Enter the Feminists
I do not like very many people.
I know that sounds awful – me being in ministry and all – but it’s true. Let’s just say that God’s still working on me, and that bit about loving my neighbor as myself is one area where I’m in need of remedial help.
Not to make excuses, but I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with this. In fact, there was once a great church leader for whom I wrote a book. A mutual friend told him I might be able to help him, and his first question to my friend was, “Do you think I’ll like him?”
My friend’s response was, “Probably at first, but then you’ll get to know him. That’s usually when you stop liking people.”
Sounds familiar. Oh, and it was true – mutually.
Perhaps all those critical thinking skills my elementary school teachers tried to impart work a little too well. All I know is that I sure can think critically – about nearly everything and everyone. My friend Tim Spivey once told me, “You could walk up to the world’s largest piece of Swiss cheese and spend all day complaining about all the holes!”
He’s right. I see the holes. I spot the mistakes. And – what’s worse – I enjoy finding the flaws.
I’m not sure if it’s gotten worse over the years, but I do find it interesting that there’s an entire industry devoted to publicizing the ill-advised words and actions of people now. TMZ. The Smoking Gun. FAILblog. Let a celebrity have one bad hair day. Let a politician misspeak one time. We are all one mistake away from having our 15 minutes of shame.
I do not like very many people, and we are all prepared to laugh at the humiliating misfortune of one another. I think it was Chekhov who said the main difference between humans and animals is that humans will laugh at one another’s pain.
And this is where I turn the post from a lighthearted, self-deprecating reflection on yet another of my many foibles into an insightful commentary on the state of our world.
We do not like very many people. In fact, our dislike may be perilously close to downright hatred. We do not like very many women, for example. Society seems to be giving off the impression that if they’re not smooth-skinned, large-breasted, tiny-derriered sex machines then there must be something wrong with them. We especially do not like smart women. They are allowed to have a strong opinion, in a sassy sort of way, but they are not allowed to have thought through their arguments very well. Not if they want to make it to People Magazine’s list of the most beautiful women in the world.
Oprah Winfrey somehow managed to be granted an exemption, but I’m pretty sure she’s the exception that proves the rule.
Give us vapid, compliant, eye-candy women, and we’ll come back begging for more. Until there’s a lapse in judgment of some sort, of course. Then we’ll set upon them like jackals. Let them tell us how they voted and why, and, once we’re done verbally abusing them, they shall forever be stricken from the record.
The sad reality is that most women are not like this foolish ideal. Thus, we, as a society, do not like very many women. In fact, we seem to hate most women. That’s why we’re trying to kill them. With our nonundelow foods (non-dairy, unsweetened, decaffeinated, low-fat), we suck cellulite out of hips and inject collagen into lips, convincing women they’re fat or flat or just plain plain. And it’s killing them.
An estimated seven million women in America suffer from eating disorders. Ninety-five percent of them are between the ages of 12 and 25. Eighty percent of American women say they are dissatisfied with their appearance and shape. Half of the women in this country are currently on a weight loss diet.
Electrolyte imbalances from taking diuretics, racing heartbeats from taking diet pills, Sudden Death Syndrome from crash dieting and/or binging and purging – these kill hundreds of women each year. Some weight loss surgeries themselves kill as many as one in every 200 patients.
Society does not like very many women. And, though you may have come a long way, baby, this is still in many ways a man’s, man’s, man’s world.
And so, it would seem inevitable that voices would arise, placing the blame of all this societal evil squarely on the shoulders of men. A man. The man. Any man.
Enter the feminists.
Tell me: How do you define the word “feminism”?
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
A feminist is someone who believes that women should have equal opportunities and that the equality should be enforced by law. I consider myself a feminist.
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Being relatively unfamiliar with the law down under (Wendy lives in Australia), I can’t say for certain whether or not you’ve achieved equality there, but, to my knowledge, women are treated equally under the law here in the USA. So, legally, we’re there. But we’re far from equality in the actual marketplace.
Tell me, Wendy, why are you a feminist?
November 4th, 2009 at 12:52 am
For me, a humanist is a person who believes in equal treatment under the law, but a feminist is a person who believes women are equal to, or in some instances, better than men in all aspects of being. Feminists have told us that we not only do not need to be married, have children, or fulfill the “traditional” role of women in society, but that it is a bad thing if we do. I think they started with good intentions – to prove that women can work just like men do, and they can be perfectly happy without a spouse or children. Somewhere along the way, though, they forgot about one thing – human nature. Women are different from men, and we exhibit those differences in so many aspects of our lives. Women share their feelings, they take things personally, especially in the workplace, they do have an innate ability to nurture, and they are excellent caretakers. (All generalizations – some women stink at housework [like me]). Both feminists, non-feminists, men, and sci-fi geeks all need to remember that God gave us the masculine and feminine in nature for a reason. We can be happy and fulfilled in God individually, but the pairing of the masculine and feminine within a God-centered relationship brings a wholeness that no -ism can describe. (See C.S. Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength” for more). -please forgive the rambling.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:05 am
JAT, I am a feminist because God did not create us to be second class citizens. The ministry of Jesus empowered women, not oppressed them. In my first job as a high school teacher way back in 1980, I was paid 3/4 of the salary men were paid. That was not so long ago!
