Does Christianity have something to do with Feminism?

Started by typhonblue, Jul 17, 2006, 04:57 PM

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Does Christianity have something to do with Feminism?

No
15 (68.2%)
Yes
4 (18.2%)
Maybe
3 (13.6%)

Total Members Voted: 22

Voting closed: Jul 17, 2006, 04:57 PM

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typhonblue

Quote from: "Christiane"

Let's face it - once women grabbed the wheel, all manner of ills decended on society.


But they didn't grab the wheel. They just told men where to steer it. Or, rather, they implied men were steering it for the benefit of themselves, not women.

Even now women are a minority of politicians, CEOs, deans, editors... yet they have a disproportionate amount of influence.

Galt

Quote from: "typhonblue"
Even now women are a minority of politicians, CEOs, deans, editors... yet they have a disproportionate amount of influence.


That's really a core idea.

typhonblue

Quote from: "Galt"
Quote from: "typhonblue"
Even now women are a minority of politicians, CEOs, deans, editors... yet they have a disproportionate amount of influence.


That's really a core idea.


The question really is... how do women exact such influence when men are, technically, in control?

And the problem is not that men aren't the leaders, because they *are* and never stopped being(at least the majority), but that they use their power to benefit women to a rediculous extreme.

If men woke up tomorrow and decided to not use their power to benefit women, feminism would be over in a heart beat.

But they don't, no matter how much, collectively, they are hurt by it.

Almost like they're enthralled by some other, greater power that has nothing to do with being the "head" of anything.

Theres something more here... but it's going to take a day or too to come out right I think.

Daymar


Galt

Quote from: "typhonblue"
If men woke up tomorrow and decided to not use their power to benefit women, feminism would be over in a heart beat.


Yaah, I know that.  I'm personally outside of the "power circle"; at most, I just want some money, and I want people to otherwise leave me alone.

But look at Bill Clinton giving Monica Lewinsky the President's ear (so to speak, and not just his ear).  It's not just the PowerFraus with their power attitudes, but also all of the other weasels (men and women) who elbow their way into something.

Christiane

Quote from: "typhonblue"
Quote from: "Christiane"

Let's face it - once women grabbed the wheel, all manner of ills decended on society.


But they didn't grab the wheel. They just told men where to steer it. Or, rather, they implied men were steering it for the benefit of themselves, not women.

Even now women are a minority of politicians, CEOs, deans, editors... yet they have a disproportionate amount of influence.


OK, so what do you propose to do about it?   Quotas?   I can cite the success of that, lol....    

What would make you happy on this score,tb?

Men's Rights Activist

Women comprise the majority of the voting electorate and all politicians fear that.  Couple that with pols like Feinstein, Boxer, Clinton, etc. who allege to speak for all women and you perceive a real problem if you are any pol who's trying to oppose the gender feminist agenda in politics.  VAWA is but one glaring example of gender feminism running amok.

There are many ignorant male pols (Republicans) who think that being perceived as chivalrous to women is necessary, and others males (Dems) who believe following the gender feminist agenda is the politically correct thing to do.

With over 750 women's studies programs furthering this confusion, not to mention over 270 women's commissions, attempts to educate/re-educate gender feminist indoctrinated pols is a daunting task.  Did I mention there are only a single digit number of Men's Studies Programs  and Men's Commissions combined.  Men who speak up are perceived as whiners or lunatics.   What equality between the two sexes is, is being left up to the interpretation of gender feminist political hacks to determine in the halls of congress IMO.  I blame the influence of gender feminism for all these problems:?
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness are fundamental rights for all (including males), & not contingent on gender feminist approval or denial. Consider my "Independence" from all tyrannical gender feminist ideology "Declared" - Here & Now!

hansside

Feminism started out as a perfectly justified movement. Women - like men - are rational moral agents and thus should be equals in front of the law.

This part might have something to do with the individualism of Christianity and the idea that we are all equals in front of God.

Since then feminism has been warped in a bad way to become group based which is the opposite of Christianity's insistence on individuality.

