Today I stumbled upon this blog about being a Christian woman and a feminist. This just goes to show how little people know about feminism or even what we should call ourselves. Elizabeth Ester looks like a very nice person, and is the exact reason why I’m starting this blog. Far too many women throw labels around and miss the gravity of what she is expressing.
As a Christian woman who grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist school (seriously, my high school was affiliated with Bob Jones University), I understand her perspective. However, there are two situations going on here.
1. Backlash at fundamentalist views which generally misinterpret gender roles in the Bible. A frequent issue among Christian circles but not the point of this blog.
2. Lack of knowledge about the definition of feminism.
Feminism as we know it started in the 1960s as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. Known as the “second wave”, women were frustrated with unequal jobs and society’s rigid views of what a woman could do. Had feminism only stuck with striving for equality with the sexes, I would have no problem and consider myself to be a full-fledged feminist.
It was built on the “first wave,” the movement for women to vote, own property and fight for custody of their children. This movement started on the backs of the abolitionist movement and ended after 1920 when the 19th Amendment was passed.
However, second wave feminism also ushered in the era of sexual politics. By holding that the “personal is political,” they brought in an era that blurred the lines between mainstream political issues and private ones. Suddenly, sex was front and center as the most important issue as a woman.
Sexual politics is based on a Marxist perspective. It holds that by its very nature, our patriarchal capitalistic society oppressed women. Men, as the status quo and protectors of that society, were furthering the oppression of women by simply being men.
In order to throw off these shackles, women had to revolt against being traditional women. This involved everything from clothes, makeup, jobs, marriage and especially sex. In order to be truly liberated, women needed to pursue sex as freely as men. While the proliferation of birth control helped, women were still facing unplanned pregnancies. Hence the issue of abortion rights. Women needed to be able to control their reproductive functions in order to throw off the shackles of oppressive capitalism. Not being able to unite all women, feminists turned to the only power that could enact their demands–the government. They never left and they never stopped demanding.
These feminists truly believed that they spoke for all women. They were shocked when they faced backlash from conservative women in the 70s and 80s over abortion and the ERA. The feminist movement never fully recovered.
In every political movement, the radicals push an extreme agenda. Generally some type of reform needs to be made, and society adjusts. However, the radicals are never fully satisfied. To be satisfied would cause them to be obsolete.
One thing feminists did very well was infiltrate every level of our education system and government. They created nice jobs hat completely isolated themselves from interacting with women who may disagree with them. When you’re surrounded by people who are sensitive to your cause, you lose perspective. Between the risk of becoming irrelevant and sequestering themselves in the Ivory Tower, nonprofits, government or the media, feminists don’t understand that they are out of touch with most women.
