Women and Men are Equals?

I've been reading a lot lately about patriarchy and women's rights and feminism, etc. I still have a lot in my brain to think about and a lot more I wish to read. But I had a bit of an epiphany the other day and thought I better write it down before I forget it! (Been forgetting things lately, old age seems to be creeping in).

Anyway, while I was thinking about God and whether He is really a He or is He a combo of a He and a She, seeing as the Bible says in Genesis 1:27:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

How could God create a woman in his own image unless He also had some attributes of a woman?

In John 24 God is referred to as Spirit. While Jesus was referred to as a man, God is always referred to as spirit. Does a spirit have the attributes of a man, female or both, or none? If God is spirit, then how and why did He come to be known only as He?

There are so many passages in the bible where God takes on the attributes of women. He refers to birth pains (sorry men, only women have birth pains). He also talks of caring for children the way a mother does, Isaiah 66:13 -

"As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;"

So anyway, these are things I have been thinking about and praying about which brings me to my epiphany. While meditating/praying on these things the other day, I came to the conclusion that women have been fighting the wrong battle. It is not for us to prove that we are like men to be equal. I don't want to be like a man. And I don't believe I am meant to be a like a man. I was born a woman and meant to be a woman. We can be equal but different. We don't need to be like men to be equal. We need to be respected as equals for who we are, not what we can change ourselves to be.

We were made in God's image just as men were. Not to be below, not to be above, but to be equal, to come alongside each other, for each other.

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it.
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.
But whatever, after due examination and analysis,
you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -
that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.

Buddha

Duggar's Again

I know, I am probably a horrible person because I criticize the Duggar's. The way I look at it, they decided to put their life on tv, which means I get to criticize them if I want to ; )

The latest show my youngest daughter (Catherine) and I watched (oldest daughter can't stomach the show) was about them going to some homeschooling conference in Texas. They loaded up their giant bus and headed out on a road trip. When they got to the conference they showed some of the activities the kids had planned for the week. While the boys were outside rappelling down towers and having fun, the girls were inside teaching a bunch of little kids. What is wrong with this picture?

I get when you have to wear a full length denim skirt everyday that it might be hard to rappel down a tower, but the boys were having FUN and the girls were struggling to wrangle a bunch of little kids. I was so bothered by this. I wanted to see those girls outside rappelling down the darn tower. Heck, I wanted to try rappelling down the tower.

After the show was over I still couldn't get the thought out of my mind that they never showed the girls letting loose and having fun. They always have jobs to do. Even at home these girls are helping their mom wrangle younger siblings or helping with the housework.

What must it be like to grow up and always think of yourself as 2nd? I suppose some might think it noble for someone to give of themselves so much that they always put their needs last. But these girls are never even taught that it is ok to put themselves first. Are they allowed to say no at home? What if they had told someone at the conference that they wanted to rappel down the tower (denim skirt and all)? Would they have let them? Probably not, climbing towers isn't a "girlie" thing to do, that's boy/man stuff. That's what bothers me so much. The fact that they have drawn these lines of what is acceptable for the girls and what is not. Keep those girls in their place, girls needs always come after boys. Bleh!

I grew up in the 70's the age of feminism. For all the bad things people say about feminists, they have helped women progress beyond the kitchen. It is not necessarily a women's job to stay home and cook clean all day. If she chooses that, fine, but to raise girls and teach them that is the only choice for their adult lives does them a grave disservice in my book. I want my girls to know that they can do whatever they want with their lives. They get to dream and choose, it is their life. My job is to help them see all the choices that are available to them, not all the doors that are shut. I wouldn't even tell them any doors are shut to them, because I think if they encounter a shut door, then they should try to open it. If we had been at that homeschooling conference, my girls would have been telling everyone it isn't fair to make the girls teach the kids while the boys rappel down the tower. We would've been the squeaky wheel, the ones changing the rules.

