Alpha Females Part 2 – Defining the Terms – How Anti-Feminists and Complementarians Misrepresent Concepts or Terms
This commentary will be divided up among a few posts. Here is part 2.
(This post may be edited in the future to re-word things, polish things, add new thoughts or links)
More pages in this series:
Visit Part 1. | Part 3 | A Response to Venker: Re: Personal Experience
Introduction.
For those new to my blog:
I am a right winger. I was a Republican until recently. I am now a conservative Independent.
I was a conservative Christian for many years (I am no longer sure about what my religious views are), and I (Link): Am A Former Gender Complementarian (someone who believed in and lived out traditional gender roles, views which are based in large measure on incorrect interpretations and applications about gender in the Bible).
I sometimes agree with secular left wing feminists on some topics, but not always. At times, I disagree with secular and religious left wing feminists and have written several blog posts critiquing some of their views.
This series of blog posts is addressing the dating and relationship advice of author Suzanne Venker, who wrote a book called “The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage” which she has lately been marketing online and on TV news shows.
Here is one article by Venker about her relationship views:
(Link, off site): Society is creating a new crop of alpha women who are unable to love by S. Venker
Venker, like many conservative authors, conflate the word or concept of “feminine” (and “nice“) with terms, behaviors, or concepts, such as, but not limited to, being passive, quiet, demure, agreeable, docile, and “being a doormat.”
I have no doubt that Venker, and women like her, would likely reject that she is asking women to be doormats – but that is precisely what she is doing when she asks women, as she does in the articles I have read, to give up certain behaviors, especially if those behaviors are part and parcel of a normal, healthy adult’s boundaries and identity.
And Venker is insisting women do these very damaging things, insisting that they inflict damage on themselves, change themselves, make themselves smaller, all for the goal of capturing a man while single, or to keeping one happy while married. This is most definitely a throw back to 1950s America and earlier.
We’re in 2017, Venker, please join us here.
By the way, the type of man who needs a woman to repress her fierce nature, true views, or her voice and needs, to “be happy” in a relationship, and not feel like he’s being bossed around, are usually highly insecure or selfish men. Such men are not worth dating or marrying or trying to cajole or placate in the first place.
Many Conservatives further conflate the term “feminine” with women refusing to get their own needs met, and with always putting a man’s needs before their own (or the needs of children or other women ahead of their own).
Being feminine is defined as, or thought of, or confused by many conservatives and with most complementarians, with being a 1950s television show June Cleaver housewife, as though that is the one and only appropriate way for a woman to be.
In a nutshell, conservatives (this would include Christian gender complementarians) confuse “being feminine,” or mistake “being feminine,” with Being Codependent.
Codependency is not healthy for girls, women, or for their relationships.
However, codependent behaviors and attitudes are applauded and expected in girls and women by much of culture (certainly by most conservatives), and complementarian Christians often mistakenly assume that God designed girls and women to be codependents. This is so, even though the Bible through-out warns against anyone, male or female, being codependent.
The word “nice” is also often confused by a lot of people, certainly by complementarians and by some conservatives, with codependency.
When someone is “nice,” this generally means she will exhibit codependent traits.
She will not be assertive and stand up for herself or insist on getting her own needs met, but will go through life doing such things as quietly enduring suffering as boyfriends cheat on her repeatedly, co-workers take advantage of her on the job, or a husband strikes her with his fist.
A “nice,” “feminine,” “traditional,” or “beta” (read: codependent) woman will most usually feel guilty, selfish, or afraid to get her own needs met, or to ask, demand, or expect that a husband or boyfriend meet HER needs or to practice assertiveness and insist that a man stop being disrespectful or rude to her.
Those tendencies are not good or admirable in women, nor are those tendencies safe or healthy for women or for marriages, but it is (and I find this very warped and twisted) taught as being such by conservatives and gender complementarians.
