Feminist Rant

Dear Editor,

Recently while visiting my parents for a few weeks, I had the opportunity to watch my dad and sister play softball in the coed rec league that plays Sunday nights at Anneberg Park.  Although I enjoyed watching them play, I was dismayed to learn that in a coed league, women and men are required to bat using different sized softballs.  According to my dad, this is to prevent men from hitting the ball "too hard" or "too far" or some such thing, and thus avoid the men having any sort of competitive advantage over the women, who, apparently, are not able to field deeply hit balls.  There are several issues that come to mind with this situation: 1) Softball is a team sport.  It is not as though men are hitting balls to exclusively female fielders.  Further, the teams switch every half inning.  If the men on one team are sending hard-hit balls over the heads of female outfielders, the situation is likely to be reversed in the next inning, thus negating the competitive advantage that one team would have over another.  2) The very existence of a coed league says that men and women can play ball together.  It seems that the sense of competition and team camaraderie, as well as the argument that men and women are sufficiently equal to compete together, are destroyed when one half of the players require their talent and ability to be suppressed (or enhanced, depending on one's perspective).  If women are truly "equal" to men, then why do they require special accomodations?  3) Where are the feminists?  My understanding of feminism is that we women wish to be respected for who we are, and for the fact that we do indeed have just as much talent and ability as men, in any given field.  Ladies - do you not find it offensive that you are essentially being told that your natural talent prevents you from competing on an even field with men?  4) What is the point of even calling something a team, if each "team" is essentially two separate teams that play by different rules?  In this Olympic year, as we prepare to cheer on our athletes who compete only against others of their own gender, perhaps it is time to ask what we expect from coed team experiences and examine the implicit assumptions that this rec league policy makes regarding male and female athletic ability. 

Signed,

Elizabeth of Hungary

Girl on Girl Violence

Well, this is a new one.  Granted, I should have expected it long ago, but it finally came directly to me. 

"[Martin] Luther and [Regin] Prenter use a lot of masculine imagery and language, so those students who are women won't resonate with it as much."  

For reals?

This is just so damn offensive. 

The worst part?  This was uttered by a woman.  Honestly, where do women get off telling other women what they will and won't resonate with, for any reason?

Am I so weak and fragile that I can't "resonate" with Luther and Prenter because they speak in masculine terms?  Luther????  Maybe women shouldn't be allowed to be Lutherans, if that's the case.  We can't possibly resonate with his theology because he writes with such masculine imagery.

Yes, I am struggling to keep my head above water with some of these readings.  But not because I "can't resonate" with them.  Because I can't understand them.  Because they are hard.  Right now, the only thing giving me a shot at understanding Prenter is that I've taken enough theology classes from Catholic institutions that I can - in an extreme emergency - navigate my way through theo-philosophical mumbo jumbo.

Now.  Maybe being a woman means I'm dumb, and that's why it's difficult for me to grasp this stuff.  But I still don't see what that has to do with masculine language and imagery, unless it the masculine language and imagery itself that makes the whole thing so intellectually difficult.

But even if it is: I am so tired of other women fighting battles "for" me, that I never asked them to fight.  Get away from me.  Stop making assumptions about who I am and what I want and what I believe and what I need.  You don't want me doing it to you, stop doing it to me.

Eh.

These Men

There's an absolutely fantastic scene from Season One, Episode Five of The West Wing.  The episode is titled "Crackpots and These Women", and the scene comes toward the end of the episode.  The video is here (sorry, it won't let me embed it), and you should watch it.

I was thinking about this scene this past weekend as a friend and I were doing the typical girly thing of talking about guys - and wondering if there's an equivalent scene in a movie or TV show somewhere.  Given some specific circumstances, my friend and I started from a point of "boys are dumb: throw rocks at them".  But with old black-and-white movies on in the background, our discussion came 'round to how much we actually really like guys (frustrating though they may be at times).  We talked about how we missed the "good ol' days" of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra - back "when men were men".

When there were clearly defined gender roles, and it was okay to like them.  When women could (and did) appreciate what men "brought to the table" and like them just for being men, and vice versa.  Aah, who knows?  Maybe I'm over-romanticizing the past and there never was such a day.  But it just seems like in generations past, men and women behaved in a more civilized fashion towards one another, their interactions were bathed in respect (even if not "like" or "love") and propriety.

It seems to me that feminism - as the movement has played out - has destroyed much of this.  No one I know is against the "novel idea that women should be treated as equals" (or whatever that snarky quote is).  No one I know thinks that women should be denied the vote, or the right to own land/property, or the opportunity for education or a career.  But unfortunately, feminism has devolved into something that is not about lifting up women so much as it is about tearing down men.  And that's unhealthy, unhelpful, and unScriptural, and yes, we are reaping the consequences.

From what I can tell from my own interactions with men, many of them are awkwardly trying to suppress their natural instincts to care for/respect/protect/serve/sacrifice for women in general, because a door held open or a warm jacket offered or an inappropriate remark confronted would imply that a woman is not able to care for herself - that she "needs" a man, and "everybody knows" any woman would find that offensive.  I know many men who withhold making remarks in class or meetings because their contribution will be dismissed as "the white male perspective".  I know men - good, solid, honest, strong, faithful men - who are terrified of asking a woman out or even complimenting her, lest it be construed as an oppressive attempt at objectification.

