Thursday, November 29, 2012

You're Either a Feminist or a Masochist



So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27

According to dictionary.com: a feminist is: “a person who advocates equal rights for women.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, feminism is defined as the theory of the political, economic, and the social equality of the sexes.

I am so confused when I meet women who do not consider themselves to be feminists. Here are some things that we, as women, would be denied the access to, had it not be for the feminist movement:
  1. Education
  2. Equality in the workplace = equal pay for equal work
  3. Custody = before the feminist movement, a divorced woman had no legal rights to her children.
  4. Property = any property owned by a woman or inherited, was not hers, but her husband’s once she was married.
  5. Voting
  6. Protection from physical abuse = prior to this movement, men had a legal right to beat their wives.
  7. Walking in public without a male escort
  8. Having a bank account
  9. Driving a car
  10. Wearing pants

I’m sure the list goes on and on. But I will stop and ask any woman who reads this: “Do you personally enjoy any of the freedoms listed above?” If your answer is yes, then you ARE a feminist.

And to any man who reads this, do you believe your mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters should have any/all of these freedoms? If you answer is yes, then you are also a feminist. It’s not a bad word and it’s not a sin.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galations 3:28

For any women out there who do not want to be labeled as a feminist, here’s a great quote from one of my colleagues in education:

If you’re a woman, you’re either a feminist or a masochist.

Dictionary.com defines masochist as: “an abnormal condition in which pleasure …. is derived from pain or from humiliation, domination, etc., by another person”

In my last blog, I stated that it is ideal for a woman to be a homemaker for her family. And I stand by that statement, in ideal circumstances, which includes a man who values and cares for his family above his own needs. A man who does not need to belittle women or “put them in their place.”

Equal does not mean the same. I do not want to be a man or be the same as a man. But I do want women to be treated equitably and fairly. I want this for myself, my nieces, and my daughter. And, I want it for the millions of women in this world who benefit every day from the feminist movement that came before our time.

My name is Suzi, and I am a feminist.

33 comments:

  1. Hi Suzi,

    I liked your post--good, clear, and in the groove.
    The issue about the equality of women roars on. There is just so much junk and bunk when it comes to rightly interpreting how women should be in the home and the church.

    Glad that you are pursuing your education. You go girl!

    Keep up the good work!

    My website is: www.ChurchExiters.com

    My book is: Spiritual Abuse Recovery.

    Drop by for a visit.

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  2. I think there's more options than the ones listed : ) I guess that makes me a person who disagrees with the statement "you're either a feminist or a masochist". Not sure what "ist" name that qualifies me as, lol. Maybe I'm a "Created In God's Image-ist". Philosophically speaking, while things like voting rights etc... are very good things, the word "feminist" does encourage both a focus on the value of *half* of that which God created in His image, and also implies our focus should be on our rights. Sometimes qualities of a word can be good (i.e. driving a car, having a bank account), but the word itself ends up becoming a distraction from what our focus should really be on: Serving like Jesus, Who had more rights than all of us, and yet paid less attention to those rights than any of us : )

    Chris B.

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  3. Hey, Chris, Thanks for you input. I think I see where you are coming from.

    The issue at hand is how shabbily women have been treated by those who call themselves Christ's followers. Not only are women marginalized by many cultures, they are marginalized in many places where Christ is named as Lord and Savior.

    No one said that women shouldn't be servants of Christ along with men, but women would serve God much better if they were valued for who the Creator-Savior God made them to be. Equality before God of women, equal to their brothers, is God's idea first. This design has been marred over time. This is something to take a stand for, wouldn't you agree?

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  4. What a joke. So how do those pants fit Suzi? Just another justification for a non biblical life style. Good job.

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    1. Which non biblical lifestyle are you talking about, women voting, women driving cars? It sounds to me like you should move to the middle east where you can lock your women in the closet if you want to.

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    1. The one that isn't being taught at FOC!

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    2. That is a weird comment considering the FOC church does not have any bibles and no one teaches there anymore.

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  6. Too many churches - not just the FOC - view women as something in need of controlling.

    While this is an attitude that pervades every aspect of life, from tv programming, advertisements and consumer products to societal attitudes and gender stigmas, it is especially so in the church, and it has almost always been so.

    Christ was very loving and forgiving to women. He spoke to them gently, healed and comforted them. His message offered liberation for women long before women's issues became a concept, much less a household term, and as such he was the first feminist, insofar as he knew and uplifted the true value of women, not as equals to men, but as uniquely gifted and crafted human beings made in the "other" image of God - another aspect of the Creator's nature.