From a young age, most American girls are conditioned to excel at codependent traits, which include but are not limited to the following:
being passive (opposite of being assertive); lacking boundaries; “playing it safe”, never getting one’s own needs met; always and only meeting the needs of others
The opposite traits are admired, expected of, and applauded in men: most boys and men are usually coached to be out-spoken, assertive, to take risks, to stand up for themselves, etc.
If a girl or woman displays those same traits that men do, she will be scolded, shamed, or penalized in some fashion for it.
She will be told by many Christians and conservatives that she is “sacrificing her femininity” and “trying to be like a man.”
These are techniques and actions which seek to discourage women from practicing their rights, independence, and choice-making abilities, and from leaving the complementarian, or in Venker’s vernacular, the “beta” or “feminine” female reservation.
Women in that worldview will be told by those advocating for it that having any of those traits (being assertive, having boundaries, etc) is why she is still single, or that those traits are making her husband unhappy.
Women, in this system and paradigm, are asked, pressured, shamed, or guilt- tripped, by conservatives and Christian complementarians, to voluntarily give up their rights, needs, and goals in life.
If you are a Christian who has the tendency to misunderstand the Bible’s call for a person to ‘consider others more important than himself,’ or to ‘lay down his life for Christ,’ as meaning you ever getting your needs met, or standing up to rude or abusive people, is sinful, wrong, or selfish, I would implore you to read the chapters, for free, at this location (written by Christian psychiatrists):
(Link): Google Books: Twelve Christian Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy
Women in the conservative, feminism-hating system will further be brain-washed into thinking that rejecting the conservative (or complementarian) view is to cave in to feminism, worldly wisdom, or to reject Mom, apple pie, America, God and/or the Bible (all of which is propaganda that is untrue).
Conservatives present only two options to women (to be fair, a lot of left wing feminists also present womanhood in much the same, mutually exclusive, limiting terms):
(1) Be a conservative woman (which means being passive, meek, mild, allow men to control you, never seek to get your own needs met, insist that the only or supreme value a woman has is to marry and have children, etc)
(2) Be a feminist woman (which means, from the right wing perspective, be a man-hating, abortion-supporting, Democrat-voting, liberal harpie who hates the nuclear family, hates God, supports LGBTQ stuff, seldom shaves her arm pits, and who beats up kittens for fun)
The fact is, a woman can reject all or most of precept 1 but also reject all or most of precept 2.
Rejecting point 1 does not necessitate accepting point 2, or even lead to point 2, but conservatives keep suggesting, or scaring women, especially women who are already conservative or Christian, into thinking that it does and that it will.
I am case in point of that: years ago, I rejected much of the conservative propaganda about women that I was raised to believe in, but I (Link): did then not evolve into a left wing, abortion supporting, LGBTQ rainbow flag waving, Democrat-voting, unshaven, kitten-punching demon.
The author, Venker, sadly confuses women wanting and needing equality and respect with women “being like men,” “wanting to be men,” or “trying to be like men.”
I was not aware that any person, man or woman, wanting to be treated with fairness, equality, and respect by men or spouses, were “masculine” traits or needs – I don’t think they are. That Venker thinks they are is disturbing.
I guess Venker frames such words or concepts in that manner to find yet another angle to guilt trip or shame women into staying on the plantation.
There is nothing inherently masculine about being assertive, tough, or independent – it’s only that these qualities are conditioned and encouraged in boys in American culture but discouraged in American girls.
Venker is assuming that these words and phrases or qualities (assertiveness, being the boss, taking charge, etc) are “masculine,” when such as is not the case. A woman who is bold or assertive has not lost her femininity. She, Venker, just assumes this is so, or chooses to view things in that fashion.
If I, as a woman, am assertive, feel free speaking my mind, and practice having healthy boundaries, that is simply me engaging in normal, healthy, adult behavior and is not a case of me “trying to be a man.”
I have no interest in being a man or trying to be like one.
I do, however, resent the hell out of fellow conservatives, secular culture, and church culture, pressuring me to conform to a tiny box they call “feminine,” then slapping my hand, or shaming me, if I choose to step outside their box by being assertive, and further arguing that being assertive is tantamount to me supposedly “trying to be a man,” losing my femininity, and also saying to me, “and that is why you’re still single.”
