The problem with feminism and someone to celebrate instead

Today is "Women's Equality Day" -- it also happens to be the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the franchise (the right to vote).

I'm not so sure it is a day to celebrate. I don't suppose most of us want to give back the right to vote, even when we are presented with the choice between dumb and dumber. Nor do I suppose that most of us who necessarily earn a paycheck for working outside of the home are disappointed that we make the same as our male colleagues for the same work and the same experience. Although I do have to make a point here of saying the "wage gap" between men and women which we *still* hear about is largely a feminist accounting trick which disappears when you consider the time spent on the job on an ongoing basis (men tend to work more overtime than women) and the overall years spent on the job (women take time off to bear and raise their children - a very good thing!).

Aside from a few legal victories, I have to wholeheartedly agree with Dorothy L Sayers when she said, approximately fifteen years after we got the right to vote over on this side of the pond, that feminism had largely outlived its usefulness and that, if it went ahead, it would do more harm than good. And she was right. The problem with feminism, as with all "progressive" movements, is that they seldom know that to which they are progressing. In consequence of this, they don't know when to stop.

I had a short FB conversation (on a friend's FB page) with someone I don't know. Here is her response to my caution about celebration the day:

As one who proudly lived through and reveled in the feminist movement, I find it difficult to understand the vehement opposition on the part of younger women.

I didn't mean to pick a fight so I called a halt to it after a few rounds. But really -- reveled? proudly lived through? Are we walking about the lies of Betty Friedan? The shared narrative created by Consciousness Raising groups? So, I responded in part:

Perhaps it is because the few children that feminist had have found that husbands make better fathers than Uncle Sam, contraceptives are a bad bargain, practices like co-ed dorm bathrooms and bedrooms and the co-ed military leave women physically vulnerable to men who are stronger, even when they are drunk.

And it's true. Even if some of the legal victories are worth celebrating, the social consequences are not. Since Betty Friedan created her "problem with no name" poverty has become feminized, consisting largely of female-headed families with no father in sight. The sexual promiscuity enabled by widely available birth control has led to newer and more terrible and more frequently occurring sexually transmitted infections. The list goes on. On the FB page, I also responded with a short reply about how OCP affects a woman's judgments on the intangibles and that she takes more sexual risks, choosing men as partners she wouldn't normal choose and then closed by saying I would rather be rescued by a 6'2" 190-pound male firefighter who passed the tests under the old standards than the 5'7" 130-pound woman who passed under the new standards which have been lowered as a result of, ahem, equal rights.

That's the problem with progressive movements. They never stop with what they initially fight for. If I saw a 6'2" 190-pound female firefighter with broad shoulders coming to my rescue, I wouldn't worry so much. But not enough women were passing under the old physical standards so they had to be lowered. The same has occurred in policing and the military. Equality is never really about equality, it's about bringing men down where women cannot (and, honestly, should not) compete. Her response to my final word, after the usual blather about respecting my opinion, was this:

What troubles me is educated women casting judgment on other women, whether it has to do with their choice and/or number of sexual partners or casting doubt on a woman's ability to do a job she has trained to do. No one travels through this life unscathed by a bad choice or difficult decision. We should be applauding others rather than casting doubt on motives or ability.

Now, first of all, I did not judge any woman or her sexual choices, whether number or quality. I simply outlined one of the consequences of OCP -- something that is well documented in the literature. This points up one of the problems of feminism/progressivism/liberalism. Consequences translates to makiing an improper judgment. Though I know the concept is terribly over-used, the truth of the matter is that ideas *do* have consequences. However, progressives demand not only equality, they also demand a pre-determined outcome as a result of their ideas. Life just doesn't work that way when you have the wrong anthropology, the wrong philosophy and most especially, the wrong theology.

Instead of revelling in rebellion, why not celebrate someone who gave her life to the ones no one else cared about. A diminutive woman who had the courage to stand up to Bill Clinton and tell him the truth. A woman who gave her life to mother the motherless, even though she bore no children of her own. A woman who persevered through many a long dark night and smelly, germ-laden, hot and humid day.

Instead, I plan to Celebrate Mother Teresa's 100th Birthday

I am no man. You look upon a woman!

I took one of those silly Facebook quizzes again tonight. This one, "Which race of Middle Earth are you?" No surprise I came out "Race of Men - Rohirrim".

Which means that, once again, I am Ewoyn.

And watch it, mister. I do actually know how to use that bow and arrow.

