Friday, July 15, 2016

A Host Of Perspectives

When it comes to the role of women in relationships, the available views span the gamut.


On the extremely right wing Christian side, there are those who subscribe to a philosophy known as Quiverfull. Wikipedia says, "Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative fundamentalist Christian couples, chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and elsewhere. It sees children as a blessing from God and promotes procreation, abstaining from all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization."


Are children a blessing from God? Certainly, they are --- if one is comparing that view with the racist eugenics philosophy espoused by Margaret Sanger, who was quoted as saying that the most loving thing a person could do to a child was to kill it.


However, despite the paranoid view that overpopulation is so severe that women are now obliged to get abortions or get sterilized, there is still enough of a population issue that I see no logical reason why people ought to feel obliged to bear children. If a man decides to get a vasectomy because he's thought long and hard about issues pertaining to procreation, and decided that he no longer wishes to be a father, he ought to feel free to do so.


The sexism of the Quiverfull movement is illustrated by this quote from the web site for a group called Quiverfull Daughters: "Girls are born for one and only one reason: to serve a husband. In that capacity, as his helpmeet, she will bear and raise his children, feed as many children as God sends on whatever income he earns, may raise a garden and animals or run a home-based business [with his approval], may home birth and will certainly homeschool all of her children."


Submission in the context of marriage should be understood in the light of the verse saying "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."  (Ephesians 5:21). In other words, the idea that the woman's SOLE reason for existence is to serve the husband is nonsense. Yes, God created women because men needed helpmeets --- but that didn't mean that women had no intrinsic value, even if they chose not to ever get married!


On the other end of the spectrum is the radical feminist views of women such as Andea Dworkin, who was an obese lesbian. (She almost certainly never shaved her legs.)


In the Wikipedia article about the book entitled "Intercourse", you'll read about her infamous statement to the effect that all heterosexual sex is rape. In all fairness to her, the book did include a line to the effect that "violation" was a synonym for intercourse --- but she denied that she'd said that ALL straight sex was tantamount to violation. Rather, if one believes Wikipedia (versus some of the more critical articles about her), she meant that straight sex should never put a woman into a subordinate position in which the needs and desires of the man counted for much, and in which the needs and desires of the woman counted for nothing.


Unfortunately, Andrea Dworkin's radical feminism led her to endorse legal abortion.


If "misogyny" is a term for hatred of women, and if "misandry" is a term for hatred of men, what's the appropriate term for hatred of prenatal human life? How does it "empower" women to misdirect their anger at men at the helpless little preborn people within their wombs?