In the context of these dating or marital advice editorials, the women reading will be told by the conservative author, that by doggies, if they just give up their agency, independence, and stop trying to make sure their man treats them as an equal or meets their needs, they will find the relationship flowing so much more smoothly, because there will be fewer arguments, and so on.
Oh, I bet.
I bet there will be less problems, but the reason is not good or healthy.
The reason a marriage will or may suddenly correct course when the woman caves in to the man at all, or most, times, is because there is a power imbalance in the relationship.
The man is always getting his way in such a relationship, so of course, most men will be quite happy getting their needs met while they get to neglect those of their wife or girlfriend.
(Ultimately, though, most men – normal ones – will tire of this one-sided nature of the relationship, where the woman meets all his needs, doesn’t speak her mind to him, demand her needs be met when he overlooks them, etc.
Most men – the non-abusive and unselfish ones – actually TIRE of being in these odd, one-sided marriages where the woman caters to HIM, but he isn’t expected to step up to the plate and serve HER in return. More on that in a future post, if I remember to address it).
The result of women constantly caving in to what the man wants, is that the man, far from treating the woman nicer, as Venker argues, will not meet her needs at all, or very seldom.
The man will not be compelled to meet the woman’s needs, unless she brings them up and insists the man meets them. It won’t cross his mind to do so, especially if the man has a tendency to be self-absorbed or selfish.
Most men are conditioned in our culture, since they are boys, to view women as merely “help meets,” as side kicks, and as servants, who were put here to SERVE THEM and get their needs (the man’s needs) met.
By contrast, most girls are conditioned by culture and church, to think their only purpose in life is to put themselves last and meet the needs of men, or of other people in general.
I am therefore more than puzzled by authors, like Venker, who think there’s this huge societal shift where all (to most) women run around being ‘Alpha’ and ignore the needs of their husbands or boyfriends, when the opposite situation actually occurs!
Here’s an example:
(Link): Young Single Women Try to Appear Less Ambitious To Attract A Mate – via WSJ
Far from acting bossy, assertive, or “in charge,” women today still feel pressure to “dumb themselves down” and act passive to get a date or a marriage proposal. That is something to weep, not rejoice over or celebrate.
Women in the United States are programmed from the time they are four and five years old (by parents, teachers, churches, TV commercials, etc) to be little “care-takers” in training and are punished by others – parents, other girls, movies, churches – if they dare to step out of such roles and ever get their own needs met.
(Occasionally Hollywood will throw together a movie with a strong female lead who stands up for herself and who doesn’t rely on a man for identity and purpose, but the vast majority of entertainment I see in movies and TV shows still shoves women into the background and the men in foreground in the assertive, lead, more talkative roles.)
After years and years of being in such a relationship, where a woman repeatedly stuffs her needs down and does not insist the man meet her needs, and especially if she has been doing her sincere best to meet the man’s needs the whole time, the woman will grow resentful and break up with the man.
Ergo, telling women to cave in to a man, which Venker thinks is “more feminine,” will actually result in more divorces, not less. I blogged on that subject in a few posts such as one (link): here.
Women such as Venker tend to confuse the term “feminine” with “being a doormat.”
Venker wrote in her article that appeared on Fox News (Source):
In essence, being feminine means being nice. It means being soft instead of hard. And by “nice,” I don’t mean you should become a mouse. (That’s the narrative the culture sells, but that doesn’t make it true.) Men love women who are fun and feisty and who know their own mind! But they don’t want a woman who tells them what to do.
— end excerpt—
GOLDILOCKS DATING ADVICE
This reminds me of the awful dating advice aimed at single Christian women by Christians (and even in secular material), and I think of it as “GOLDILOCKS ADVICE.”
You remember the kid’s story:
Goldilocks walks into a bear’s house and tries one bowl of soup, and it’s too hot. She tries the next bowl of soup, it’s too cold. The next bowl of soup is JUST RIGHT.
