To Laurie and PK
thanx for the feedback, even though it was more in the form of a bite on the bum :)
I don't really see the issues you raised Laurie as being part of feminism, but of natural justice. Lets look at them....

PK.. yours first. Yes, you have a point there, people outside of Christ do have goals, and find their own meaning in various ways.
Perhaps I could have put that better. I was trying to link the fact that these sudden 'causes' are often based on selfishness and giving meaning to the death of a loved one, and often in ways which use the death/tragedy as a way of almost 'punishing' the wider community in the guise of 'doing something for the public good', when all they want is to have an on-going memorial to their lost loved one.

LAURIE
-Voting. I don't begrudge women this. But the right to vote does not a utopian society make. I'm sure there are various patterns of voting, such as limiting it to stakeholders, to men, to original inhabitants.. all are valid cultural responses to the issue of social organization.

-Purchase Property without permission of Husband etc. yes, a very biblical idea :) Patriarchy has more to do with inheritance of existing property from the male line,and keeping it in the patrilineal line, than taking property of the wife.

-Professional Employment. Deborah in the book of Samuel was a Judge of Israel.

-Fully Human not a chatel. If we had stayed close to God as a society, regarding women as chatels would not have arisen. If the feminist movement overcame this, all well and good.

The problem as I see it is this. A womens movement might well address the injustices of a male dominated society, but if it alienates the men in the process, and leaves a society scarred by 'them/us' in our most fundamentally important relationship, has it achieved anything worthwhile ? I suggest a better approach is nationwide returning to God, and that way the source of the problem is fixed (stubborn, selfish male hearts)

David,

after your last post I am not sure exactly what it is about feminism that you disagree with. You say all the rights Laurie talks of are "natural law" rights, of course, but women were deprived of them all before feminism and this was in Christian societies... in fact, natural law rights were for a long time considered to refer only to propertied men.

I don't like any movement which is rabidly "anti" anything, and certainly some forms of feminism may have done that, so maybe that's what you have in mind. But sometimes it seems that women get accused of being anti-men only because they challenge male priviledge and men react with venom!

Consider some of the posts which claim that prominent feminists must all have been motivated by personal stories of oppression and abuse. This may very well be true, but does it make their claims any less relevant? Their claims should be evaluated on their merits, not on the basis of personal circumstances.

And what about the nasty, hurtful comments on the author's looks? How ironic, feminists often complain that women get judged by their looks not their opinions, these commentators seem to prove the point! No reasoned argument, just spite. So who's being needelssly aggressive here? what are you afraid of?

Talk is cheap.

Especially in the world of ideologically motivated politics.

Feminism is no different to any other essentially divisive political framework.

l think men (and quite a few women) are just plain tired of the fanciful rhetoric and specious claims, often on the back of very self serving herstorical revisionism. Those words tend to stand in stark contrast to the actions of women in general and feminists in particular.

l see this as no different to the union movement which was, initially at least, highly laudable and affected substantive and sustainable change for the better. In the end, unionism was hijacked and subverted by the politically ambitious. Their ambition (and acrimony for the capitalist pigs) ran so deep that they perverted the cause and brought about its virtual demise. Which is a shame because things are slipping backwards on that front. Same deal with feminism. There is a fair amount of bias and double dealing to the point that people are walking away. Heck, many are not even putting themselves anywhere near a position where they have to walk away. And things seem to be going backwards for women... raunch culture, 12 yr old girls dressing like 40 yr old street walkers, mass exodus from workforce during child bearing years.

It seems that the main thing that feminist women have adopted is the worst aspects of opportunism, which is innate in ALL HUMANS. It takes a fair measure of maturity and restraint to do these things effectively and fairly.

A statement was made in a post about past misdeeds of male forebears as somehow being a reasonable rationale for the fact that the shoe is (or should be) on the other foot. That sounds a bit silly really. Basically saying that our future sons must give alms, pay restitution and be punished for the deeds of our great grand fathers. This is essentially an intergenerational VENDETTA type of attitude. (cont)

(cont).

That sort of thinking undermines one's credibility and its the first step down the slippery slope of disrespect. Apart from sounding illogical to the point of being absurd, this sort of thinking does no good in moving foward in a postive vein. It looks back and wallows in the past and this is very dangerous. (cont)

One clear area in which much injustice is faced is by men (especially fathers) in divorce. Offering intergenerational vedetta as justification for this is pointless. Its a dismissal of men and conveys utter disregard for our experience. Where's the compassion, the kinder, gentler, nurturing side in that? This is a major wedge between men and women. Until we really start to learn to respect each other again, build bridges and reconcile, the lament by women about the absence of good men will only get worse, much worse. Out of self preservation we have gone into hiding, right under everyone's noses.

Unfortunately, its prolly too late for the generation that came up thru the 70s to 90s. l think that those born in this millenium will just change their focus as a result of surveying the sorry, charred, lonely and often very biiter and cynical singles and divorcees that will surround them. They will take one look at that and say 'not me.'

In the meantime the politicians will keep distorting and misrepresenting, hopefully doing so to the point of their own irrelevance.

Enuff talk... what, if anything, are we going to do about?

Of course feminism’s a sham and an indulgence!

The female may say that about a certain "Member" of yours as a every twenty minute indulgence.

Suebdootwo,

And how does your member get its indulgence without this sham?