Tuesday, June 19, 2007
(11:08 AM) | Stephen:
Chains Of Our Own Making
Via Amanda, I was introduced to The Surrendered Wife, a book and now movement based upon the idea that women should completely, absolutely, totally set aside all independence of thought and action and rely instead upon their husbands for all opinions, instructions and decisions. There's a 60 Minutes (Australia) segment found here about the movement. As Amanda said, it's well worth the time it takes to watch the entire segment, though be prepared for some disturbing content.
Content such as the image of a woman telling her two year old daughter that "Daddy is the king of the house," or a man who schedules his wife's day down to the minute, writing it out in a giant day planner. Images of a man talking about how "women are very focused on the moment, and what might be true right now probably won't be true in two minutes," speaking, of course, about the woman's obligation to always say yes to sex, justifying it the way rapists always justify their actions: "after it starts, she'll enjoy it." And his wife is sitting next to him, nodding her head, a psychologically damaged victim of emotional and sexual abuse who has, at least on some level, convinced herself that she really does "want it" and he really does "love" her.
It's sick. It's twisted. It's blasphemous, anti-Bible, it makes a mockery of what Jesus taught, it promulgates a system in which men are able to abuse and exploit their wives and daughters for the fulfillment of their every whim. It's exactly the type of thing that women have fought for centuries to escape, proof that no matter what victories we achieve, there will always be present with us destructive, evil impulses and attitudes.
This is really simple. Sometimes a person will get into a relationship, even a marriage, with someone who is controlling and dominating, someone so petty and immature that they've never left the mindset of a toddler or young child who has to exert control over every aspect of their environment. This can be a man or a woman; petty tyranny is gender-neutral.
But why is it that women are the only ones expected to go along with this? Why are there books and movements which actually tell women that this is the natural order of things, that when they find themselves married to an emotional 2-year-old they should just take it and allow their every moment to be dictated by someone so developmentally stunted?
The answer, of course, is that the human story is written with Woman's blood on Slave's skin, bound by the straps of economic and physical bondage of all who find themselves in a position of even momentary weakness.
The issue of feminism, of civil rights for ethnic and religious minorities and those who are Gay, Lesbian or Trans is not merely about housing or jobs, about inheritance or child custody or any thing of that type, as important as they are. The struggle for complete equality is about life, and death, about bodily integrity, about the ability to choose what you will eat, what you will wear, even what opinions you will have in your own mind. This struggle is far from over, because those who wish to oppress minorities are always working to conceal the iron fist in the velvet glove, and they will always be able to find people so psychologically disturbed that they've convinced themselves of the goodness of their oppressor, and who will advise everyone else to find an oppressor of their own.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, they say, and this is nowhere more apropos than the struggle for women, and blacks, and hispanics, and children and all other oppressed people to belong to no one but themselves.
Content such as the image of a woman telling her two year old daughter that "Daddy is the king of the house," or a man who schedules his wife's day down to the minute, writing it out in a giant day planner. Images of a man talking about how "women are very focused on the moment, and what might be true right now probably won't be true in two minutes," speaking, of course, about the woman's obligation to always say yes to sex, justifying it the way rapists always justify their actions: "after it starts, she'll enjoy it." And his wife is sitting next to him, nodding her head, a psychologically damaged victim of emotional and sexual abuse who has, at least on some level, convinced herself that she really does "want it" and he really does "love" her.
It's sick. It's twisted. It's blasphemous, anti-Bible, it makes a mockery of what Jesus taught, it promulgates a system in which men are able to abuse and exploit their wives and daughters for the fulfillment of their every whim. It's exactly the type of thing that women have fought for centuries to escape, proof that no matter what victories we achieve, there will always be present with us destructive, evil impulses and attitudes.
This is really simple. Sometimes a person will get into a relationship, even a marriage, with someone who is controlling and dominating, someone so petty and immature that they've never left the mindset of a toddler or young child who has to exert control over every aspect of their environment. This can be a man or a woman; petty tyranny is gender-neutral.
But why is it that women are the only ones expected to go along with this? Why are there books and movements which actually tell women that this is the natural order of things, that when they find themselves married to an emotional 2-year-old they should just take it and allow their every moment to be dictated by someone so developmentally stunted?
The answer, of course, is that the human story is written with Woman's blood on Slave's skin, bound by the straps of economic and physical bondage of all who find themselves in a position of even momentary weakness.
The issue of feminism, of civil rights for ethnic and religious minorities and those who are Gay, Lesbian or Trans is not merely about housing or jobs, about inheritance or child custody or any thing of that type, as important as they are. The struggle for complete equality is about life, and death, about bodily integrity, about the ability to choose what you will eat, what you will wear, even what opinions you will have in your own mind. This struggle is far from over, because those who wish to oppress minorities are always working to conceal the iron fist in the velvet glove, and they will always be able to find people so psychologically disturbed that they've convinced themselves of the goodness of their oppressor, and who will advise everyone else to find an oppressor of their own.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, they say, and this is nowhere more apropos than the struggle for women, and blacks, and hispanics, and children and all other oppressed people to belong to no one but themselves.
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