And that's a darn shame.  Because men aren't all losers - in fact, most of them aren't.  Most men aren't so busy watching football that they miss the births of their own children, or so concerned about beer that they're too distracted to feed the kids vegetables at dinner, or so entranced by a hot woman in the store that they proceed to talk about her to their wives later that evening.  Most guys aren't objectifying every woman they meet or thinking that women are incapable of managing their own lives or interested in oppressing and subjugating the local womenfolk.  Most guys are great - because God made them after his own image, and it was "very good."

So to honor that, I've put together a list: 100 Things I Love About Men:

1. when they roll their shirt sleeves up halfway between their elbow and wrist
2. they know how to build a fire 
3. watching them drive a manual transmission
4. they get excited about a sporting event and start discussing it passionately
5. they make fun of women for doing dumb woman things - peeing in groups, etc...
6. when they take voting seriously
7. when they volunteer to lead a prayer 
8. making a special point to hold the door open for a woman - or another man
9. that they know stuff about cars
10. not needing to ask for directions
11. being secure enough in their masculinity to recognize when it's time to ask for directions
12. that they kill bugs and rodents - even at 3 am
13. when they take their families to church
14. holding a woman's coat to help her put it on
15. being patient when women take a long time to get ready
16. being manly and protective of all women, even ones they aren't married to
17. when they don't add sugar or cream to coffee
18. they will eat practically anything
19. they love to play with babies
20. they are a little bit afraid of babies
21. when the elevator smells all manly after they've just been in it
22. when they are not afraid to follow a woman's instructions to look in her purse to find _______
23. when they refuse to look in a woman's purse out of respect (and a little bit of fear)
24. that the good ones don't seem to know how good they are
25. they are good at fixing things
26. mocking - but secretly liking - chick flicks
27. asking permission to kiss a girl
28. not asking permission to kiss a girl and just doing it instead
29. when their hand gets a little bit sweaty holding a girl's, because they're still a little nervous
30. that they lend a girl their jacket when she is cold, even if it makes them cold
31. patiently explaining the rules of a particular sport...again...
32. when they play "football" with folded up pieces of paper and their thumbs
33. playing actual sports with friends
34. finding ways to be competitive about absolutely everything
35. when they aren't afraid to admit that they can only focus on one thing at a time
36. winking at me from across the room
37. knowing that I need a hug and obliging for as long as necessary
38. when they chop wood for a fireplace
39. they know how I take my coffee - even if it's different from theirs
40. when they offer to carry a woman's luggage
41. they know how to pack the trunk of a car
42. when I announce that chivalry is dead and they go out of their way to prove otherwise
43. when they are really good at listening, especially when it's stuff that's hard to talk about
44. that they are moved to tears more often than girls would expect
45. they will sacrifice anything for their families
46. when they can speak a second language
47. they know when it is therapeutic to offer someone a beer
48. when they can cook
49. when they have dirt under their fingernails from working hard 
50. watching them tie their ties
51. watching them loosen their ties
52. most of them are secretly really smart about at least one subject area
53. when they are so proud to have a son
54. when they are incredibly protective of their daughters
55. when they take care of their pregnant wives
56. when they teach their sons how to treat women
57. when they teach their daughters to demand proper treatment from men
58. they know how to grill meat
59. when they are manly enough to cry
60. when I haven't talked to them in a year and they still remember my birthday
61. washing the car in the driveway on a summer afternoon
62. they can change their own oil
63. they can build stuff
64. they stand up when a woman enters the room
65. when they refuse to work on Sunday
66. when they work on Sundays so their employees don't have to
67. "Hey Lady!  How are you?" (said with a big smile as they walk into a room)
68. shoveling snow
69. when they change their plans just to be with you
70. that they can be "crazy dumb boys" and still, I care about them
71. when they can charm the socks off any woman from 3 months to 85 years old
72. they try to make me laugh
73. they are often more likely than women to simply say what needs to be said
74. when they gently touch my shoulder in an anxious situation, as if to say, "it's okay, I got this"
75. they're not afraid to make fun of themselves
76. how little tolerance they have for female drama
77. that they truly have no idea anything on this list makes them attractive
78. when they ask "How are you?" and "How is your family?" and actually care about the answer
79. when I discover that they have quietly adopted my opinion about something as their own
80. when they are honest enough to admit that they simply don't care about something
81. unexpected hugs
82. when they turn me on to a new food or drink
83. the lengths they will go to in order to solve a problem
84. when they know how to pronounce my last name correctly - and do it
85. shuffling cards
86. first thing in the morning text messages
87. when they tell me my geekiness is cute
88. they want to see women use the gifts God has given them
89. when they use my name a lot when they talk to me
90. when they're willing to admit their weaknesses and confess their sins
91. they stretch out their entire bodies so as to take up the maximum amount of space possible
92. when they take responsibility for organizing activities/hanging out
93. they ask a woman's father for permission to marry her
94. firm handshakes
95. when they respect my sex/violence comfort levels in the movies
96. they take being manly seriously, and work to be seen as such
97. they take care of their sick wives
98. they "don't get sick"
99. they like stuff that blows up
100. they're made in the image of God - which must make God pretty awesome