The first bed she tries out is too hard. The next bed is too soft. The last bed is JUST RIGHT.
Here is how Goldilocks dating advice works: we women are given these vague, hard to pin down, impossible tasks to follow that often contain contradictions, and we’re told we MUST follow this advice to get or keep a man.
Many dating advice articles and books will tell single women something like the following:
“Be independent. Men love women who are not emotionally needy or clingy!”
But three paragraphs later, the same author tells women,
“Don’t be too independent, because men need to feel needed, and they find independent women threatening or intimidating.”
So you as a single woman are reading that and thinking,
“F.F.S., how am I supposed to be independent but not independent at the same time? How do I draw the line? Who is to say what is being “too” independent?
What if one guy finds my ability to change my own car oil charming and impressive, but another guy is intimidated by it, and how do I tell in advance which guy is which in that scenario? How am I ever supposed to follow this advice?”
I see some of Venker’s advice as falling into the Goldilocks genre.
Venker tells you in one paragraph to be feisty, because men really like feisty women, but she actually spends the remainder of the piece essentially telling you that your feisty tendencies are intimidating to men, and men consider feisty traits “unfeminine.”
So, you as a woman, are simultaneously being told by Venker to be “feisty” but “don’t be feisty” or, Venker is saying, “only be an amount of feisty that men will enjoy but not be repelled by.”
Or, Venker is instructing women, don’t be “too” feisty or feisty in the “wrong” way, because your husband will construe that as a “woman telling him what to do.”
Hey Venker, how is a sane woman supposed to keep any of that straight or pull it off?
A woman in this scenario has to hit the sweet spot for the particular dude she is dating or married to: and how the hell are we women supposed to know up front what the guy thinks about any of this?
And why, if I am feisty, would I want to repress my own nature to appease some ass- hat I’m dating?
A guy I have to appease like that and repress my own personality or talents for is not the sort of guy I want to marry or date in the first place (more on this in a future post).
BAIT AND SWITCH LANGUAGE
By the way, a lot of conservative women, especially the complementarian ones, try to persuade women that women giving up their independence, agency, and voice and denying their needs, is not going to be hurtful or harmful to them (but it will – more on that in future posts, if I can get around to it).
Complementarians, and women such as Venker, will attempt to sometimes soften the implications of their views by using gentle terms or friendly sounding euphemisms to describe what they are actually talking about.
Years ago, I once saw an editorial written by a complementarian woman who argued with other women, to try to convince them, that while, yes, Christian gender complementarianism (which is actually nothing but male hierarchy) is asking women to voluntarily give up bits of themselves, their goals, agency, and independence….
That doing so is ultimately for women’s own good, in the way a fence around a pasture is ultimately good for a horse, because the horse cannot get out of the pasture and, say, get hit by a car on the street and be killed.
Do I need to say it?
Women are not horses.
Failing something such as brain damage, dementia, or severe learning disabilities, most women do not need to be guided in life, into all of adulthood, by men, as though they are big, dumb animals who need to be penned in for their own safety.
I think most women are intelligent enough to look both ways before they cross the street of life, and so do not need to be hedged in by a “fence” of complementarian or Beta Female making.
Women are human beings who are entitled to liberty and freedom and being able to make their own decisions for themselves, just as much as any man, so I find the complementarian women writer’s analogy somewhat failed on that score.
This complementarian woman who wrote the “fence” post – was only willing to admit partially that complementarianism is limiting for women.
She spent the rest of her essay trying to gloss over the deep sexism in that world view by trying to put it in nice, soft terms of how allowing a man to rule over you may sound bad and limiting at first, but that it is supposedly for your own safety and benefit in the long run.
The complementarian “fence” blog post author’s view, among other things, does not address the fact that most complementarian churches have horrid track records at actually assisting wives who are being abused by their husbands…
But Christian gender complementarians often side with the abusive husband (and even try to discipline the wife for divorcing the abuser or seeking help!) There are many examples of that at the (Link): Crying for Justice blog, and in Christian author (Link): Ruth Tucker’s book. Does any of that sound pro-woman or pro-family values to you? Because it does not to me.
