The Price Of Feminism

I read an article earlier this week by Kathryn Jean Lopez titled What Feminism Wrought over at National Review. Kathryn always has a great take on feminism, family issues, and religion, among other things. In the article she states:

What has happened — and what Rihanna and Chris have to do with Gloria and us — is that by inventing oppression where there is none and remaking woman in man’s image, as the sexual and feminist revolutions have done, we’ve confused everyone. The reaction those kids had was unnatural. It’s natural for us to expect men to protect women, and for women to expect some level of physical protection. But in post-modern America, those natural gender roles have been beaten by academics and political rhetoric and the occasional modern woman being offended by having a door opened for her. The result is confusion.

And perhaps, too, a neo-feminist backlash.

The need for some return to sanity is presented pretty clearly in an article in the April issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. The article details how some women find themselves leaving men in favor of relationships with partners of their own gender.

One recently divorced academic describes what attracted her to a future female lover. “She got up and gave me the better seat, as if she wanted to take care of me. I was struck by that,” she said. “I felt attracted to her energy, her charisma. I was enticed. And she paid the bill. Just the gesture was sexy. She took initiative and was the most take-charge person I’d ever met.”

This article isn’t about closeted homosexuality. It’s not making the case that there is a vast population of women who were born to be with women, who are instead trapped in unfulfilling heterosexual arrangements. No, this article, despite its celebration of unconventional lifestyles, boils down to something much more orthodox: Femininity and masculinity mix well together. And women are taking masculinity where they can get it, even if that’s in the arms of another woman.

The women interviewed in the article appear to want someone to take charge a bit — there is an attraction to, if not a need for, some hierarchy. And in a culture in which masculinity — well, at least in men — is so often suspect, some women seem to be looking to reinvent the masculine themselves.

I always hate the idea of building up one race, gender, culture, etc. at the expense of the other. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear in church someone talking about Adam and Eve, and always having to take some kind of shot at males, or the way in which Adam responds to God when God comes to visit them in the Garden of Eden after they had partaken of the fruit. Building up women does not mean we have to tear down men. Goodness knows that we men already do a good enough job of doing that on our own as it is. We do not need everyone pointing out every flaw that belongs to the male gender.

I really like her point about how embedded within each of our gender's are unique identities and characteristics that allow us to seek out one another to make ourselves whole. Just as Paul says, "neither is man without the woman, neither the without the man, in the Lord" (1 Cor 11:11). The idea is that we form complements to one another in the creation of a perfect union that brings us ultimately closer to God. These points are also emphasized and reinforced in the Family Proclamation issued by the church to the world. It says:

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose...

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. "Children are an heritage of the Lord" (Psalms 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

Anyway, her main point is a good one - feminism has worked so hard to eliminate any conceivable differences between men and women that there is very little mutual desire to build up the opposite gender. Men should naturally want to build up and support women, and the same is also true for women, but in today's culture it's more competition than cooperation with one another, and this in turn leads more often to contention than affection.