peacocks and lilies

Sorry I don’t have the dining essay up yet; still workin’ on it. (can I just say it’s fun to know how to employ a semi-colon and a colloquialism all in one sentence?)

That said, I was checking out the Madam over at Ooooh Nuance! this morning, and I stumbled upon another linky-link (beware, you may want to keep reading) in the process. Understand the connection: Madam is discussing the nature of partnership within feminism, as in men can be feminist and should be encouraged to have feminist sensibilities; the linky-link is ostensibly the flip side of that coin, according to the soulless program that interpreted them as similar. It’s from the point of view of a male Christian (apparently literalist, judging by the rhetoric) who believes feminism prevents something he calls complementarianism. Complementarianism is apparently the belief that women’s traditional roles, i.e. wife and mother, are intrinsic to her natural skills, so that’s where her interests should lie, at least as long as she’s reproductively capable. If not, of course, she risks being out of compliance with God and that highest of holy authorities, The Bible.

Forget the myriad issues and offenses here, the arguments one could have with a person who doesn’t care what we think and will never listen to us because he can always scream ,”Bible!” and feel like he’s played the ultimate trump card. What occurs to me as I read these two essays is that the focus is the same. Before I explain myself, let me say this is not a dig at Madamab. Her essay is excellent and I agree with it entirely, even as I reject every tenet of Owen’s. But, though her focus is more subtle, it is similar to Owen’s. I realized after reading the two essays that it may be a major mistake feminists make: focus on what women should do. All sorts of questions, of course, came flooding to the forefront at that point, all sorts of parallels too.

I have talked often recently on this blog about the folly of focusing on the performance of one party. I started out in my opposition to Obama by believing that we had to keep the bad guys to one side of the line. Otherwise, we had no real choice. The evolution of my new political identity has led me to the idea that this strategy is ineffective; we must put good guys (and plenty of good women too) on both sides of the line.

So why don’t we focus on what boys and men should do? I think one reason we have shied away from it is because we women have been socially trained to avoid confrontation. But confrontation is not a bad thing. It is, in fact, the propellant for just about every major political change we’ve come to know in the U.S. The Declaration of Independence is a confrontational document. Likewise the Declaration of Sentiments.

So how do we begin to address that audience, the audience of boys and men? I wish I knew. Back when I talked about abstinence education, I parenthetically suggested that someone should develop a socialization program for boys. I’m imagining something that begins in middle school and goes on through high school, maybe even has a college course or two associated with it. There could be a parallel or even an integrated program with girls. Maybe an integrated program on gender roles and ethics in relationships is a better approach altogether, actually. I’m just brainstorming ideas here. The point is, I think we have to think about alternate ways of focusing our attention in order to affect greater, more lasting change for women. Perhaps this is the natural evolution of Madam’s excellent essay.