Here is another post on a similar topic, about how both men and women complementarians (who are Christian advocates for male hierarchy, and traditional, or beta, female behavior) are dishonest with their language (hosted on CBE’s site):
(Link): The Bait & Switch of Complementarians
Despite some the caveats in her article, Venker is in fact ultimately asking women to be doormats to men.
Venker tosses out some language like, “men really do like feisty women” and so on, but make no mistake, she contradicts her own comments on those points to spend the remainder of the article advising women their greatest hope for getting married or holding on to a husband is to be a doormat (to tone down or hide their feisty nature, less the man in question be turned off by it).
I am not sure how Vender expects me to be “Feisty” and “Soft” at the same time, since she seems to understand a woman being assertive in a healthy manner, being bold, and speaking up for her own needs, as “being feisty” and rejects it, because to her, a “soft” woman is passive, doesn’t ask a man to meet her needs, and is, in short, a doormat.
FEMINISM DEFINED AND UNDERSTOOD
To reiterate: I am a conservative.
If by “feminism” you mean something like the following:
“Man-hating, bra-burning, abortion-supporting, Democrat voter, who wants to see Christian bakers legally punished for not wanting to make cakes for homosexual weddings, and one who wears depictions of female genitals in public marches,”
I too reject that sort of feminism, or don’t find much in it that I agree with.
If you are a conservative who takes the word “feminism” to mean “women wanting, expecting, and asking for equality in society and practicing healthy boundaries with men and with everyone” – and thus reject the concept in part, or in toto, on those grounds, you are one sick puppy, and are a sexist swine.
There is nothing wrong or selfish, there is nothing anti-Biblical, anti- family, un-feminine, or anti-traditional values, with women wanting or expecting fair treatment and equal opportunities in marriage, dating, school, jobs, by the government, and so on.
Note that women wanting equality or equal opportunities is not the same thing as saying men and women are completely identical – that is a straw man that conservatives raise frequently. (Though in my view, men and women are much more alike than different.)
There is much of left wing feminism I don’t agree with, and I don’t use the term “feminist” to describe myself precisely because it is too closely aligned with left wing Democrat concerns and values. But that is no reason to chuck out the entire concept of fighting for the equality, equal rights, and respect of all women.
However, a lot of my fellow conservatives so loathe the left wing variety of feminism, they are ready to go deaf at any commentary that asks them to take seriously sexism, or the objections and concerns women have to raise about anything.
WHEN WOMEN ASKING AND EXPECTING FAIR, KIND TREATEMENT IS MIS-CAST AS “NAGGING” OR “TELLING MEN WHAT TO DO”
From Venker’s article:
“Men love women who are fun and feisty and who know their own mind! But they don’t want a woman who tells them what to do”
–(end comment)–
Here’s the problem: a lot of conservative women, and men in general, misconstrue a woman simply being assertive, or asking the man to get her needs met, or addressing some inequality or unfairness on the man’s part, as “nagging” or as “telling the man what to do.”
And it is no such thing.
Here’s an example or two.
Suppose you’re a woman married to a man, and you both work full time jobs. You come home from work each day to find that your husband has once again left his sweaty, stinky, dirt- covered gym socks on the carpeting in the center of your den.
And you find this annoying. His socks smell, and they look disgusting.
After several weeks of picking up his gross socks and carrying them to the laundry room on his behalf, you finally say to your husband,
“Sweetie, would you please stop leaving your gym socks in the den? It really bugs me. It looks and smells bad, and it might soil our carpeting. Would you be a dear and please carry them to the washer when you peel them off after a run from now on? I’ve been doing this for you for two weeks now, and I’m tired of picking these socks up after you.”
What generally happens in such a context is your average man disregards his wife and leaves the socks on the floor every day.
The stupid, selfish man will even logic to himself or his friends or his wife thusly:
“But the stinky socks don’t bother ME. I’m fine with socks stinking up the carpet, too. Doesn’t bother me in the least for the socks to sit on the den floor. If the gross socks bother the wife, the wife can pick them up.”
