Men are jerks, and women should be more like them.

Paper I did for apologetics class this year, on feminism. :)

MEN ARE JERKS AND WOMEN SHOULD BE MORE LIKE THEM

Equal or greater roles, goals, and opportunities for women are what feminism's cultural and political battles parade for. “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less,”states Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), a proud feminist during the first of three “waves” of feminism.
Abortion, equal-opportunity jobs, and headship-less households are just some of the “rights” for which feminists stand. Abortion being a major one, many famous feminist leaders have been advocates for this act, including Margret Sanger (1879-1966), a feminist who worked hard to legalize birth control and founded Planned Parenthood.
Many feminists believe that marriage is completely unnecessary; they believe that it is limiting in many ways, including their sex-lives, and hope marriage will eventually be a thing of the past. They often believe men are useless for anything except reproduction. Of course this is somewhat hypocritical of those who desire equal social stature with men. Feminists are the ones complaining of being used by controlling men for nothing more than childbearing, sexual pleasure, and cooking. By lowering men to tools of reproduction, they are not equating themselves with men, but exalting themselves above them. However, they don't admit that. They want equality!!!
Feminists protest that woman's rights, abilities, and opportunities should be equal to, if not greater than, men's. Thus, feminists are pushing to give women the right to any occupation, household, or political role that men can obtain. Constantly working towards these “equal rights” goals, women protest in the streets and in the home their equality with men. In the process they are becoming “man-haters.” How, you might ask? They do because their view of men becomes distorted. Men are looked at as the opposing force. In our culture, men are seen as the ones currently retaining all the rights from women, not women retaining rights from men. Feminists believe that if men would just step down and share their rights and roles, there would not be a problem! Because they don't, they are considered jerks. You see, feminists believe: Men are jerks, and women should be more like them.
For the sake of feminists, I will over-look the above illogical nature of their thinking and leapfrog right into the ultimate issue. Should men and women be equal in rights, social abilities, opportunities, roles, and goals?
Answering this question from a Biblical standpoint, feminism is rejecting the roles of men and woman given by God. While embracing the roles that Godless evolutionary thinking provides, feminists are rejecting God's perfect plan for His creation. The question whether or not woman and men should be equal in all aspects of sociology and politics is easily answered by simply flipping open your Bibles.
“In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth...” We've all heard the story. But there is key evidence of the God-given plan for our roles of men and women in the account of our creation and fall. Genesis 2:18 reads “The LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'” Then God created a woman, Eve, who was to be Adam's helper. If men were able to fill all the important roles and duties of taking care of this world alone, why then did God create Eve a woman instead of another man? Of course, a feminist might argue that if God created man and woman, woman was created as a lower or secondary creature then man, to be used as a tool for reproduction. They bring up how God commanded wives to submit under her husbands (Ephesians 5:23).“This is a burden to woman, a hindrance to women's freedom,” they might add. We find out, when we look at the next set of verses, that husbands have just as heavy of “burdens” and “hindrances” as the wife. They are not the same, but as different as men and women themselves; Ephesians 5:25- 33 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' 32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
What a task! To be willing to give yourself up for another, to love your wife as Christ loves the Church!
WAIT!....
Men commanded to love their wives?! Not hinder them? Not control them? But, instead, give an unconditional sacrificial love to them?! Give them the love that 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes as patient, kind, not envious, not proud, not rude, nor is it self-seeking. Love that is not easily angered and that keeps no record of wrongs; Love that doesn't delight in evil, but rejoices in truth; Love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres; Love that never fails. This is simply unheard of by feminists!
Is it worth it for feminists to “lower” themselves to biblical womanhood just to be loved by men like this? Most women roll their eyes at this passage because Paul must have been in a “fantasy land” when he wrote this. No wife of a man like that would feel the urge to even set a foot into the realm of feminism. I admit, most men don't help paint the picture of Christ and the Church in their marriages. The Passive Man's Guide to Seduction by Franklin Parlamis is a perfect example of today's world-view on marriage and companionship. Joshua Harris, in his book Boy Meets Girl, points out that “the book's [The Passive Man's Guide to Seduction] basic premise is that women today want to be the aggressors in relationships – they want to make all the decisions and call the shots. In effect, they want to be 'the men.' Thus, the most effective way for a man to seduce a woman is to sit back, be passive, and let her take charge.” This is exactly what is happening. There is no room for two male roles in the home, just as there weren't two male roles in the Garden of Eden. Thus, the feminist wife steps up and takes the man's role and the husband becomes a passive meat-head, and the woman's role is long forgotten.
“How romantic,” Harris continues sarcastically. “This couch-potato vision of masculinity is just one example of the current confusion about the role of gender in romance and courtship.”
What feminists seem to misunderstand is that the wife's role is a very important one. Men who are meat-head couch-potatoes are just as guilty. Being a wife involves having an attitude of motivation. It is perhaps one of the hardest jobs there is. It is right up there with being a loving self-sacrificing husband, easily respected by woman.
Proverbs 31:10-31 characterizes a Godly noble adult woman, a wife. Most women read this passage with one eye-brow raised. “Yeah, right... like that will ever happen!”
Hey, nobody said being a woman of nobility was easy! God isn't saying that every good woman should literally select wool and flax (verse 13) and wear purple linens (verse 22.) He's saying that these things portray the attitude of a noble woman. Often times people think of women as being the lowly ones, commanded to stay at home to cook, clean, bare-foot and pregnant, and be submissive like a servant to her husband. However, would a woman of that weak character consider a field and buy it? Does she do business with local merchants? A wife of biblical nobility does. Being a Christian wife doesn't mean being a bare-foot pregnant slave! It means being a business woman who works effectively for her family. It means being strong and wise. It means cooperating with her husband, who himself has an equally important job of loving and providing for his family. Both provide for the home, just in different ways.
What is all of this saying about feminism? It is saying that it is unnecessary. Women should be noble characters, such as that explained by Proverbs 31. As her very non-passive husband is respected at the city gates, the husband and wife work together to keep a household. Both are dependent on God, complimenting each other instead of one over-riding the other.
I'm not laying all the blame for feminism on women's shoulders, though most of it is their doing. Men are also responsible for feminism. If men learned to display good Christian masculinity and proper love and service to women, women would not feel they need to take control. Can you imagine a properly loved Christian woman even having thought of feminism? I can't. The fault lies at both ends.
Feminism is simply rejecting the perfection of God's roles for man and woman; roles that are as different as men and women themselves. These roles are to be cherished and worked hard to accomplish.
Antifeminist, Jim Kalb, spoke accordingly when he said “To be antifeminist is simply to accept that men and women differ and rely on each other to be different, and to view the differences as among the things constituting human life that should be reflected where appropriate in social attitudes and institutions. By feminist standards all societies have been thoroughly sexist. It follows that to be antifeminist is only to abandon the bigotry of a present-day ideology that sees traditional relations between the sexes as simply a matter of domination and submission, and to accept the validity of the ways in which human beings have actually dealt with sex, children, family life and so on. Antifeminism is thus nothing more than the rejection of one of the narrow and destructive fantasies of an age in which such things have been responsible for destruction and murder [abortion] on an unprecedented scale.”
True equality does not mean women over-riding men, nor does it mean men over-riding women. It does not mean identical roles, goals, and opportunities, but equal in importance.
Women, be women and be good at it.