To tell a woman everything she may not do is to tell her what she can do.
~Spanish Proverb~

I realize some women say they are happy in the roles that have been assigned to them since birth. Grow up, help mom to learn how to be a mom, get married right from daddy's house, become a mom, do unto your daughters what has been done to you. I often wonder if any of these women wake up one day and wonder what happened to their life. Or are they kept so secluded, all outside life kept at bay, no tv or controversial books, that they really live in oblivion their entire lives. How sad that seems to me. To never find yourself, to never think your life had a greater purpose than to be a pawn in someone else's game.

I'm so grateful that I had parents who taught me to think for myself, to question society and it's rules and roles and determine for myself what was ok and not ok. The older I get the more I have a better sense of who I am and what I want to be. And I plan to pass that on to my daughters.

A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place.

~Michele Le Doeuff~

The "Sisterhood"

I have been utterly shocked and disgusted with the response from some women in regards to John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president. I knew girls could be mean when I was in high school, but these are adults. Come on ladies, did you ever grow up?

I am a conservative woman. According to one “scholar” women who are conservative aren’t really women. I guess unless you are happy to murder your unborn children, you aren’t considered a woman in some camps. Isn’t it funny how they demand they have the right to kill their unborn children, but they don't think you should have the right to bear arms and defend yourself against someone who wants to do you or your family harm.

I guess I just do not understand the outrage. Isn’t feminism all about raising girls to be whatever they want to be? I used to believe that was what feminists were fighting for. My mom considered herself to be a feminist. She always told me and my sister that we needed to learn how to care for ourselves. We didn’t need a man to survive. My mom worked, full time, from the time I was about 4. I was put in daycare in NYC in 1972. I think it was one of the first day care centers open to the public. When we moved to Illinois, due to the transfer of my father within his company, one of the first things my mom did was get another job. I was a latch-key kid. I had an older brother and sister, but they were usually busy after school, so from 3rd grade on, I mostly came home to an empty house. But I could take care of myself. I knew how.

My mother also felt my brother needed to learn how to care for himself, so he didn’t treat a woman as a housekeeper. As soon as we could see the dials on the washing machine, we washed our own clothes. We learned how to cook for ourselves by age 8. We all got jobs as soon as possible. I was babysitting at 11 and cleaning offices by age 13.

Suffice it to say, my sister and I grew up knowing we didn’t NEED a man, and my brother grew up knowing he didn’t NEED a woman. We were self sufficient. The fulfillment of my mothers feministic dream. She raised her kids to be something she wasn’t. See, my mom married my dad at age 20. They dated since high school. She had my sister one year after her marriage, and my brother the next year after that. This was in the sixties, right when women were just getting their voice. She felt like she missed it. She wanted to be that bra burner, but she had two babies at home, and soon she had three (me). So she passed on her dreams to her children. Only we realized, or at least I realized, that her dream wasn’t reality. Feminists today are not the feminists of my mothers era.

It seems to me that all feminists care about today is abortion. Women must be allowed to kill their unborn babies. Under any circumstances. Babies are an inconvenience, a mistake. Girls shouldn’t be punished with mistakes, says Mr. Obama. If you don’t believe that, you can’t be part of their club. Nope, no conservative woman, who believes all babies are a gift from God could ever be a feminist. And if you happen to believe in that pesky savior, Jesus, and his teaching in the Bible, then you probably aren’t even a woman. No feminist woman could possibly believe in a a book written by men.

I was happy to see Hillary Clinton running for President. I certainly didn’t share her values or positions, but I did feel it was about time a woman had a chance to run for the highest office in our country. Many women around the world have already proven they have/had what it takes to lead : Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto, Angela Merkel, Mary Robinson and too many more to list.

Why is it that some women in this country keep saying “I wanted a woman to run (Hillary) but I didn’t want that woman (Sarah Palin)”. Pity, that as women we can’t just seem to support other women. We could agree to disagree and still be supportive. You can say to someone “Good for you, I applaud your accomplishments, but I don’t plan to vote for you, I don't share your views”. I think that is what many conservative women did in regards to Hillary. Sadly, the liberal women have all turned into attack dogs against Sarah. Guess their true colors are finally showing. It isn’t about supporting women, it’s about supporting their own selfish causes. And if a woman happens to be supporting their causes, hoorah. But if not, to hell with feminism and women's accomplishments, they'd rather take the man.

There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.

~Madeleine K. Albright~