Links forged of spider's silk and hardened steel

There was a bit of a flurry this week in the blogosphere when several bloggers broke open the news that Jim Wallis, de facto leader of the "Evangelical Left", had been taking money from George Soros. You know him, he's the guy who has given, through various organizations, tens of millions to the radical left organizations like "MoveOn.org". But poor Wallis sputtered and protested a bit too much - parsing his defence in a way that would make President Clinton proud (no, the elected President Clinton, not the unelected coPresident Clinton). Until the documents started disappearing, the evidence was there in black and white pixels for all to see. If you want to follow the rabbit trails, start here or here .

Now the reason I am spilling any electronic ink on Wallis and Soros is because it was a light bulb moment for me this week when I started reading about that. I started thinking about the web of links surrounding "Christians" for Biblical Equality, which tries to present itself as not just "Christian" but in the mainstream of Evangelical Christianity. The funny thing about the links is that they appear very flimsy, a bit like spider's silk. But they are spun around and around and around and pretty soon, it begins to look a bit stronger. Then, when you consider how many little links there are and how CBE used to try to hide those links (they stopped selling books by Jann Aldridge Clanton after a public fuss was made by this blogger and others about her hymns to "Our Great Creatress" and her own links to "HerChurch" in San Francisco), they don't appear concerned about them any longer.

Sojourners is an important link regarding CBE because Mimi Haddad (president of CBE) is also a featured blogger on Sojourner's "God's Politics" blog. So it begins with a link to the religious left which is linked to further leftist and openly pro-abortion funding. But that isn't CBE's only link to pro-abortion views. They still sell the books of Mrs. Stanley Gundry who, if you ask her point-blank, will deny she supports abortion rights, but her writings here and here show that to be a semantic ploy.

Abortion, being the natural consequence of the feminist agenda, it is not surprising to find links to other aspects of that agenda, including the leveling of sexual difference that occurs when we attempt to normalize the abnormal and support same sex "marriage". Feminism isn't only about sexuality and denying our differences as humans. The divine target of the agenda is God Himself. And here we find CBE's profile of one of their bloggers and Mutuality authors whose website is linked in her profile. Here we have the denial that children are a blessing, at least not a blessing she wants bestowed on her, she has much more important work to do than raising children. No, as with so many in religious feminism, her books are her children. But then, what else can you expect from those who worship a hermaphroditic gawdy?

So it begins to look like a well-spun web, doesn't it? Whether the religious feminists are akin to Lenin's useful idiots or whether they are knowledgeable tools - the agenda of the forces behind religious feminism is clear for those willing to look.

I agree with the headline on Marvin Olasky's article linked above - let's admit who we are.

Your not so humble correspondent sings her own praises . . .

You all know by now that I have strong opinions. You may not be easily convinced though, when I tell you I am usually willing to be proven wrong. Today, however, my aim is to show my single gentlemen readers what they are missing in a wife by not pursuing moi (she blushes coily).

It's still hot today, but the kitchen was reasonably cool and the nights are cooling and this always triggers a nesting reaction in me. I've never really had spring fever, except around the time of my birthday, I usually do go out in search of some new makeup. However, I have always, as long as I can remember, gotten horrible fall fever. The moment you can feel that tinge in the air, I start craving days cool enough to wear a sweater and I start paging through my cook books. I begin to bake bread again (something which summer heat usually deters) and experimenting with soups and stews. I start nesting in a bad way. But the achy-est part is not having someone who appreciates my culinary endeavours.

Today I again experimented with my favorite cookbook, The Flavor Bible and came up with three gems:

Shrimp poached in a sauce of butter/olive oil, orange juice, fresh Thyme and Capers

Flageolet Beans with Thyme, Garlic, lemon juice and olive oil

Greek Yogurt sauce with sauteed red peppers

Later on, I think I may have to bake a loaf of bread and there is some fresh fennel and spinach which both require something like steaming or sauteing - haven't decided yet. I might even throw caution to the wind and put them together in something magical.

SCORE!!!

You know that point in a major spring cleaning/room overhaul project where you've become convinced you've thrown the one thing away that you now know you absolutely can't live without? And it gnaws at you and gnaws until, three days later, after you're tired of trying to forget it, you tear through all the boxes and nooks and crannies until . . .

You find it after all?

Just did it. Found all three of the books I couldn't figure out what I'd done with. And the bonus is that the storage closet in my study is now reorgnized (for the third time in as many weeks) and now I can set about culling and filing in an organized manner all the financial papers, articles and journals that I want to keep -- and boxes of books I can't bear to part with but have no shelf space for will line the floor.

