The Neosecularist

I Said That? Yeah, I Said That!

Archive for the tag “being feminist”

26 Mar 2012
2 Comments

Why I Am Also A Feminist

(A response to “Why I am A feminist“)

I’m also a feminist.

No one needs to shave off any unnecessary body hair, engage in sex with men or women, or at all, to be a feminist.  Whether or not one wears a bra is not an issue (although from a conservative standpoint a well-fitting bra which doesn’t interfere with mobility or health is appropriate).

Liberals, and liberal women, do not own the title to feminism.  Nor do they control the ideas for which feminism is based.  Feminism does not come in one package, nor is it distributed by one manufacturer.  Feminism is also built upon the premise that women deserve, and have the right, to be treated equally, as guaranteed by the Constitution, and to not ever be treated by men as unequal in that respect.  So why then, do liberal feminists feel they need more laws in place to protect their rights that are already guaranteed?  Is it that some women, liberal feminists, will not be satisfied until they have more rights them men?

These are some ideas of what feminism means to me:

  • Women and men must value manhood and womanhood equally, whether it is built into the law or not; and not wait for, or rely on, such silly laws to be passed before equal value is applied.
  • Men respecting women enough not to devalue them by engaging in sex with women outside of marriage.  Women respecting themselves enough not to give into the lusts of men who only want to have sex with them.
  • Women controlling their own bodies by remaining celibate until marriage.  And men doing the same.
  • Instilling the value of abstinence until married in schools, and equal respect for the opposite sex.
  • Women standing together to protect their bodies and control their bodies from being violated by men.
  • Men standing with women on this issue.
  • Men and women realizing the importance of equally caring for children enough to put aside petty arguments as to which one, the man or the woman, will stay at home to raise the children while the other is at work.
  • But also, women realizing the heightened importance of women staying at home raising children in their early years, even if that means giving up a job for the time being.
  • Men accepting that women are not objects, sexually or otherwise.  Women accepting that sex does not liberate or free them, or make them equal to, or with, men any more than sex liberates men.  And that having sex with multiple partners, whether you are a man or a woman, cheapens yourself and your gender.
  • Men accepting that having sex with women outside marriage hurts both men and women.
  • Men accepting that should a child be created out of wedlock it is his responsibility to marry the woman and provide monetary support for her, her pregnancy, and the child if she chooses to keep the child.  Women accepting that if a child is created out of wedlock it is her responsibility to carry the child full term and give birth to it, and marry the man if she will not give the child up for adoption so that the child is not deprived of life.

Today, we have indeed reached a critical point where it is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between what is meant by respect for women, and what it means to be a true feminist, and whether the two are compatible.  There are no “rights” that are being infringed upon or being taken away from any woman in America that in any way cheapens women, disrespects women, relegates women to second class citizens or makes them any less equal to men under the U.S. Constitution.  Men and women are different, of course.  But that they are in no way makes one gender superior over another, where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are concerned, or where the Constitution guarantees the same rights to all Americans regardless of gender.

However, is the sole reason for, and definition of, feminism to protect a woman’s right to abortion, which is what liberal feminists are decrying, in response to the pro-life movement, as a “war on women”?  America has never gotten over Roe vs. Wade, nor will it.  But, when it is overturned, will its supporters get over that ruling?  Abortion is nothing remotely related to the struggles of suffrage (women’s right to vote) or interracial marriage.  Abortion has always been the taking of innocent life from the womb.  Hence, the reason why millions of women, who are pro-life, reject the mantra of liberal feminism while at the same time they embrace the idea of feminism.

On the other hand, why are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, both of whom are very strong, independent women so vilified by other women who call themselves feminists?  And why do some men refer to these, and other conservative women, as c***s?  And, although now women are beginning to speak out, why did it take Rush Limbaugh Calling Sandra Fluke a slut to energize women into demanding their own male supporters stop the misogynist attacks against women?  Why is it that if you are a strong and independent conservative woman, somehow that makes you a traitor to all women, in the eyes of feminists?

Is being a feminist all about having sex, as much sex as you want, with as many partners as you want?  Is being a feminist all about fighting for access, free if possible, to birth control and contraception so one might engage in sex?  Is being a feminist all about fighting for the right to retain access to the types of birth control and contraception that end an unintended pregnancy should that be the result of said sex?  For men – is respecting women all about having premarital sex with women, and respecting her right to kill the child you both creating accidentally?  For women – is respect for yourself all about your right to kill your unborn child so you can continue to engage in sex with men and not have to worry about leaving your place of work to raise a child?  Is that what is meant by women’s “liberation”, “independence”, “freedom” and “control”?  How does behavior which is out of “control” make women more in “control” of themselves and their bodies?

Obviously there is more to being a feminist than that.  Many feminists truly hate men, and would like to seem men as the gender relegated to second class citizenship, or eliminated altogether.

Men absolutely ought to stand up for women’s rights.  Such as a woman’s right to say “no” to sex.  However, what are “women’s rights” if they are not the rights already guaranteed in the Constitution?  That men would have such disrespect for women by using them for their own sexual pleasure, and then standing up for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy so she can go on engaging in that type of behavior does nothing to provide women with the knowledge she is truly equal to men.  What it does do is get men, and women, off the parenthood hook.  In the meantime, and unborn child has lost its life for the cause of feminism and “women’s rights”.

Women’s rights are indeed not just a woman’s issue.  But if abortion, if access to birth control and contraception (the latter of which no conservative objects denying to women), if fighting for that to remain a “woman’s right” is what feminism is centered around, how does that help to end rape, discrimination in the workplace, repression and the real war on women, and where real violence is being waged against women, throughout Islamic strongholds around the world?

If respect for women by being pro-abstinence and pro-life is not a feminist cause or issue, or concern; if “liberation” and “freedom” are only centered around sex and forcing taxpayers to pay for either preventing an unintended pregnancy or for the abortion if that is what results; if feminists define “controlling” their own bodies not by restraining men or themselves but by engaging in behavior characterized with being more out of control and dangerous; if feminism must be, and can only be, defined by being pro-abortion; if pro-woman can only be defined as men supporting a woman’s right to abortion – there may indeed at the end of all that be equally.  But that equality comes at the expensive of equally cheapening and degrading both men and women and lowering the overall standards, value and quality of life itself.

I am not a feminist, nor would I ever accept as being a feminist the notion that taking pride in women means taking the woman you knocked up to the nearest abortion clinic.

I am a feminist because I respect human life, including women.  I am a feminist because I accept that women don’t deserve to have any man force themselves on any woman.  I am a feminist because I accept that women have a right to their bodies, to their virginity, to wait until they are married before they give themselves away.  I am a feminist because I accept that women are not mere objects of sexual delight and pleasure, but are fully capable and functional human beings with the ability to be as smart and as intellectual as men.  I am a feminist because I accept that men do not have a right to control or dominate, to repress or oppress, to enslave or subjugate, to beat, torture or kill women for any reason.  I am a feminist because I accept that women play an integral and most necessary role in society.  I am a feminist because I accept equal rights for men and women are guaranteed through the U.S. Constitution, not through how many opportunities women have in engaging in sex with men, or whether the sex women have is evenly, equally distributed with how many times men are having sex with women.

That is the feminism I stand, and stand up, for.  Will you do the same?

Related articles
Posted in feminism, healthcare, politics, war on women, women, women's rights and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Post Navigation