To the men who reason that way in their heads and to your male buddies:
The socks in the middle of the floor may not bother YOU, you oblivious and selfish assh*le, but they are bothering YOUR WIFE. And she is not your maid and should not have to pick up after you as though you are a toddler who is incapable of picking up the socks.
-That is the point.
Because the typical husband in this situation ignores the wife and continues to put his dirty socks on the floor…
The wife has to ask the husband again several days later, “Baby, reminder: please don’t leave your dirty socks out, okay?”
The guy proceeds to leave his socks on the floor.
On and on this goes for days or weeks, with the wife being sweet as pie about it, until after X weeks of practicing the patience of Job about the socks, and nicely requesting of the lazy jackass repeatedly, she finally starts screaming,
“Would you please take your F*cking socks to the laundry? How many F-cking times to I have to ask, you dumbass?”
By this time, the husband may think, “Oh dear, she’s such a NAG!”
Or the jackass husband may think, “She is bossing me around! I detest a woman acting as though she is my Boss and can give me orders!”
And your anti-feminist conservative woman, such as Venker would write to the wives out there,
“Oh no, honey. You are telling your man what to do! Stop it! Stop telling him to carry his own dirty socks to the hamper. That is so un-feminine.”
Then you have blockheads like this conservative woman I am linking to below shaming women into tolerating unfair, gross, rude, or stupid treatment off their husbands because one day their husband will die (so will the wife, but I guess the wife dying one day in the future makes no difference):
Holding a man responsible in a relationship, or addressing imbalances, or holding realistic expectations for adult behavior, is not being feminist, un-feminine, nagging, bossy, or “telling the man what to do.”
But so many conservatives, or sexist men, or these anti-feminist types, like Vender, twist and distort legitimate women’s concerns and grievances (from minor to major) to be the equivalent of nothing more than harping by shrewish, over-bearing women.
Women practicing healthy boundaries is REDEFINED by the Venkers of the world as “nagging,” “being bossy,” or as “ordering a husband around,” or as “being unfeminine.”
All this redefinition of words and concepts, all this re-framing, is simply another un-clever and fear-mongering way to try to convince women that THEIR needs are not worthy, or that if they insist on getting their needs met, will leave them spinsters, or cause their husbands to divorce them.
Women are basically nagged or shamed into silence by the Venders of the world.
If your husband is doing something irresponsible (or rude or insensitive) that annoys you, you are asked of these types to stifle it. Hush up. Don’t call the guy out on it.
Just suffer in silence and keep picking up his dirty socks after him without raising an objection about it.
Women have a right to have certain expectations from a man they are dating or married to – such as the jerk-face picking up his stupid sweaty socks, if she has asked him repeatedly to do so.
If you lazy, entitled losers (boyfriends and husbands of the world) would do what your girlfriend or wife asked you to do the first time around, and do it in a timely fashion, (e.g., pick up your dirty socks, take the car in for a tire rotation, get the leaky toilet fixed), she would not have to “nag” you later on.
If you are a father, and you tell your eight year old son to put his bike away, do you get angry when the kid blows off your request, and three hours later, he’s still sitting in front of his X-box playing Call Of Duty?
So you remind him again, “Son, dear old dad is asking you to go out right now and put your bike away in the garage. I asked you to do this three hours ago.”
But two hours later, your son is still sitting there X-boxing, the kid’s bike is still in the middle of the drive-way.
Does this not hack you off when your kid does this to you?
Well, this is the same situation you put your wife in when you don’t do what she asks nicely the first 100 times, before she finally is fed up with you ignoring her plea and screams at you about it.
Then you have the audacity to tell her, after she understandably explodes in rage and frustration, that she is “being a nag” or you yell back, “get off my back about it,” and these backwards conservative women such as Venker scold women and depict this normal, expected reaction by women as “stop telling men what to do.”
I cannot believe that a conservative woman would define a man being a responsible adult and treating his wife with consideration to be “nagging” or as “ordering your husband around.”