    Then came Paul, a confirmed bachelor, who set forth the idea of repressing and subjugating women once again. He even stated that some of his views on women were his own and not given by God, yet the total sum of his opinions has marked the lives of Christian women ever since. It would seem that the love of Christ was enough to stem the flow of hatred for the newly established church and stop his violence towards new believers, but that his heart grew cold where he drew the line, once again, at women.

    Violence, discrimination, repression, targeting and objectification towards women are as old as Eve's encounter with the serpent. The line was drawn there in the garden - from that day on, women have been forced to choose to be either feminist or masochist, and men to this very day are either supportive of women or they are perpetrators of the oldest crime known to mankind, which is preying on innocent women.

    Such is the dynamic between men and women, there is no middle ground.

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  7. Interesting. How do you know that comment was made by a guy?? I actually took it that it was a female challenging the 'biblical pants wearing' no no.

    BTW in the Middle East it is way too hot, so a nice kaftan for males and females is a way better way to dress for the climate and culture than in western pants!!

    What makes the wearing of split-legged apparrel in the 21st century an issue of living a non-biblical lifestyle??!! Last time I checked, Christians are not Jewish.

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  8. False dichotomy Suzanne you should not use logical fallacies to make an argument.

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  9. If you are referring to me, I am not Suzanne.

    If you mean what I have written as regards Adam and Eve, then you must not be an adherent to Judeo-Christian belief, or else you have a differing interpretation of scripture, assume that yours is the correct version and are dismissing opposing view.

    If you don't believe that this dichotomy exists, you must not be female, in which case I must ask:

    If you could control the content of this blog, what would you prefer that Suzanne and her readers enter herein? Cookie recipes?

    Panda

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    1. What in the world is a Judeo-Christian belief? Modern Judaism and Christianity are opposed to each other. How can a person have a Judeo-Christian belief?

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    2. I was not speaking to anything you wrote Panda. Suzanne says you are either a feminist or you have an "abnormal" condition two choices. This is a false dichotomy because the issue is not black and white as beliefs vary a lot and feminism means a lot of different things.

      I am happy, probably much happier than you that Suzanne is writing this blog.

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    3. If you are female and past the age of innocence, you are either deluded or informed. If you are deluded, you will continue to be so until the truth becomes plain to you. If you are informed, then you are free to make your own decisions based on what you know. But having come to face the truth, if you don't make choices that favor the preservation of your own self, you are a masochist. That's what a masochist is. A feminist favors the feminine because we are women.

      If you are male, I could possibly explain this for a thousand years and you might never understand much more than whether or not sandwiches will be served, nor might you ever care, because you aren't female and don't understand the issue and don't feel you ever will have to.

      I don't know why you are happy that Suzanne is writing this blog, but I think I can imagine. However, I also don't think you know how very happy I am about it, or how proud I am of her for what she has accomplished in her life. She is a smart and courageous woman.

      Why do you never identify yourself by signing with a name? That is very strange for someone of such strong opinion.

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    4. I have to apologize, I thought you were calling me a masochist if I wasn't a feminist. Saying that there is no middle ground sounded so closed minded that is ticked me off. As a man I can't be a true feminist. I don't want any bad thing for any woman. I want good things and blessings for all. But there is a middle ground if your not a woman . I can't understand the plight of a woman any more than the plight of the black man. The whole premise that you have to be a feminist or a masochist is like saying that you have to be a black panther or a KKK member.
      The middle ground is to support any struggling person to the best of your understanding. Then try to understand more as you get the opportunity. But I'm not someone who wants to hurt anyone. And I can't be a true feminist until I grow new plumbing.

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    5. Your analogy of black panther vs KKK member is rather apt, but that's pretty modern in its scope, since the civil rights movement updated that whole arena. Women's issues are a little more antiquated in some ways, so lets step back a century or so to when in some states you were either a potential slave or a potential owner, depending on the color of your skin.

      In this case, it's potential slavery whose dividing line is based on your gender, and the wedding day too often serves as the auction block at which the seller and the sold are joined.

      I believe that every woman is designed to have within her a wellspring of giving, which is our right and obligation as wives and mothers. You've seen it in action - there's a death in the community, and women take hot meals to the deceased's family, or a baby is born and women knit, sew and shop clear up until the delivery, at which time they fall smoothly into the role of godmother, auntie or babysitter.

      However, if others refuse to repay a woman's kindness or fail to display gratitude, but instead take advantage of her, ridicule or belittle her, or worst of all, abuse her, then that well begins to drop in level until one day she is faced with the reality that until she refills that well, she can't share with anyone any more because she has nothing more to give. She finds herself empty, her relationships bitter, her life without reason or direction because she has been deceived and betrayed.

