I wrote an entire rant here but I deleted it because I didn't think it got my point across, it was just a rant and nothing else. Why is there such a strong perception in the American right that the left is somehow unpatriotic?
America is a melting pot, it's been that way since the very beginning, a nation of immigrants. Yet somehow people who object to bigotry on racial, religious, or sexual grounds are deemed unpatriotic.
The first amendment is a part of our constitution. It is incredibly clear: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
And yet, people who don't think that America should be governed by Christian standards are unpatriotic, because the country was founded by Christians, yadda yadda yadda...Jefferson modified his Bible to remove the parts he didn't agree with, he and Franklin were deists, who would be considered highly heretical by most Christians, especially the kind who make this argument. To say this country was founded on the Ten Commandments is stupid: adultery is not illegal, nor is blasphemy, nor disobedient children, nor idolatry...the constitution protects people from harming each other, and its similarities with Christian morality begin and end there.
The point is that laws cannot be made to respect or prohibit religion. Making a law on religious grounds is against the constitution and unpatriotic. Beyond that, is that what we, as Christians, really want? Our we so insecure in our own religion that we want the government to force people to follow some of our tenets? We love to talk about oppression, but is saying that the government cannot officially endorse us, or any other religions, really oppression? We must be in a pretty good position if the worst thing that we can come up with is a lack of affirmation from a government that is sworn, in its very constitution, to abstain from doing that.
And yet, people who try to enforce this are somehow unpatriotic. People who object to our government and government-funded facilities directly endorsing, say, Christianity (read: the ACLU) are unpatriotic heathen fascists.
Somehow insisting that we treat people equally, regardless of country of origin, or religion, or sexual orientation, is unpatriotic. It's unpatriotic to object to calling Arabs towelheads. It's unpatriotic to object to the torture of inmates. It's unpatriotic to support the Equal Rights Amendment. It's unpatriotic to be a feminist.
On that topic: Feminists don't hate men. "Feminazis", with a few exceptions, do not exist. They are a strawman by the right to mischaracterize the feminist movement and evoke hatred from people who have no other knowledge of it. Feminists, by and large, do not hate men for being male, do not believe that all sex is rape, do not think that women are superior to men. There may exist feminists that believe some of these things, but those beliefs are not a component of their feminism.
Feminism is this: there is sexism in our country. Looking at the wage gap, this is undeniable. Looking at how masculinity is associated with power, and how femininity is associated with daintiness, this is undeniable. Looking at the stereotypes of women as incapable of scientific and mathematical (logical) endeavours, this is undeniable. Need I go on? Feminism does not believe men are inherently bad, or women are inherently good, because feminism contends that there are no inherent mental differences between men and women, and that masculinity and femininity are socially imposed. Looking at the differences in perception of masculinity and femininity throughout history, and between societies, this isn't hard to believe. Feminism is saying, look, the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity are damaging to women because they make men out as natural leaders, and so women out as naturally submissive, which limits their ability to act autonomy, because society expects them to behave in certain submissive ways.
So, feminism says, look, forget the stereotypes, do away with them, let people be who they want, quit characterizing women as bimbos and weaklings, there's been progress but the stereotypes are still far from gone. And, yes, feminists accept that sexual stereotypes hurt both men and women, the focus is on women because they are the underrepresented group, they are the group that suffers from stereotypes that repress their autonomy.
Most rape, by far, is committed and attempted by men. What is more sexist: to assume that there is something inherent in men that makes them rape more, or to assume that the problem is in the stereotypes our culture imposes on them (men = dominant, powerful, women = weak, submissive).
Feminism is saying that stereotypes hurt everyone, and account for the misrepresentation of women in government and positions of power, and should be abolished. How is this unpatriotic?
And I've gotten so far on that tangent, I'm not sure how to wrap this up nicely. I'll just ask, how is limiting personal freedom, and the ability for one to work on an even playing field regardless of sex or race, unpatriotic, especially in a country that prides itself on limitless opportunities for all people, and immense individual freedoms?
Being complacent with racial, sexual, and religious inequality, that's what's unpatriotic.
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Feminists like that do kind of exist though. In my Women and Madness class there was only one guy in the class and the rest were a bunch of girls. They seemed so sweet and nice at first but some of the things they said were soooo "man-hating." I felt like I was always sticking up for the men (since the one guy never really said anything in class - he was kind of stupid anyways). The book we read was AWFUL. It said that the definition of a feminist is someone who believes that men and women should be "functionally equal." How can we be functionally equal? Men and women are so different, but I think that's a good thing. I wouldn't want to see any pregnant men or anything like that (extreme example, I know). Since the class was about women with mental illnesses (and feminism as well, it turns out), the authors of the book often labeled all men as sort of "out to get" women, especially in the realm of medicine and mental illness. They discussed how doctors wanted to have a monopoly over the midwives that took care of women during pregnancy and other times, even though they apparently could never begin to understand what a woman was going through. Ugh, gag me with a spoon!
There are a lot of self-labeled feminists out there who don't get it. There are people who are feminists and who also hate men, but the first does not cause the latter. There are also a lot of people who misinterpret what feminists say as being more inflammatory than it is, both because they want to believe it to be so, and because feminists can use terms in ways that are not quite the same as in common parlance.
For example, when a feminist says "gender," they mean the elements of sex that are imposed by culture, as opposed to "sex," the inherent biological traits one is born with. So, if a feminist were to say "the male gender is inclined towards rape," they are not saying that men are born with the likelihood of rape, or that there is anything inherent in men that makes them more likely to rape. This would be sexist, and making behavioral generalizations based on sex is what feminism aims to abolish. Rather, they are saying that the attitudes and attributes that men are culturally encouraged to adopt (aggressiveness, sexual dominance, stoicism, etc.) work together to encourage rape.
Functional equality isn't about biological differences, it's saying that there should be no difference between men and women in situations where one's biological sex isn't important (business, social roles, etc.). It means that, since, physically and mentally, men and women are both naturally equally capable of many of the same things, they should both be able to do those things without being discriminated against. It's about taking sex out of the equation where sex isn't important.
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