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atheism, blogging, faith, feminism, healing, hope, insanitybytes22, men and women, misogyny, relationship
There’s this little blogging round robin going on, feminism versus faith, misogyny, atheism, and wolves and sheep, oh my. I’m going to decline to link to any of it, because frankly I am just weary of the whole sordid tale. Of course, not so weary that I am unable to get in the last word. 🙂
First off, a great deal of modern feminism is misogynistic, harmful and damaging to women. Then there are the even darker aspects, which I’ve written about before, agendas which have nothing to do with the betterment of women’s lives. That is the truth.
Whenever you get into these discussions, non believers, especially the feminist kind of non believer, is sure to put forth the standard list of quotes that clearly prove Christianity is misogynistic. Enter Tertullian, a useful tool for this exercise. See, Tertullian used some words that seem contemptuous of women, therefore all of Christianity since has been hateful towards women. I can take the words apart, the poor translations, write a dissertation about some of the misunderstandings going on, but I’ve done that a thousand times before.
Here’s the real deal, however. It’s simply not rational to search the entire world until you come to the year 200 AD and manage to locate yourself the recently converted son of a centurion who once wrote something that can be interpreted as misogynistic. It is even more irrational to now take that info and allow it to separate you from the love of your Father, deny yourself salvation, and become an evangelizing atheist. That’s just sad.
In fact, when I really think about it, how amazing it is that you had to search the entire world all the way back to the year 200 AD before you could find a good quote to confirm your bias that Christianity is really inherently misogynistic!
Well shoot, if only you had thought to call me! I have a huge collection of odd quotes from assorted modern cult leaders, red pills, and outright misogynistic Christians. I also have hundreds of thousands of kind and gentle healing words, and a culture build on Christian values that has handed women more rights and freedoms then we’ve ever enjoyed anywhere in the world, throughout all of human history.
Christianity is the best thing to have ever happened to women. The quality of women’s lives in nations that embrace Christian values is clear evidence of that.
I am far more interested in biology, in studying relationships between men and women, in observing what is innate to us along gender lines, versus what is learned behavior. Nurture, nature, culture, biology. Observing men and women in their natural habitat. I’m not interested in feminism at all, feminism is all politics and a bit cultian, too.
So here is one problem that pops up a lot, the personhood of women. Women as actual full human beings, complex creatures having worth and value all of our own, and many men’s frequent inability to recognize this to our satisfaction. Yes, that’s a real thing in the world, part biology and part learned behavior. Women desire to be seen in men’s eyes as actual people, girl-people, but made in the image of God just as men are. Men often perceive us in a more utilitarian manner, how we are useful to them.
I tend to cut men a great deal of slack here, to apply some grace and make accommodations, because with some exceptions, it is seldom a hostile act. It is usually a communication failure, a gender quirk, a misunderstanding. Men are often more action oriented, more linear in their thought, utilitarian. There have been times in my marriage I have been mom, wife, bookkeeper, housekeeper, shopper, chore-doer, and not an actual person at all. A utility. An accessory. A useful item to have around.
Personhood can be an odd concept to try to communicate to men about because they are usually born into it. They know of nothing else. There are broken, wounded men in the world, just beat down by life, but seldom will you ever find them pondering whether or not they actually exist as a person. You will find that in many, many women. Women feeling erased, devalued, not seen. Women who are dearly loved and yet…feeling invisible.
Two men displayed this problem so perfectly this week, Pastor Wilson and Vox Day, an odd juxtaposition, I admit, but bear with me. Pastor Wilson has been running a series of posts about the evils of the world that all have a decidedly feminine flair. Suddenly he must have remembered that he actually likes women, because he mentioned the value of our biscuit making.
Yes, all of womanhood now reduced down to our ability to make biscuits. Very utilitarian. So utilitarian, I think I now hate biscuits.
Vox Day does a similar thing, he too, after endlessly writing about the horrors of women, seems to have suddenly realized we’re somewhat necessary for the future of Western civilization. So he blogs, “building the perfect women,” as if women were some kind of Weird Science experiment in a lab or something. Not an actual person, something all the nerds can gather around and create to their specifications. For the sake of Western civilization, of course.
Good grief. She’s a Person, Tertullian.
I can see how this conflict comes into being, the guy is simply trying to remember he likes your biscuits, but in the process he has now shrunk her down into something so small, so non human, so utilitarian. The entire nature of womanhood reduced down to a few biscuits. Why do men do this? I think most of them have no idea what they do, don’t even see the nature of themselves.
Than you have a woman feeling unseen, unloved, unrecognized and all the guy can see is that he just tried to praise her biscuits.