The bad kind of feminism has been increasing as Christianity has been declining, thus I find Typhonblues theory unlikely.

Indeed, I see feminism going bad as they started to Worship the State.

zarby

A really good "head" of any organization always sacrifices.

It requires hard work, dedication, vision, etc.

A good head of the household necessarily sacrifices for his
wife and children.

I see no inconsistency here at all.

zarby

I don't there is anything wrong with men having an orientation of service towards women (and children). I think that is a good thing. It is good from a societal standpoint and also it promotes the well being of the individual man. I can think of no greater happiness than serving one's family.

The problem now is that a man receives no respect or appreciation. In fact, he receives absolute contempt. He is not respected if he succeeds. He is only punished if he fails. The woman owes him nothing no matter how hard and successful his efforts. In fact, she is almost encouraged to hold him in contempt and to attempt to destroy him.

The fate of the family unit is not joint. The wife is not encouraged to support the family unit for the joint good. In fact, she is encouraged to destroy it especially the man. My  point is that the problem is not with men serving women. The problem is with women feeling entitled to this service and giving nothing in exchange other than venom (this is all encouraged and supported by the law).

Sir Jessy of Anti

Quote from: "Daymar"
Quote from: "Sir Jessy of Anti"
Also, I would submitt that you have not done intellectual justice to my argument.  Your original argument was that that christianity demands from men but not from women.


Maybe you're referring to a different argument but I think this argument is about this "Does Christianity have something to do with Feminism?"


I wouldn't disagree that it may have something to do with feminism.  My original statement was that, " [..] it must be pointed out that the bible clearly had commandments for the wife, and they were much more equally exacting than any modern interpretation of law."

Can you imagine anything in our law stating that a wife must submit to her husband's authority?  LOL

I'm just saying her case is somewhat inflated.
"The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." -- Ayn Rand<br /><br />

Men's Rights Activist

You really need to have this discussion denomination by denomination.  There is really very little similarity in beliefs between say Baptists and Unitarians.  One is "pro abortion," one is staunchly "pro life."  I suspect Unitarians strongly support the gender feminist agenda as the United Methodists appear to do through their heavy involvement in agencies like Amnesty International.  Many conservative churches are becoming more aware of how much gender feminism hates traditional church concepts such as the man is the head of the family/marriage.  The preceding explanation just scratches the surface, but you get the idea.

Therefore, IMO, TB's question as stated is very largely invalid, inasmuch as different denominations embrace gender feminist and/or traditional Patriarchal concepts very differently - yet all denominations appear to still identify themselves heavily as "Christian."
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness are fundamental rights for all (including males), & not contingent on gender feminist approval or denial. Consider my "Independence" from all tyrannical gender feminist ideology "Declared" - Here & Now!

typhonblue

Lets bring it down to brass tacks.

Womanist movements(I'm using the word to lump together all abolitionists, suffragettes and feminists) have always exerted a far larger influence then their actual representation in the hierarchy of power. Suffragettes did not have a vote yet they successfully lobbied politicians to give them one. If those politicians had been in a patriarchal culture they would have been actively against women gaining any power. If they had been in an equitable culture they would have pointed at women's power as wives and mothers and said "checks and balances, m'lady, sorry."

Likewise women today comprise the minority of power positions in, for example, the corperate hierarchy, yet they exert far more influence then their presence should justify.

How do women manage this? What is this mysterious power that women have to force politicians (prior to attaining the vote), corperate heads, college deans, news editors... to do what they want?

Anyone want to take a stab at answering that?

Men's Rights Activist

Quote
Likewise women today comprise the minority of power positions in, for example, the corperate hierarchy, yet they exert far more influence then their presence should justify.

How do women manage this? What is this mysterious power that women have to force politicians (prior to attaining the vote), corperate heads, college deans, news editors... to do what they want?

Anyone want to take a stab at answering that?


