I recently posted a bit of a rant on my Facebook account and was subsequently asked to make it shareable to a greater number of people so I opted to post it here where you can share if you like. I would encourage you to read the above article by Rebecca Walker first as it is what inspired me and my thoughts.
I would also recommend visiting her personal webpage http://www.rebeccawalker.com/ to know her thoughts better. I don’t espouse all of the same beliefs that she does, but I don’t have to agree 100% to respect her mind and her understanding. That’s what I’m aiming for here: respect for one another’s thoughts.
This isn’t an angry rant, I’m not mad at anyone or even at an ideology. This is just a portion of my worldview.
Here you go:
This is fascinating and well written.
I’ll be very candid here. I have felt that “feminism”, as defined by the militant women’s movement of the seventies, did a greater disservice to women than any good that they claim and here are my reasons:
1. Women were not treated as equally valuable and contributing members of society as men…unless they were doing the work of men.
2. Women were not treated as intelligent, articulate, well-spoken individuals as men…unless they were competing in a debate with men.
3. Women who performed any role that was viewed as “traditional” were not real women.
That is the world of feminism I inherited as a young girl watching documentaries, news casts, and class discussions from grade school through college. Women were not valued for being women, we were only valued as compared to men.
I have tried on various occasions to express my views on feminism but I have not been taken seriously for two big reasons.
First because I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), and secondly because I am not only a Mormon but a Mormon WOMAN which apparently makes me my own special kind of stupid in the eyes of some people.
I was taught from my youngest days, my earliest memories, that I was not just my parents child but a child of God as well. My parents taught me to believe in my own ability to get answers to prayers, direction for my life, and guidance for my decisions.
I have NEVER been made to feel second class because of my reproductive organs by my religion. But I have had that opinion hurled at me by feminists. I have had to defend my decision (no accidents here) to be a mother to people who claim that I can be anything I want to be…except a mom.
I have NEVER been made to feel less intelligent, less knowledgeable, or less inspired as a person because of my gender by my religion, but I have had feminists walk away from a discussion with me because I was too “stupid” to change my view to accommodate them.
I have NEVER been considered selfish for choosing to stay home and give my children the best I have of myself so that they can become their best selves by anyone at my church…but I have endured stares, scoffs, and nasty comments from complete strangers at the grocery store who are put out by my “selfishness” in having children which apparently steps on their toes in some way.
My views on womanhood and motherhood have been dismissed and marginalized by people who claim I should leave my religion because I am dismissed and marginalized by my church because I am a woman. (That is where the hypocrisy usually starts to make my eye twitch.)
I believe that people should be valued for their strengths, their abilities, their natural gifts, their God-given talents, and for simply being a creation of deity regardless of their abilities. I don’t believe that I have to compete with a man to be as valuable as he is. I don’t think it’s a contest. I’ve met a few sexist people in my life, they don’t make me think less of myself. Maybe it’s my own pride but I just figured they were idiots and worthy of pity. It never, ever crossed my mind to believe their drivel.
I love being a woman, I love being a Mormon woman, I love being a mom, a wife, a farmer, a friend, and a daughter of God.
Feminism taught me to hate those things and I am so grateful that I learned the fallacy of that thinking early because if I had believed the voices that told me it was better to have a dog than a child I would never have known the joy of children. There is nothing in the world, nothing at all, that could ever be equal to them.
I thank God that he made me a woman. I thank God that my mother loved me enough to see my brothers, my sisters, and I as the greatest work she ever performed. I thank God for my father for teaching me to be strong, confident, and courageous. I can only hope that I can do my life’s work, the work of raising a family, as well as they have.
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