Tag Archives: Feminist

News

Why do feminist academics think that feminism has empowered women?

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NOTE: This post contains some adult language and themes.

Here is an article written by an academic feminist in the New York Times. (H/T Stuart Schneiderman)

Stuart exegetes the article:

In Bauer’s words: “If there’s anything that feminism has bequeathed to young women of means, it’s that power is their birthright. Visit an American college campus on a Monday morning and you’ll find any number of amazingly ambitious and talented young women wielding their brain power, determined not to let anything– including a relationship with some needy, dependent man– get in their way. Come back on party night, and you’ll find many of these same girls… wielding their sexual power, dressed as provocatively as they dare, matching guys drink for drink– and then hook up for hook up.”

Given the relatively lesser body mass of women compared with that of men, matching men drink for drink is a fool’s errand. Anyone who glorifies such behavior has completely lost touch with reality.

And why should Bauer be in awe of the fact that these girls can match men, hook up for hook up? If these women are so desirous of becoming unique individual self-creations, why should they be trying to emulate male behavior?

And let’s not overlook the piece of undisguised contempt for “some needy, dependent man” with whom these women might have relationships. The latest wave of feminism prefers hooking up to relationships.

According to Bauer, the party ends with said liberated empowered inebriated woman down on her knees. As Bauer so nicely expresses it: “When they’re on their knees in front of a worked-up guy they just met at a party, they genuinely feel powerful– sadistic even.”

Sometimes we get commenters who question whether feminism has anything to do with the behavior of women that we see today in college campuses. And to find out the truth, you have to read the elite feminists at the modern universities who have been grading the papers of women for the last 40 years. Was this alcohol-drenched hook-up culture unexpected by these elite academic feminists? On the contrary. It was their goal.

Feminists wanted to abolish the distinctions between men and women. They decided to achieve this by encouraging women to act like men. And the men they chose to emulate were alpha-male bad boys, since these are the men that women who don’t like marriage seem to really admire. Academic feminists like Bauer believe that women are happier now than they ever have been, with all this hooking up and being raised without fathers. They think they’ve won.

Commentary

Mark Driscoll discusses Jesus’ forgiveness of a sinful woman

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Mark Driscoll discusses Luke 7:36-8:3. (This is the full sermon – it contains that clip that we had discussed in a previous post in which he read a letter by a woman who got herself into trouble but mostly blamed everyone but herself).

The MP3 is here.

Stream or download the video here.

Summary:

A notoriously sinful woman does the unthinkable: she goes, uninvited, to Simon the Pharisee’s home, where Jesus is eating with “holy” religious men. There, broken and sobbing, she lavishly worships Jesus: falling at his feet, cleaning them, anointing them with her best perfume, and kissing them. Her actions are passionate, but not erotic. She publicly and humbly acknowledges her sin before the most judgmental, condemning, and self-righteous men. Religious people see others’ sins, not their own. Yet “holy” Simon did none of what this woman did (worship, serve, repent of sin, or give generously). She responds so passionately and generously because Jesus loved her much, and she loved Jesus much. When you know how much Jesus loves you, and you love him back, it’s the beginning of your passionate, worshipful, generous relationship, and everything changes. Jesus also deals with her sin. He doesn’t excuse her many sins; he forgives her. What Jesus did for that woman he did for other women who followed him, and he continues to do for even more women today.

During his preaching, Driscoll clearly understands what the Bible teaches:

Whatever sin was committed to her, and in her line of work you can assume there were many, Jesus also deals with her sin. He doesn’t excuse her sin, or neglect her sin, or shift the blame for her sin. He says, “Her sins, which are many.” He doesn’t say, “She’s had a hard life. Who are we to judge? This is an alternative lifestyle.” What he says is, “She’s got a lot of sin. I’m not arguing with that. The question is: what are we gonna do about it?”

This is a lot better than the previous clip we discussed that got over a hundred comments, where I chastised Driscoll for being soft on sinful women. But when he discusses the actual passage from Luke, he acknowledges that there is no blaming of men, and no discussion of mitigating factors that might excuse this woman’s sin.  That is irrelevant to the story. This sinful woman knows what she’s done, she is sorry for what she’s done, she really wants to change, and she wants a new life. She has no time for listing mitigating factors, and no time for blaming others. She blames herself. That’s why she is forgiven by Jesus.

Later on at the end of the sermon, I believe Driscoll messes up by choosing to read that letter from the woman from the last post who is clearly NOT repentant and is clearly blaming others, unlike the woman in the Bible story. She blames her parents, her church and the man she chose to pursue a relationship with. Her letter is the polar opposite to the story of the woman in Luke, who wanted nothing to do with rationalizations or blaming others. Driscoll fails to understand the differences between the two women. Blaming men is very popular nowadays – so I’m not surprised. It’s the spirit of the age.

