Thursday, October 28, 2010

Why Does Building Up Men Inevitably Mean Tearing Down Women


I am highly suspicious of anything that calls itself a "men's movement", probably because this [trigger warning: rape] calls itself a "men's movement", as well. Yet again, I am right to be suspicious.

The Christian Men’s Network will be putting on a conference designed to serve as “a radical revolution calling men to a higher standard of masculinity.”

Men from around the world will converge in Dallas, Texas, next week to learn how to be “a real man.”

Oh, yes, "real men". You know that's just going to be horrible. I have promoted my concept of femininity here before, but in case you're new, I believe that anything a woman does is feminine. So a woman playing hockey is as inherently feminine as a woman baking a cake while wearing a pink dress. Whatever floats your boat. I feel the exact same way about masculinity. Anything a man does in inherently masculine. A man baking a cake while wearing a pink dress is as masculine as a man playing hockey. Men are, by definition, manly.

Ergo, we don't really need to teach men to be manly and that's not what they're talking about, anyway. What they're really talking about is teaching adults to act like adults, i.e., fulfill obligations responsibly. Is there some reason we can't say that without invoking adulthood as masculine and femininity as lesser?

Apparently not.

Cole says he bases this movement on Timothy 2:2.

“Paul commanded Tim , find faithful men and teach them and they’ll be able to teach others. What God is looking for is what every woman is looking for – not a man of great power, but a man who will be faithful. When we develop faithful men, we develop mature men,” he said.

Are men not looking for faithful women? Are women looking for nothing else in men? Is faithfulness really the end all and be all of maturity, and if so, why is not the end all and be all of maturity for all adults, women and men alike?

All I can conclude is that women aren't ever really mature, no matter how old they are. Women are children forever.

The younger Cole explained that there is a need for teaching leadership and maturity in culture. In dealing with various cultures around the world, he finds that maturity in men is lacking across the board.

Women are either not a part of culture, or not in need of possessing leadership and maturity.

“The issue in our culture today is the immaturity in our men,” he noted. “To be a real man is to be more like Christ. Jesus was a strong man; he wasn‘t a wimp man, he wasn‘t a feminine man, yet he was highly compassionate. The stronger a man is at the core of his character, the more compassionate he can be in the outreach of his hands.”

*sigh* The "wimp man". The "feminine man". Because strength and maturity are the traits of men and femininity is weak and to be despised. Immaturity is bad in men, and to be expected in women.

Every damn day. Every damn day girls in our society are exposed to this message, that strength is for boys, leadership is for boys and "girly" is an insult.

Every damn day.Every damn day boys in our society are exposed to this message, that strength is for boys, leadership is for boys and "girly" is an insult.

It's just as bad for the boys as it is for the girls, and it's just as bad for the adults they grow up to be. I'm all for adults acting responsibly and fulfilling obligations. I'm all for fathers fulfilling their parental duties. I just don't think it needs to be accomplished by means of degrading women and forcing a particular gendered ideal upon us all.


3 comments:

  1. I was going to put up a QFT, but then I'd have to quote the entire post. Twice. Which would be a bit repetitive.

    I'm not actually opposed to the idea of 'feminine' and 'masculine' concepts, but I think we need new names for them that aren't associated with women and men. I say we borrow the words from Taoism: Yin, the dark, soft, quiet, passive side of the universe, and Yang, the bright, harsh, loud, aggressive side. I think it's important that neither of these correlates with good or bad, or with strong or weak, as the fundichristian 'masculine' and 'feminine' ideals do. A person can be predisposed towards Yin or Yang regardless of gender.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Notice how militant fundamentalism does everything it can to generate gender insecurity and then to exploit it mercilessly for power and profit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. WHY O WHY DID I CLICK THAT FIRST LINK?!?!?!


    need. bleach. NOW!


    then i need to cry for a bit



    i have my niece for the weekend.
    there was an incident that i can't talk about, a few months back, and so i talked to her about it [i can talk to HER, i just can't tell anyone else]



    it was sad. i asked her to define "slut" and she said "a girl who has sex before marriage". so i asked, everyone has to stay a virgin until marriage? nope, just girls.

    where did she learn this?! not from me! [and, i'm mostly sure, not from her parents - pagan parents who don't believe sex is bad... then again, they FREAK at the thought of her having sex at 16 or 17, so maybe?]

    i've been trying to NOT have her develop this type of thinking since she was 3 years old. lone voice in the wilderness, i guess...


    anyone have any thoughts or ideas to help me out, here?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

I am attempting to use blogger's new comment spam feature. If you don't immediately see your comment, it is being held in spam, I will get it out next time I check the filter. Unless you are Dennis Markuze, in which case you're never seeing your comment.

Creative Commons License
Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverinhell.blogspot.com.