      It is at this point that she must make a choice: either pick herself up along with her dignity and begin to redefine herself and rebuild her life (feminism), or move forward as martyr, enslaved by the chains of duty. If she moves out of her old roles and into more satisfying ones, she can once again be the source of joy and life, if not, she will drive life out before her like a scorching dry wind until the landscape is littered with the dead and dying, which is in keeping with the state of her heart.

      This is the feminism/masochism dilemma, and each woman must make that decision for herself on her own terms to some extent in even the best and most idyllic of lives, since the people she is in relationship with are never perfect people, and since her needs are never 100% guaranteed to be met all of the time.

      I appreciate that you've been willing to take a look, since it can be hard to get a man to take a look down in the basement. However, a good man will, and once he does so he can get a better understanding of the house's plumbing, and at that point things can potentially begin some dramatic changes for the better.

      And it's this quality in men that I love the most - that most men, if not all, have a hero inside. Seems like they are all just waiting for that job to come up that's so challenging that only a man with his abilities can do it, and then out of the mothballs comes that Superman suit in which he saves the day. That's when women look up to him, and instead of saying "Look! It's a bird! It's a plane!" they smile and say, "Thank you!" and fetch a glass of water for their thirsty hero from a deep and untroubled well.

      Peace be with you.

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    6. I'm no superman, but I care about people. It doesn't matter what color or gender that they are. What's being said, from a woman's perspective, makes more, and more sense. Thanks for helping me understand.

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  10. Christianity is based in Old Testament history, doctrine and law, which is Hebraic. In other words, the Old Testament is the original word of God as inspired and given by the God of Israel. The bible was written by a bunch of Jewish guys.

    Furthermore, Jesus was a Jew, both by birth (genetic lineage) and by faith. The New Testament is comprised of four firsthand witness accounts of his life (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), a record of the acts of the apostles following Christ's death and resurrection (Acts, appropriately enough), a series of epistles, or letters to various churches which were largely written by Paul and which expound the basic doctrines of Christianity, and Revelations, which is the record of a vision.

    Modern Judaism and Christianity do not oppose each other; the proponents of those faiths do. One has existed for as long as anyone knows, the other could not exist without the other. Judaism is the foundational bedrock, Christianity is the roof. Islam is the faith of Abraham as interpreted through the sons of Ishmael, and is another faith of Judaic basis.

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    1. If you would like an interesting topic to research type in "Jesus was not a Jew" and check out the facts and history, I believe a person should be open to truth, and this word "Jew" has been confused for a few hundred years now, there is simply too much information for me to write on this blog entry, but I would encourage anyone who wants to know the truth about what a "Jew" is to research a man who wrote about this topic by the name of Banjamin H. Freedman, I hope everyone who inquires of this knowledge can come to the truth of it.

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    2. The 1980 Jewish almanac under the chapter entitled "identity crisis" states: "strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a "Jew" or to call a contemporary Jew an "Israelite" or a Hebrew." according to this document they are not in fact the same people.

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  11. The New Testament gives the genealogy of Christ. He was a Jew, born of the house of David, and his lineage is traced clear back to Adam.

    Jesus was a Jew, whether you like it or not. Furthermore, the apostles were all Jews, even Paul.

    I want to be polite and generous towards your offer of enlightenment as to the "truth" about Christ's ethnic background, so I think it would be most gracious if I were to warn you to be prudent about what you read on the internet, especially when you come to the point where you are willing to hold its contents in higher esteem than the word of God. This might come as a shock to you, but on occasion there are people who post untruths, sometimes because they have an agenda, such as, uh, bigotry for example. Others are just ignorant, but they, too, feed misinformation to the public.

    Since you are unaware of the Judaic roots of Christianity (Old Testament prophecies and New Testament declaration state clearly that Christ was a Jew and was sent first and foremost for the salvation of the theocratic nation of Israel - that salvation in the final days will come "first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles", etc) then I must assume that you are among the latter, and are simply uninformed.

    Read your bible if you have one, if only to save others the time and bandwidth required to edify.

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    1. These people today who call themselves "Jews" are not the same people who are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, they are imposters, I ask you to honestly consider the idea that maybe someone would want to deceive you. You cannot elevate a group of people as "God's chosen" who in they're own writings (the Talmud) deny Jesus Christ being the Son of God and expect God to bless you! Have you ever looked into what the Talmud teaches about our Lord and Saviour? And you would put those people right up there as "Chosen".
      The word Jew in itself has been changed over time with the translations, if you were to read a translation from 1611 the word would almost always say Judahite, meaning someone who lives in Judea, not everyone who was a Judahite was an Israelite, it's kind of like saying that everyone who lives in Texas is of white heritage.