Those two are Christian men, but there are many atheist men saying the same darn things and much worse, men whose words clearly express they have no idea that women actually exist outside the context of biscuits, or in their case, as a useful tool to validate their own non belief system.
It’s maddening to me, because if you truly wish to be seen, to be known, to be made aware of your own worth and value, you need to see yourself as your heavenly Father does. Look at yourself reflected in His eyes. That is pure, unadulterated love. Unfortunately, both atheism and feminism tend to cut women off from that relationship, forcing us to look towards men for our validation. The problem being, flawed creatures that they are, all they can ever see is biscuits.
You can teach men how to be more sensitive, but you can never teach them how to perceive you quite like your heavenly Father does, and that relationship is the one that gives women our strength and also our gentleness.
So feminism is misogynistic because it seeks to tear women away from the Source of our own power, it separates us from our Father, and it robs us of healthy relationships with men.
But just the same, for crying out loud Tertullian, buy a clue. She’s a person.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
well, I think this is probably much deeper water than I care to wade as I see this argument, topic, concern, issue, etc…as maybe a place that I don’t have energy for…
as I find a lot of the fodder and verbiage just dumb….for the lack of a more sophisticated word.
Dumb is good here. For all those who rile against your words of what I perceive are truly of wisdom IB.
Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I’m fighting to be a certain person because of exactly what you say… I am may Father’s child / daughter…and I’m not speaking of earthly father here.
Yeah, I’ve been the utilitarian commodity of the household quite often…kind of like when my husband quips he’s just a trash man as I hand him the bag of garbage each morning and the sack of the scooped poop from the litter box in order to haul off to the dump on his way to work—or the fact that when he sees the mail he’ll grouses, “just call me bill” as in paying endless bills….
But I could be called scullery maid, gardener, chauffeur, chief bottle washer, comforter, irrational maelstrom, chef, hunter and gatherer….on and on it goes.
As all of that is part and parcel of life…we have various roles in life—and I suppose those roles ebb and flow depending on our age, our positions and who we are around…
I understand all about martyrs, abuse victims, and lost souls…but this is not that..this rather is to address the wider more benign bigger picture of all this feminism and misogynist jabbering…and I for one am sick of women, even men, crying foul over Christianity, Jesus, Paul, Peter even God for being sexist, haters of women, brutes, abusers and whatever else they’re calling them.
Like I say, I won’t wade deep…but I have known women who defined their worth by the man or men in their lives. I have known women who define their worth by their check book, I have known women who have been beaten down over years and of having no voice, I have known women who hate men…hate them for, I suppose, what they have perceived they have become because of what a man did or did not do…
So I get all of that…
but …
I’ve never referred to any woman as a bitch nor do I plan to start despite many who act the part. It is a degrading word, always has been and I don’t care if others no longer “get” that.
I have never used my body to get what I have wanted..I’ve thought too much of me and myself for such…I’d prefer to do without.
I have been sexually harassed, groped, and even had advances that I did not want or ask for or elude to… in the work place long before such became in vogue.
I have grown up and worked in a good ol boy networking long before much was thought of it.
I have worked hard in and outside of my home.
I have tried to balance it all, while failing miserably….
And I am not angry nor do I feel a need to prove myself or my worth…
and it goes to that very core of your words IB— I am my Father’s daughter…
and proud of it—
Jesus did not go to the cross for just the men on this planet….
Once again as human beings we build mountains of complications where no complication need be.
I’ll stop, not to muddy your already troubled waters on this topic as I will write about it myself in the future as not to waste anymore of your time…
but the bottom line here is not feminism nor misogyny, pills of any type of color nor rights vs choices—it is all about being a child of God…and of what that life and living entails…for it does not entail anger, hate, dispute, abuse, battery, or ever the sputum that flows out the hate filled mouths of those who now rally for all things woman….
I am a woman, not a man and I am good with that…I just wish others were as well….
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I love it, Julie! You are not wasting anyone’s time, you are like a breath of fresh air. You could not possibly muddy the waters anymore then they are already muddy. It is nice to have your words to hang onto. You said it all here, “it is all about being a child of God” Amen!
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I honestly think some men miss a woman’s personhood simply because of their single-minded focus. So, biscuits. Or whatever else is front and center at the moment. Crying child, maybe. Or getting to church on time.
Poor guys. I think it’s harder for them because so often they don’t get why their wife is upset. They didn’t mean to look past her to The Next Thing That Needs To Be Done.
I don’t think most men think about a woman’s personhood any more than they do their own.
Once when I was covering high school sports for a local paper I felt . . . discounted by a football coach of one of the teams I was covering. I suspect he thought a woman couldn’t possibly write about football. But he was the exception. Which makes me think the majority of guys are not intentionally disrespectful toward women. They’re just single-minded, task oriented.