On her Twitter account (Link): view here, on the “About” or “Bio” section, we read this:
Author of five countercultural books. Pro-women, pro-men, pro-family. Ergo, not a feminist. Wife and mother of two. Vodka, pls. #TheAlphaFemalesGuide
—(end Venker Twitter bio quote)—
Notice that Venker assumes that being “pro man,” and “pro family” or being a mother is incompatible with being a feminist: it is not.
She automatically mistakes “being feminine,” or as standing in opposition to feminism, with being a wife and mother – only the flakiest of flakes among even secular left wing feminists rail against motherhood and marriage; most don’t oppose either one.
(And there again, I am a right winger who has written older blog posts criticizing some left wing secular and religious feminists on some issues.)
I don’t think Venker understands that being “pro-man” (or being pro-family or wanting to have children) is actually part of much of feminism. Not all feminists are against women marrying or having children. Some even have kids and husbands of their own.
Furthermore, a lot of secular and Christian persons (including conservatives) who identify as “feminist” will explain that sexist and patriarchal views hurt not just women, but men as well. In that sense, feminists are “pro men.” They’re not “anti men,” as Venker apparently chooses to define the words “feminist” or “feminism.”
As one example or two, check out these interviews or articles with Christian author Custis-James, where Custis-James has explained how sexism against women and patriarchy in general, harms men in addition to women:
(Link): On Biblical Manhood: A Q&A with Author Carolyn Custis James
(Link): The Failure of Complementarian Manhood
(Link): Carolyn Custis James Shares Why Our Notions of Manhood Matter
(Link): Does the gospel rescue men from patriarchy? An interview with Carolyn Custis James on #Malestrom
As for myself, as I have blogged on countless times (and don’t wish to go into depth here, please search my blog for posts about the topic), I don’t have a problem with women marrying and having children.
However, I do take strong issue with conservatives and Christians who scold, shame, or guilt women into thinking motherhood and marriage are their ONLY legitimate or “godly” choices in life.
I also disagree with the conservative and Christian habit of shaming and scolding women who remain single and childless for whatever reason (whether by choice or circumstance).
The nuclear family is not a problem, neither is marriage – however, where the liberal fringe kooks go too far in condemning marriage and the nuclear family, your right wing, conservative and Christian groups go too far in the other direction by turning marriage and the nuclear family into Idols that they worship (which (Link): goes against biblical teaching).
There you have it.
Another one of my fellow conservatives, while marketing a book about relationship advice to women, choosing to misuse language to further their awful agenda.
There they go again choosing to present concepts or words such as “nice” and “feminine” as being synonymous with “codependent” or “doormat,” and words or concepts, such such as “having healthy boundaries,” “assertiveness,” as being “unfeminine,” so that only men are permitted to, well, be assertive and have healthy boundaries.
Women are expected to put up with being mistreated, taken for granted, and second class, but not men, no sir bob.
And these types of conservatives do this all in the misplaced and sick quest to keep women subservient to men, to limit women, to keep women from reaching their full potential. And some of them are doing it for a buck, not even out of an altruistic motive, which is doubly sick.
I still have another post or two of material about this Venker article.
This is not actually a series I wanted to write – I’d rather be watching an X-Men movie on TV right now than writing this stuff, but I was compelled after I heard about Venker’s obnoxious views earlier today and saw her article on Fox news.
Related Posts:
(Link): A Response to Venker: Re: Personal Experience
(Link): Francis Chan Challenges Christians: Stop Idolizing Family, Put Christ’s Mission First
(Link): The Conservative, Christian Case for Working Women by J. Merritt
(Link): Really, It’s Okay To Be Single – In order to protect marriage, we should be careful not to denigrate singleness – by Peter Chin
(Link): Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church?by Gina Dalfonzo
(Link): Jesus Christ Removed the Stigma, Shame From Being Single and Childless – by David Instone Brewer
(Link): Please Stop Shaming Me for Being Single by J. Vadnal
Christian Pundit 