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  12. Nathan M. Pollock, a Khazar Jew, spent 40 years researching the origin of his fellow "Jews". He says that 6 out of 10 on Palastine and 9 out of 10 in the Western Hemisphere are not real Jews but descendants of the fierce Khazar tribes which roamed the steppes of Southern Russia many Centuries ago. He states that the names Halperin, Halpern, Alpert, Galpern, etc. are 100% Khazar. Also Kaplan, Caplon, Koppel, Kohan, Kaganovich (Russianized) and similar derivitive names. (THE JEWS THAT AREN'T San Diego Union Aug 28th 1966) His findings, and many others too numerous to list in this tract, the Khazar ancestry of most modern "Jews".

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  13. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that is coming and now it is already in the world. (1st John 4:3)

    For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not loose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. (2nd John 1:7-11)

    Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. (Ephesians 5:11-12)

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    1. Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, "Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord and so bring wrath on yourself from the Lord? (2nd Chronicles 19:2)

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    2. While I will admit that I haven't read all of the Talmud, being as I am not Jewish but merely curious, I can't say that I ever saw any reference to Jesus Christ, good or bad. Since you have such a sketchy understanding of the history and content of the bible, I'm going to wager that you are unaware that the Talmud is considered a holy text, being as it is a studied interpretation of God-given Judaic law as it applies to everyday life. It is NOT a secret book of anti-Christian thought.

      Christ said that he came to save the world and not to judge it. Having found a group of people that you feel are in need of salvation, what are you doing so as to reach them with the good news of the gospels?

      Or do you just simply prefer the hellfire-and-brimstone, everyone's-going-to-hell-but-me, self-righteous-stone-throwing-at-my-fellow-man stuff? Because you are a fine one to point fingers at imposters. You seek to disprove the word of God in saying that Jesus wasn't a Jew despite specific biblical reference to him as such, yet you quote scripture in regards to blasphemers, unbelievers, deceivers, etc.

      It wouldn't matter if Jesus was black, Asian, Martian or whatever, unless, of course, you are a bigot, in which case you would probably think that the only thing worse than being Jewish was if he had been a woman.

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    3. I have just presented you with information now weather you would like to do research on it and see if this information is true is your own deal, the Talmud is considered a holy book, yes! But do a bit of research and see what it says about Christ, you can type in "Talmud exposed" on line and find a lot of information about it. I don't hate the Jew, I was simply pointing out that you can't have salvation without Jesus Christ! I don't care who you are, if your black, yellow, brown, a Jew or not no one comes to the Father except through the Son!

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    4. There was no group of people called Jews back then, do research on the origins of that word it does not just mean Israelite.

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    5. When I present you with information, you are quick to tout your own sources, yet you seem to be calling me out for not scouring the internet for information that I'm not convinced is pertinent to this conversation.

      I see no reason to 'expose' the Talmud, because it's just an interpretation of Old Testament law, nothing more. I will grant you that the interpretation is of human origin rather than of divine inspiration, and that the Basel censor did at a certain point remove many references and that certain of them were of anti-Christian sentiment, but overall it was written so that laymen could have access to the law as well as scholars. To read anything more into it as it exists today is begrudging a document that only seeks to serve as a translator of ancient law into modern context so that it can be put into practice in daily life.

      I don't see where Suzanne or anyone responding to this blog has claimed that Christ is anything but who he said he was and OT prophecy and NT testimonies plainly state, so I'm not sure why you keep pounding that one down so hard.

      I don't mean to be rude, but you really should read the bible and get your facts straight, read the Talmud and find out what is really written in it, read *about* both books so you can understand how and when each was written, and do please examine closely the sources of information that you quote. Saying that such-and-such popped up on an internet search does not stand up well when arguing with points made by a book that has been in existence for so many centuries as the bible has, and particularly considering that it is widely regarded as the holy word of the one true God.

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    6. I do read the bible and can clearly see the evils of this place called "Israel" every day Palestinians are being killed because these Jews think they have the right to, but you won't ever hear about it from the Jewish controlled media, all that you hear from them is poor Jews, oh these helpless people who have just wandered around and been persecuted for no reason!

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    7. Keep reading. We all have lots to learn. :)

      As to the genealogical origins of modern Israelis, that's beyond the scope of this blog until such time as Suzanne decides to take it up as a topic, and it is certainly beyond the scope of the original conversation.

      Besides, I have faith that God has a plan that includes us all. The lost are the lost, irregardless of nationality, and it is not my place to judge anyone else. Israel's inheritance is separate from that of Gentiles, so what understanding could I have of my brothers' relationship with the Holy Father that we share in common?

      So I will leave them in peace rather than make comment. But bear in mind that the apostle Paul said that if you are a Jew in your heart, you are a Jew. Since God knows the hearts of men in ways we cannot know, I leave it to Him to recognize each of us for who and what we are.

      :)

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