Becky
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That’s perfect, Becky. I too believe the majority of guys really are just single minded, focused. Of course there’s always that lunkhead in the mix proving me wrong, but for the most part, they are just thinking of biscuits.
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WARNING: True Confession of a Formerly Confused Guy
“Why do men do this? I think most of them have no idea what they do, don’t even see the nature of themselves”.
I confess…self-exploration into the very ‘nature of myself’ was a fearful reality growing up. Specifically regarding that ‘nature’: I learned the conclusions that become a prominent conviction are greatly influenced by our individually unique environment.
Biologically, men have physical ‘equipment’ that drives certain urges that women are not ‘burdened’ by. You don’t have to be a scientific scholar to know that sexuality is quite different between the genders – although THAT fact is fast becoming merely ‘archaic taboo’. I’m Not ignorant to the reality that each gender struggles with their sexual identities, in many ways, I suppose its very hard to be perceived by men as mere objects or equipment.
Regardless, I fully reject any politically correct notion that sexual orientation or gender identity are intrinsic ‘natures’ we are born with. I do not wish to debate my convictions; I realize an ever increasing number of opinions disagree. I have only my personal experiences as evidence for my reality, but I am the ONLY ‘me’. I have seen many former gays, become fulfilled hetero-sexual spouses and parents as they converted to Christianity, dispelling the myth that such conversion is impossible. Those orientations are learned behaviors and can be changed by appropriate choices and surroundings.
To my original point – becoming a man is a scary trip, one for which ’nature’ simply does not prepare nor provide reliable direction. Consequently, each individual’s environment dictates what ‘teaches’ little boys about themselves and the opposite sex.
I always envied guys who had sisters. I thought they had a distinct advantage, having numerous opportunities to observe these magnificent creatures from the earliest of ages. My first contact was when I entered school. I got in immediate trouble because I very awkwardly ‘socked’ a girl on the shoulder as a means of introducing myself. The rebuke I got by her and Mother Superior resigned me to a self-made mental prison of solitude for the next couple of years. Girls were monsters with cooties – to be avoided at all cost.
Eventually, realizing my need for restraint and the development of a better strategy for approaching young ladies, I resolved to become impressive, rather than abrasive. BTW – I asked for adult help, but apparently the subject was taboo – at least in my circles of the Church of Rome and my Irish Catholic home.
Fast forward to second grade when my next encounter in a hopeful meeting burned such a desire in my heart that I spent sleepless nights planning a perfect introduction. My genius approach was to hide behind a bush and wait for her to ride by (on her bike), jump out (pretending to have been pushed – although no one but me was behind the bush)! Great idea, NOT. Of course she was scared, not delighted to see me (as I had foolishly dreamed), and reported my ‘abuse’. I automatically became ‘suspect numero uno’ by the nuns any time a girl cried wolf. Perhaps, rightfully so – I was clueless!
Sadly, many more wayward attempts at cross-gender relations continued, too many to list here. The culmination of my experiences (actually – LACK of appropriate experiences) led to the development of a long standing mind-set, that men are inferior to women. They’re so much smarter, happier, and it seemed to me – knew instinctively how to develop relationships and cleverly bait traps to catch us in.
Thankfully, I outgrew those impressions (although my wife of 40 years may still wonder). But, in retrospect, the sum of all the conversations I’ve had with both genders through the years has convinced me that it is the physiological make up that causes the ‘war of the sexes’, and ONLY a right relationship with God can produce a lasting right relationship with each other.
Apart from God’s enlightenment, we men do think of women as ‘equipment’ but really it stems from an unresolved enigma we are left to ponder by ourselves. Funny that attempts by Tertullian can be referenced on the subject, but few reason why the many women mentioned in the Bible were good role models, barring few examples like Jezebel.
In conclusion, I think whenever men demean women it is a cover-up for their suppressed feelings of inferiority and lack of accurate information about the true purpose God created male & female. Remember, everything God created He deemed ‘GOOD”. Equally true and readily observable – even the strongest, bravest man has an uncompromising love and resilient defense of his mother – a woman, after all!
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LOL! That was adorable, thanks for the memories. Poor little guys, I look back on all those childhood incidents and can see them all as attempts at communication, connection. At the time however, you’re simply confronted by this sociopathic creature who makes no sense what so ever. Girls simply do not do these things. We never see someone we like and decide, “let’s run by and throw mud at them.” While grown up boys are hopefully more refined, they never really grow out of that. 🙂
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Oh God, I was wondering if you read that Vox Day post. Looks like you did.
“Women ruin everything.”