Now, it's off to the shower and then to girls' night out at the Ice Cream "parlour"!

Where are the men?

After watching yet another one of "those" discussions on another blog and judging from my experience and observations, I've come to some rather grand conclusions:

First, the vast majority of men worth marrying manage to get themselves successfully married early in life and stay that way. Of the remaining men, 99% aren't worth more than five minutes of your time. Trust me. He's either a "bad boy" looking for the proverbial "love of a good woman" to turn him around or he's a whiner fussing about the lack of "good Christian women" (trust me, in this case, the demographics don't lie, he does - there are far more women than men looking for a spouse) or he's licking a near fatal wound that, had it been treated early, would have healed well. If he's divorced and his spouse is still living, give him a pass. Trust me. If he also has children, give him a pass and a very wide berth. Trust me, really.

Now this leaves us with about 2 in 1000 of the general adult male population. You may, by a great deal of guiding by God and wise married friends, find the one of those two that is worth marrying and, indeed, wants to marry.

The other one? He may prove to be a great friend who will buy you champagne on your birthday, but he's never going to be interested in anything involving rings and vows and lifetime commitments. He's a born bachelor.


Addendum: I have thoroughly enjoyed the series of posts from Doug Wilson of which this is a stellar example. It's a simple, yet vital distinction. If more men learned this . . .

Where are the Children?

According to some religious feminists, their "children" are the books they are writing. The late John Paul II famously uttered the condemnation, "a culture of death". And that is exactly what we have with the religious feminists. They trumpet on their blogs their decision to surgically render themselves barren because they are concerned that the hormones they have been consuming to make themselves medically barren may fail and, horror or horrors, they might become pregnant! Then, of course, they have the option of abortion, tearing their little one limb from limb and removing him from the place of safety by the piece, counting to make sure all of him is truly dead and gone from her body. But abortion is messy and bloody and ever so gauche because it indicates a failure of the myth that sex, that gift of the Author of life by which we most closely mirror Him as Creator, can safely be made sterile.

So, though I doubt the late pontiff had the sort of religious feminists published by CBE and CT on his radar, he certainly had the culture pegged.

It all points to the perennial problem of religious feminists. This is the fear of lesser authorities, God's shepherds, overseers, His vice regents, as it were. They hate submission to anyone but the self - witness their posts about "my truth" and their postmodern hermeneutics. But they also fear the submission of those who place themselves under authority, willingly and with humility. The men who are faithful shepherds may be hated, but the women who humbly submit are despised.

Their "children" are books and blogs which, rather than growing into the faith, into maturity steadily lead where their ideas lead - to darkness, death and increasingly self-delusional heresies. It is a culture of death more powerful than any of them are willing to admit or, likely, able to recognize.

The culture of death is a culture with no authority but the self. The culture of life acknowledges the authority which stands outside the self, the One who gives life and commands submission to His will, His words, and His vice regents.

Romans 1:20-25, NAS

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what was made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their heart to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen

Another Clever Logo (I never would have guessed its hidden meaning)

I can't wait to buy the book

Why Ministers Must be Men by Douglas Wilson. Today's snippet from Blog and Mablog:

"While falling, a number of people have the temporary sensation of absolute freedom, and they seek to use that freedom in the creation and pursuit of various sexualities. And that is why we are now dealing [with] metrosexuals, sodomites, catamites, lesbians, virtual perverts, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals -- not to mention the ecclesiastical variants, the lesbyterians. Sometime in the next ten years, look for more interesting variations to push to the front of the line, all demanding societal respectability -- pederasty and bestiality included. Because all this is a function of sexual postmodernism, we should simply call all of it pomosexuality. You cannot believe that ultimate reality is ultimately malleable, and yet not believe the world we live in is equally malleable" (Why Ministers Must Be Men, p. 48).

Who are you calling sexist?

I'll admit it, I have very little patience for women in politics -- especially the sort of woman who wants to have her cake and eat it too in the sexist name-calling game. First, we weren't supposed to vote for Ken Buck because he made a crack about not wearing high heels. Then we are supposed to vote for Jane Norton because she's a conservative? Because she's pro-life? No, because she's a woman.

That's a bit like the sexist pot calling the reverse sexist kettle black, isn't it?

So, it is with a little bit of snickering that I heard the news tonight that, despite all the support she got from the Susan B. Anthony list and the heavy-handed use of Buck's crack about high heels, Jane Norton lost to Ken Buck in the Colorado Republican Senate primary.

feh.