So Driscoll makes mistakes – he isn’t perfect. Sometimes he is right, and sometimes he is wrong. His explanation of grace and works in the sermon is spot on, though. The grace is free to anyone who wants to be forgiven, and the works afterward are just the natural outworking of repentance. What God wants is genuine repentance and service. Good deeds performed after being forgiven by Jesus don’t reduce person’s guiltiness, they are just outward signs that the repentance was genuine. But you may have better or worse rewards in the after-life because of your actions after being saved.

News

Who is really responsible for the abolition of marriage? Men or feminists?

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Consider this analysis of the roots of feminism by a moderate pro-abortion equity feminist named Wendy McElroy. In her article, she explains two views of marriage by the old-style “equity” feminists, who wanted equal opportunity, and the “gender” feminists, who want men and women to be identical in every way. The gender feminist view is the view that dominates law, policy and culture today.

So let’s look at the history of gender feminism.

Excerpt:

In the ’70s, [Germaine] Greer… declared a guerrilla war against dependency on men.

Greer called for the revolutionary breakdown of sex roles. She encouraged women to be promiscuous and otherwise sexually adventurous. She claimed that women have no idea of how much men hate them. Greer recounted stories of gang rape and brutality, and seemed to consider such violence to be the norm between men and women. Her solution: women should refuse to marry. If they do marry, they should refuse be monogamous or to accept the ‘trappings’ of marriage such as the husband’s last name, a shared tax return, a wedding ring….

[…]The truly radical assault on the family began with Kate Millett’s book Sexual Politics (1970). Although Millett’s views were extreme, she presented them in a dispassionate and well researched manner that lent her credibility. In dealing with male/female relations (‘sexual politics’), Millett dwelt almost obsessively on pornography and sado-masochistic literature, rather than on love, motherhood or successful marriages. To her, pornography seemed to epitomize the male/female relationship. And in attacking sexual politics, Millett attacked the entire structure of power in society; that is, patriarchy. Marriage was the agency that maintained the traditional pattern of man’s power over woman.

The article also mentions other widespread myths that cause women to hate and mistrust men, such as the myths about domestic violence. (She might also have brought up inflated rape statistics). But the main idea is that gender feminists wanted women to be sexually liberated, to work full-time outside the home, and to stop modesty, chastity and courtship. They wanted to destroy marriage because they believed that marriage oppressed women.

And the plan of the feminists worked. We now have a 40% out-of-wedlock birthrate, and a total breakdown of the family. Young women have problems from being raised without fathers, causing young women (and men) enormous damage. Somehow, the widespread adoption of feminist ideology caused men not to want to marry, either. Why did that happen? Well, men are not marrying because marriage is a terrible deal for men – men are not getting what they want from marriage.

Why do men marry anyway?

Men want to have the main role of protector and provider – it’s one of the main reasons why men marry. And men are more likely to want to marry if women are modest and chaste. Men want to have a special role in the home that is unique to them, and they want to be needed and valued. Men don’t want to be disarmed and have to call 911 when their home is invaded, and they want criminals and terrorists punished, too. Men want to have the freedom to teach the children right and wrong. Men don’t want to be taken to court by their wives for grounding misbehaving daughters, as in the Quebec case. Men want to keep most of what they earn, and to not pay sales tax on what they buy. Men want to choose schools for their children, and choose the amount of health care they need. Men don’t want to be forced to pay for other people – having one family is expensive enough. And men want to get respect from society for their decision to marry, to be faithful, and to raise children. And so on.

We need to get to the point where women understand exactly why men don’t want to be husbands and fathers anymore. Women need to ask themselves how to give men what they need in order to marry. Women need to investigate whether the anti-male myths that feminists want them to believe about men are really true in reality. Women need to fix their beliefs about men and study to understand men and to love men. Women need to take responsibility for their role in destroying marriage. Women need to take the initiative reverse feminism and repair the institution of marriage.

The feminist notion of marriage is that women can do anything they want at any time, and dismiss their obligations to meet the needs of their husbands and children. Men know that and that’s why they freely choose not to marry. Most women today are just not suitable for marriage and parenting because they have been too influenced by feminist ideology which is opposed to marriage. Women have to change themselves, by renewing their minds through study. Men aren’t afraid of marriage, we just don’t want to marry women who don’t understand what marriage is and aren’t ready to commit properly.