“Women will save Western Civilization.”
Pick one. Or better yet, pick both and enjoy your fried ice.
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I did read it and my first thought was, “Well, Western civilization has had a nice run. It may be time to just let it go.” I jest of course, I love civilization, but if I believed that dystopian fantasy of theirs was the future, I’d hurl myself out of a turret.
Fried ice indeed. In the bible one might even call that trying to rope the wind or grasp oil in your right hand.
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Interesting to point out that Tertullian ended up as part of a heretical group called the Montanists. I wonder if his views on women came from there. I know lots like to point to texts in Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas which point out woman’s vulnerability and natural submissiveness as anti-female though in biological terms, that is accurate. St Teresa of Avila noted that women like her were easy to be deceived but nevertheless, this weakness opened another strength.
I think there is a theme here–there is vulnerability but in vulnerability comes strength and in strength comes vulnerability. Hence, Bl Mary of Agreda notes how unfortunate men are not to have this keen sense toward the faith as women are able to because of their intellectual insight.
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Yes they did. The Montanists were extremely anti-sexual and opposed marriage. Some of Tertullian’s Montanist writings get conflated with his Orthodox ones, so when quoting him, it’s always important to note what period he was writing in.
I think that I remember reading that Tertullian was married and was deeply devoted to his wife but she died at young age and he never remarried.
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I once read a translation of that letter to his wife and could see some sweetness hidden there. If you understand faith and the context in which he is speaking to her, it begins to make a lot more sense. Naturally atheists take the worst translation possible, remove the context, splice it together, and say, See! Tertullian said women are the gateway to hell.
Like most people, he was complicated.
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“Like most people, he was complicated”
I’m not complicated am I?
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LOL! Probably. Most of us are.
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There’s no getting away from it – men are not like us no matter how we change into gender neutral roles. In fact I see this blurring and blending moving us towards some Machiavellian monolithic society of droids – from which mention of God of is excluded. Fortunately God is everywhere!
I like how you say we can’t expect men as husbands to be like us or treat us with divine love. Man is not woman nor God and the existence of these three entities make up a trinity which could save many a relationship
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For your aspersion of being a “recovering” feminist, you still show a strong tendency to imitate their behaviour. A comparison might be made to the addict who can tell you why being an addict is wrong, but still indulges in their addiction.
The truth is that men are the architects of civilization. For the world to recover, men must make the decision, collectively, to recognize and to repair the mistakes of their forebears who gave women the vote, who gave in to feminism, and who have at every turn given ground to the interests of a covert cultural elite whose interests have nothing in common with that of the human race.
This means, in particular, identifying, quantifying, and analyzing the failings of particular groups of people in order to determine the correct remediation procedures. Modern western women are one of the most spectacularly affected groups, and discussing them in objective terms has nothing to do with whether or not they are people.
The fact that you take umbrage to men discussing you as a helpmate to be led, and not an equal whose permission must be asked in order to make executive decisions, shows just how much further you have to go before you can claim to be in “recovery” from feminism.
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“…shows just how much further you have to go before you can claim to be in “recovery” from feminism.”
Well, I’m totally disinterested in “claiming” anything. Makes no difference to me what others think or believe.
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Don’t bandy semantics. The meaning, that you are clearly not free of feminist programming, was very clear.
The question is whether or not you’re willing to actually do anything about it.
I couldn’t care less either way.
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Maximus, I have been married for 31 years. I have four kids and two grand kids. I write and talk to people all the time about the problems with feminism. Those things apparently are not enough to satisfy you, which leads me to conclude that nothing ever will.
Do you not believe women are people? Because that is what I have said, women are actual people. The fact that is in dispute in some quarters is actually quite disturbing and far more problematic than what you believe might be residual feminist programming lurking within a Christian mom and grandma.
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The “popularity”, persuasiveness, and persistence of feminist ideology has created a perpetual “winter of our discontent” among women. It has brainwashed women to actually AVOID the most enduring, fulfilling and rewarding relationships they can ever experience, with both Christian men and God. It is the biggest scam, ever unleashed on innocent, and unsuspecting, young women, in our entire recorded history. And I’m sure the Devil is laughing, at his unexpected success.
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Extremely well put. Although I suspect that the Devil expected success.
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I pray 😈 he didn’t. Otherwise, our Christian culture may be farther down the proverbial rabbit hole than even I suspect!
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I’ve tried to convey that to a few Tertullians. At least Wilson was talking about biscuits. There are some Tertullians who can’t get past the bedroom door. Women want to be valued, and their AFFECTION makes her feel that value. Sometimes I think we are speaking Venutian to them, because they just don’t get it, these masculine men so proud of who THEY are.
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