It's a Beautiful Disaster
2:26 PM
I come from a long line of strong women. From fiery Irishwomen with tempers like the raging sea, to sturdy, pioneer stock. The women in my family can take it as well as give it. And yet, I am coming to realize, in our battle for equality, we have lost something along the way. There’s softness, a gentleness that’s lacking in the way we address others. It’s not that it’s not there; it’s just that in embracing the man’s world, we have hardened ourselves to much of our womanliness. We can no longer be seen as “soft.” We play hardball. We are harsh, critical, and oftentimes vindictive. We’ve lost the only thing that made us different: our femininity.
I so often hear from women ,(most especially the Christian crowd), that there are no good guys out there; that men are spineless losers who sit idly in front of their TV’s and let life pass them by. They have no dreams, no goals, nothing of significance to put their name to. When they are confronted by a female, they role over like a kicked dog. I have even found myself in these moan sessions. But lately, I have begun to wonder how much of this is our fault. Ladies, we’ve lost our sense of who God created us to be. We’ve lost the wonder that is femininity! We’ve become so focused on our own power play that we’ve left our kids behind at home, relegated our husbands to a backseat role and have even shaped our church into a potpourri smelling, touchy feely, manmare.
The divorce rate is skyrocketing, and let’s be honest, who would want to live with some of us?! We’re slowly creating yet another generation of men who are being raised by their mothers.
For the “single ladies”, there’s an even worse situation. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard men say that it’s cheaper to date than to hire a prostitute. We’ve sold our bodies for dinner and a movie. We claim we can date like men; that it’s no problem just to sleep around. We are free, independent, powerful females; hear us roar!!! More often I hear you sobbing your eyes out, because you didn’t understand why he didn’t respect you and now he’s gone. Was our grandma really so off with her saying, “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?” It sounds hilarious, sure, but what are we telling men? What kind of power have you got when he’s taken all you ever had to give and he never even had to lift a finger to fight for you?
I said we’ve lost something along the way, but I think I’m wrong. We have lost everything. We’ve lost our identities, our families, our strong men, and even our sense of God. God is a father, a man, is He not? How can we claim to respect and revere Him, when we obviously don’t respect the men in our lives?
And yet, I wholeheartedly believe there is a way back. It’s a long road, and most of us will always be at least a little bit influenced by our feministic backgrounds, but, we can at least step forward so that our kids don’t grow up in as messed up a culture as we did. We do have power and great natural influence. The guys in our lives care about what we think! They actually like to please us! What if we began to build them up, instead of tearing them down? What if we told our guy friends, boy friends, dads and brothers all the things we brag about behind their backs? (You know you do it girls!) What if we said to their face that we see how hard they work; that we notice when they mow the lawn; we see when they help out a friend who’s having a hard time and we think they’re rock stars for it. What if we gave them that respect we’ve been striving so hard to grasp hold of? If we want to see the guys in our lives become the men we believe they have all the potential of becoming, let’s start encouraging them and praying for them and cheering them on, instead of ragging on them and making them feel insignificant and useless. They’re worth it, aren’t they? And so are we.
~Rachel
5 comments
Hmm - interesting thoughts, Rachel. It’s something I’ve been thinking about myself too…
ReplyDeleteAs a bloke, I have a fair bit of sympathy with feminism - in so far as I think that women are equally deserving of respect as men are. (That’s not the same thing as saying that women are “equal to” or the same as men, which is clearly rubbish). Historically, women have indeed had a rough ride in our world, and things have needed and still need to be done about that. Who’s going to argue that the vote should be taken off women, or that they should be pushed out of the workplace?
But yeah, if by feminism you mean the thing where women are always setting out to “outmale” the males, and then they act surprised when the men in their lives have no sense of purpose or direction, you’re totally spot on. If I ask the majority of married men I know if they’re free to do something, they’ll say “sounds good, I just need to ask ‘the boss’ first”. Obviously, that’s very considerate and appropriate for someone in a long term relationship, but it’s a pretty good gauge of who’s wearing the trousers when their other halves would never ever use the same language in reverse! Some of these women tell me that they want men who are decisive and take charge – but the reality is they’ve taken de facto charge of everything, so there’s really nothing left for the blokes to be in charge of or be decisive about!
There’s a lot of Christian books around these days that are saying the solution is to go back to the days when women were fairy tale princesses, and men dragged their knuckles and clubbed people over the head. I’m not convinced – the world has changed, and last I checked, the ideal man (i.e. Jesus) behaved nothing like a macho caveman (c.f. Philippians 2). But if women gave the men in their lives a bit of respect, and a bit of space to actually be men, then yeah, I think we might move things forward.
Thanks for provoking some thought :-)
Thank you Paul! Yes, I do indeed mean the radical turn feminism has taken us, not the original political and free initiatives. And obviously, this is directed at the Western half of our world as in the East, the women are so very societally oppressed! And I totally agree that some of the solutions put out there border on the ridiculous! If we are truthful, we can't change ourselves one bit but rather be aware of the changes that God would like to provoke in our lives. That's really my heart. I know so many guys that are just so great and yet really under-appreciated. Would be great if us girls woke up and saw that :). Thank you for the great insights!
ReplyDeleteNo worries - good subject to chew on :-)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I was thinking further about your grandmother's "why buy the cow" philosophy – and I was thinking I should say there’s something that troubles me about it. I’m with her on the whole traditional Christian "wait until you're married" part of the sentiment - but there's something about the implication that "sex is the carrot that must be kept on the end of the stick in order to get a man to commit" that I'm a bit queasy about – sounds rather like using sex for manipulative purposes to me! I think that wanting sex is quite a poor reason to get married...
But I haven’t exactly thought through my own “wait until you’re married” philosophy, so I’ll give your gran a bye ball on that one. I’m with you on 90% of what you’re saying :-)
"The Flipside of Feminism" by Phyllis Schlafly makes some good points on the subject.
ReplyDeleteHere's her list of the Ten Feminist Commandments:
1. Thou shalt have lots of sex with lots of different men.
2. Thou shalt be allowed to have an abortion at any time for any reason.
3. Thou shalt ignore thy biological clock and, if necessary, create new methods of conception.
4. Thou shalt pursue demanding careers and pay other women to raise thy children.
5. Thou shalt not feel guilty about pursuing demanding careers and paying other women to raise thy children.
6. Thou shalt be allowed to divorce at any time and keep custody of the children.
7. Thou shalt be artificially inseminated if thou doesn't get married but still wants children.
8. Thou shalt belittle men until their manhood is gone.
9. Thou shalt not take thine husband's name.
10. Thou shalt demean all full-time homemakers and conservative women.
Stunning speach, Rachel. I'm excited.
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