Gee, I haven't got a clue.  :cat3:
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness are fundamental rights for all (including males), & not contingent on gender feminist approval or denial. Consider my "Independence" from all tyrannical gender feminist ideology "Declared" - Here & Now!

Laboratory Mike

Quote from: "typhonblue"
Lets bring it down to brass tacks.

Womanist movements(I'm using the word to lump together all abolitionists, suffragettes and feminists) have always exerted a far larger influence then their actual representation in the hierarchy of power. Suffragettes did not have a vote yet they successfully lobbied politicians to give them one. If those politicians had been in a patriarchal culture they would have been actively against women gaining any power. If they had been in an equitable culture they would have pointed at women's power as wives and mothers and said "checks and balances, m'lady, sorry."

Likewise women today comprise the minority of power positions in, for example, the corperate hierarchy, yet they exert far more influence then their presence should justify.

How do women manage this? What is this mysterious power that women have to force politicians (prior to attaining the vote), corperate heads, college deans, news editors... to do what they want?

Anyone want to take a stab at answering that?


You are hinting at a number of influences. I personally can identify two that exist at this moment.

1) You have the wife/girlfriend factor. During younger years, a man's sexual desires will cause him to do quite a lot for her, since he wants sex at some level. Also, you can consider the fact that the emotional bond causes the woman to become the man's closest advisor, and her advice might be very bad. Add that in with sexual manipulation (over at the Mancoat forum we call it "shaming tactics"), and a man who doesn't know better will be pulled under a given woman's influence. I'm sure you can dig up plenty of historical and modern examples...

2) You have women's organizations who seem to be able to do this at a second-image level. For those who don't know, second-image theories are theories that analyze groups of people as organisms. In this case, we see the first image, wives and girlfriends, exerting influence as one great organism, "women," against other organisms that were present, such as "business," "government," "the churches," and "men." To see how this happens, look at the way immigration is being handled right now. The "against immigration" group exerts influence by putting national media attention on the matter (remember the Minutemen movement and the controversy it caused?) The result is that "government" will be influenced by the fact that the "against immigration" group has been mobilized, and will provide a significant number of votes, not to mention the fact that images of angry armed men roving around the border are unacceptable. Now look at the "for immigration" organism. It is also getting national media attention, and has organized it's own voting machine. The fact that undocumented workers work for less money influences "business" into their favor, and the "business" organism thereby looks to exert influence on "government." Also, the promise of all the votes of naturalized illegal immigrants represents a prize to a significant number of those in "government." Who wins? It depends on the amount of power either group has, and who persists longer.

Now look at the "womanist" movements. Think of what benefits they can offer to organisms like "business" and "government." In particular, look at buyer loyalty and voter loyalty that is promised by advertising agencies and feminist groups, respectively. If the womanists groups are persistent enough, and the potential benefits are great enough (you'll get millions of votes if you do this), then other organisms will, typically, cave in. In theory, this means that any movement can come out of nowhere, and influence any authority it wants and win, if it can become large enough and pester a target authority long enough. This was true with feminism, gay rights, the union movement, democracy, pretty much everything. Referring back to Laborato's theorum, this is because the organism of "government" will act based on extrenal and internal influences, and even if internal influences such as beliefs are against a movement (such as feminism), it will not matter if said movement can have enough of an effect on *external* influences.

In other words, even if a patriarchal society did exist, the "woman first" organism overran it after generation upon generation of movements. Whether the first generation of "women-firsters" had planned to create the world we live in now, I don't know, but it does seem that we have seen a slow, methodical attack on men and masculinity for at least 100 years. Before then it was accepted that men and women were not perfect and that both had to "grow up and get along," but if you read your history, as early as the 20s the idea that women had the right to expect whatever they wanted from man came about, implying it didn't exist before. Like I said, I don't have a humanist explanation about why feminism came about, but I do think that, historically speaking, something like feminism comes into existance, gains power, and later wanes in the wake of another movement, or the collapse of a society. What the dynamics are, I don't know, but this seems to happen across cultures and across time.

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