UTT - Blog Post 13

For a brief history of the Equal Rights Amendment, you could check out this link  http://www.now.org/issues/economic/cea/history.html or you could just google it your self. 

The ERA is quite simple, with three short sections:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

As a Christian and with what you know about feminism, what do you perceive are the problems with this and how do you think a Christian should respond to feminism?  Due Monday, February 20th at midnight.

This is another interesting one—but, since we already did one on sexism, this’ll probably sound a lot like that one. And again, I’d just like to point out that I, as one of the male gender, am technically “unqualified” to talk about sexism because of my gender (which, of course, isn’t sexist at all. But, what do I know? xD).

But, anyways. There really are a few problems with the ERA, and all of them relate to section one: That total equality shall not be denied. Now, my reasonings for this are multiple, and I’ll break it down a little bit in a list:

1.     There are certain areas that men are more likely to succeed than women. To use the example that my teacher related to me in class, I, being the size that I am, would be far more likely to be saved by a firefighter who is 6’1” and muscular (which, generally, applies more commonly to the male physique) than someone who is 5’2” and lithe (which is more commonly a female physique). Now, of course, the reverse is also true—women generally are skilled in different areas than men, and in those areas, they are, for the most part, above and beyond what men could be. It’s not a matter of gender discrimination, but rather of plausibility and applicable talents, which leads into my next point.

2.   Men and women are skilled in different areas. Men do tend to excel in physical jobs or other careers that call for their specific skillsets. On the flipside, women also have skillsets that are different than men which definitely allow them to excel in certain types of jobs that men struggle at. It all depends on the natural inclinations and skills of the specific person, and gender hardwires some of those deeply into every male and female person.

3.   Now, knowing this, it stands to reason that there are some things men should be doing that women should not, and, of course, vice-versa. By passing the ERA, it would allow—force, rather—women to serve on the front lines of combat, to use one example. In this case, it is both proven to be psychologically damaging to men to see women be wounded or killed, and it exacerbates protective instincts that would overcome basic training and destroy the cohesion necessary to perform a military maneuver. And this is only an isolated situation. There are other places where this is common as well, of course. On the other side, women share an affinity for nursing that men are hard-pressed, if at all able, to copy, because of how they are genetically wired. This is an area that women excel and most men do not—which shows that one side is good at some things while the other is not.

4.   Therefore, by looking at how the ERA would destroy the common “gender boundaries” that operate within society and were built by the genetic skillsets programmed into us all, it cannot be a good thing. It would remove the value of these skills—that are, in many cases, vitally needed to keep society alive and functioning—and break down the fabric of what we know is male and female. It can’t end well.

As Christians, we are supposed to look at feminism as any other idea floating around in the world today. It isn’t “wrong” except when taken to the extreme, but we know that it denies basic Biblically-formed roles that have existed for tens of thousands of years. We cannot accept it, but we can prove where it follows the right path—and it has, providing the right to vote and fighting for equal pay for equal work, which are admirable ideals—and where it steps over the line. The ERA, in this case, definitely slides the toe of feminism over the line of normalcy and into the realm of the ridiculous.