is really disrespectful to women like my mother who left marriages because they were abused and unhappy. Don’t women have a right to happiness and personal fulfillment too? Aren’t they real people? Plus, my sister and I were much better off for our parents being apart, and we know that both our mom and our dad love us both.
And I gotta say, as a dude, whenever I hear a woman bash feminism I feel like she’s weak-willed and just brown-nosing. It’s not women’s fault that they are taught to seek men’s approval first, but come on ladies, it doesn’t make sense for you to openly disapprove of all things feminist. It makes you seem insecure and afraid to question a system which is so blatantly built up in someone else’s interest.
Those are some great comments, especially coming from a lady.
I appreciate them very much. Thank you!
Ugh, feminism. I believe in equality between the sexes. After all, God gave both Adam and Eve the commands to be fruitful and multiply and rule over the earth but there are certain things that are wired in a man and certain things wired in a woman. For so long, women were treated as less than and were abused and taken advantage of. Unfortunately, there are countries where this still happens. The efforts of women to not feel pushed down or less than has totally twisted gender roles. Most men are now emasculated, scared little boys who have no idea how to lead or provide and most women are angry and bitter that they can’t find a man who will respect them but it’s because they tend to walk all over them because of their fears. I have had to work so hard to shut my mouth and respect my husband because all I ever heard about was being a strong, independent woman! My husband has struggled to be the head of our home because he was talked down to and emasculated as a child by his overbearing mother. What is so sad about the typical women these days is that deep down, they truly want to be treated like a princess and be rescued by their knight. They are too afraid though to wait on God’s timing or trust in another person.
I’ve always had a lot of problems with feminism, especially with the “models”of it today (and that alone could serve as several blog entries, so I’ll spare you the novella). Hearing your side as a man is really eye-opening and appreciative. It proves one of feminisms most glaring problems that none of its followers will acknowledge: in its quest to supposedly make the world equal for woman, it has degraded so many men along the way and made the very politically incorrect move of judging (and even taking action) based on stereotypical assumptions of them at large. This is the kind of treatment *they* were getting that sparked such a movement to begin with.
It’s all one big hypocritical mess.