November 4th, 2009 at 11:03 am
JAT,
A feminist for me will always will be my maternal grandmother.
Born in 1911, the only child of an Emory educated surgeon. Her father did house calls in a horse and buggy, sometimes accepting chickens, eggs, or whatever the family could afford as payment. In high school her father taught her to assist during emergency surgeries sometimes done in the middle of the night at the patient’s home. She showed great skill because of her calm demeanor, delicate hands that could reach into places he could not, and aptitude for tying knots to close wounds.
When she graduated high school her father went to the board of directors at Emory only to be told, “We don’t teach women to be doctors, we can teach her to be a nurse.” Infuriated, her father told her, “You are too smart to be changing bedpans for the rest of your life.” He enrolled her in a business school (for women) to learn how to keep accounting books.
She went on to marry and have children and help her husband start a business selling cars. She kept the books and did much of the financial paperwork while the business was growing. He eventually opened his own Buick dealership. Her husband was known to tell his friends. “I never would have made a dime if it weren’t for my wife, she’s the one who handled the money.”
When my Grandfather died suddenly in 1970, she wanted to take over the dealership to keep it going, only to be told, “General Motors does not give dealerships to women.” She even had to get her eldest son to cosign on a credit card because the credit card companies didn’t allow women to solely own credit cards at that time.
She played every unfair card that was dealt to her and managed to flourish despite her gender. But, I wonder how things might have turned out if she have been given a fair chance.
In both cases she had the knowledge, skills, an aptitude to do a good job, in the case of the dealership she had already been doing the job. But, she didn’t have the gender. So, the “not liking some people” part is the same old song, only the tune has changed. And, speaking of changing tunes, women went to dangerous lengths in the name of beauty back then too. Grandmother remembers the whale bone corset. Has plastic surgery become the new whale bone corset? At least one could remove the corset, but, then again I’ve never heard of someone fainting in public because of their…..implants.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Stephani, I think you make a really good point here: A Humanist believes in the innate equality of all humans; a Feminist believes in the superiority of women.
Now, I realize that very few feminists would agree to this definition, but that would certainly make sense linguistically (and, as a writer, I’m keen on using words well). But this would not only require re-defining the term “feminism” but also “humanism” (which has traditionally meant attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters).
So, in this view, most people who consider themselves feminists are actually humanists. Hmmm….
November 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am
There is hardly _one_ definition of feminism, but I think the emphasis on law and equality doesn’t do justice to the term. Doesn’t feminism, among other things, seek to identify the many ways in which the story of “who we are” as a society, culture, nation, etc. (loaded words, I know) is predominantly told from a masculine perspective? It’s completely unconscious, so feminism at its best tries to find the feminine voice where it has previously been absent. (Or am I thinking too much of feminist criticism in theology, of which I got a healthy dose at seminary?)
By the way, I strongly reject that there are any interesting or meaningful innate differences (aside from sex organs) between men and women. I believe it’s socialized and acculturated to the extent that it may as well be biological, but it’s not. In other words, women are not innately more or less anything than men. And vice versa… except physical strength, but that goes back to differences in reproduction, from what I understand.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Wait…Brent…are you saying John Gray is wrong? Men aren’t from Mars and Women aren’t from Venus?
I agree that feminism has recently become preoccupied with retelling history from a feminine perspective. This has some good and some negative consequences — particularly in the way it suggests that history is completely perspectival. That’s a very postmodern construction, and I have some pretty serious qualms about advocating that approach.
On your rejection of innate differences between the sexes, I agree that most of the things we traditionally consider “masculine” and “feminine” are socially constructed. However, I would caution us not to conflate the terms “equal” and “identical”. Genesis 1 shows us that male and female are equal; Genesis 2 shows us that they are not identical but, rather, complimentary. Thus, there must be some innate differences between the two, right?
November 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
some of the more radical feminists certainly do focus on their perception of female “superiority” — while others, like Brent suggests, focus on the fact (I think it’s a fact, anyway) that women’s experiences and stories (like elizabeth’s beautiful one above) have not been told. Rather, I would suggest that in general, Feminism highlight the specific, separate, “other” experiences of women.
re: postmodern history — there are dangers in every approach. But I do believe women’s stories are largely absent from our “recorded” histories. As are the stories of other “outsider” groups. and that’s something that should continue to be rectified.
Personally I believe there have to be some innate differences between the sexes. If nothing else, the hormones that stimulate the formation of testes or ovaries, are psychotropic. They must cause some type of hardwiring differences. What they are, and how that could be differentiated between the effects of nurture, remains a mystery.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
The way I see feminism defined by some feminists seems to be “women who are angry they are not men”.
I don’t mean women want the same benefits or pay for the same work as a man. I mean women who demand equality in things which are not equal.
Scientific research has shown men have greater upper body strength than women, yet there are women demanding lower standards to be admitted to be a firefighter. I know which I would rather have carry me out of a burning building.
Again, research shows women tend to be more compassionate and nurturing, particularly to their own babies, yet feminists contend that ANYONE can care equally well for infants – all for the sake of being “equal” to men.
God created women with the physical capability to bear and nurse children. Men were created with greater physical strength. The feminists I see online appear to be angry with these differences and want to ignore them.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I think I will stay out of this one, do not want you disliking me. Anyway, great thoughts.