• Gender Complementarian Vs Gender Egalitarian Song Lists

Gender Complementarian Vs Gender Egalitarian Song Lists

This first song is how gender complementarians envision marriage and relationships between men and women.
It’s unbiblical, insulting, and why even so many Christian marriages with “traditional values” fail and end up in divorce.

1. Put Another Log on the Fire by Tompall Glaser

2. Strut by Sheena Easton

Complementarians often teach pure male entitlement (and lie and say it’s “God’s design”) – they also have a lot of false ideas about women’s sexuality.

Namely,  complementarians assume that only men want sex, and women don’t want it, don’t like it, and don’t need it. (Think of, for instance, complementarian morons such as “preachers” Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson.)

Complementarian pastors, who are male (of course), therefore never (that I’ve heard) address the topic of husbands sexually pleasing their wives. Pastors never address what women want and prefer in sex.

Complementarians value women only as brood mares: for wifey-hood (i.e., doing housework), sex, and having and rearing children.

Also, hypocritically, a lot of Christian men use pornography, including pastors, and some of them commit fornication (see again: Mark Driscoll for one), some of them are molesting teen-aged girls who attend their churches (see: Andy Savage), but every Sunday, they are paying lip service to being chaste or staying a virgin until marriage.

Anyway, the assumption with these sexist ass-hats (complementarians) is that a man’s sexual needs and preferences are paramount, so they coach wives in their sexist, stupid books, sermons, and blog posts, that the wife should always have sex whenever and however the husband wants.
Which results in this song:

Read the lyrics to the Strut song here or here.

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• Conservatives Still Misunderstanding and Misrepresenting the Concepts / Terms Toxic Masculinity and Traditional Masculinity – The Christian Post Editorial by M. Brown

 Conservatives Still Misunderstanding and Misrepresenting the Concepts / Terms Toxic Masculinity and Traditional Masculinity – The Christian Post Editorial by M. Brown

A very brief reminder of who I am or what I believe:
I used to be a Christian gender complementarian, but I left complementarianism years ago, and I now question (but did not reject altogether) the Christian faith.
I do not identify as a feminist for reasons I explain here.
I remain a conservative but left the Republican Party approximately three years ago.
(In other words, I am not a liberal, I not a feminist, and I am not an atheist.)

In the past few weeks, debates and conversations about the concepts and phrases of “Traditional Masculinity” and “Toxic Masculinity” broke out once again thanks to the APA and a television commercial by razor company Gillette.

A few days ago, I was skimming the headlines at The Christian Post site and stopped to read this, by a Michael Brown:

Is it harder to be a man or woman in America today?

In that editorial, the author, Brown, discusses Traditional Masculinity and Toxic Masculinity (in this post of mine, I will pretty much use both phrases interchangeably).

In that editorial, Brown linked to a Tweet he made, in which he inserted a Twitter poll, asking ‘who has things worse, men or women.’

After I finished reading Brown’s editorial on The Christian Post site, it was evident to me he has a flawed understanding of what the term “Toxic Masculinity” means, so I tweeted at him to say as much, and I was very polite through the entire exchange.

I did not use profanity, lose my temper, engage in name-calling or personal attack (ad hominem) when tweeting to Brown.

• Conservatives Rage Over (APA) Report That Finds Toxic Masculinity is Bad For Men’s Health by Z. Ford

Conservatives Rage Over Report That Finds Toxic Masculinity is Bad For Men’s Health by Z. Ford

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Disclaimer. I’m offering this reminder and disclaimer upfront for anyone who may be new to this blog, or who is not familiar with me: I am a conservative.

I have never been a liberal, and I don’t go by a feminist label.

However, I do find some merit in some points liberals or feminists have to say on some topics, with Toxic Masculinity being one of them.

Unfortunately, most conservatives misunderstand what the phrase “Toxic Masculinity” means.

In very brief terms, here is what Toxic Masculinity does NOT mean:

-it does not mean that masculinity is bad or wrong;
-it does not mean that all boys and men are rapists, sexists, or abusers of girls and women;
-it does not necessarily mean that boys and men should have to take on traits considered feminine and behave like stereotypical girls

So although I am a conservative, and the following appears on a liberal website, I find it has some merit. Just because an idea or view comes from liberals or feminists doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.

I, a conservative, agree with most of the article…

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I have a lot of comments to make below this really long excerpt…

Conservatives Rage Over Report That Finds Toxic Masculinity is Bad For Men’s Health

by Zack Ford
January 2019

New psychological guidelines for improving the health and safety of boys and men have conservatives outraged.

The American Psychological Association has issued new guidelines designed to improve both the safety and mental health of men and boys. Many of the recommendations involve dismantling aspects of masculinity that inhibit wellness, which has conservatives up in arms that men are under attack.

In the ensuing debate this week, conservative pundits, columnists, and religious figures have indicated that they believe masculinity is biological and fundamental, leading them to conclude that the report is purely political.

But what the APA actually highlights is that men themselves are harmed by the way society conditions them to conform to traditional stereotypes of masculinity.

Not only are those stereotypes not inherent, but there are ways men can be men without conforming to them.

• How to Raise a Mentally Tough Daughter by J. Moye

How to Raise a Mentally Tough Daughter by J. Moye

My parents did the exact opposite as what is taught in the article below.

It’s much more difficult to learn the sorts of things this article is talking about later in life and to put them into practice. My life would’ve been ten times easier had my parents taught me, when I was a kid, to have the skills mentioned in the article I am linking you to below.

My mother, for one, valued “sweetness” in me more than any other quality, and she unfortunately confused “sweetness” with codependency – which meant, I was encouraged to do things such as be passive, to give in and give up easily, rather than be tough, keep on even when things got difficult, or stand up for myself when bullied or treated unfairly.

My dad, with his quickness to shame or mock if I made a mistake at anything, turned me into a perfectionist. My father’s manner of parenting turned me into someone who gave up easily if I was not doing well at an activity, and his method of parenting conveyed to me to not even try new things in the first place, really – after all, trying something new may mean I might fail at it, and in my family, failing is shameful.

(My father, though, would probably not recognize his parenting as such – but that is what it was like for me growing up. I think my dad thinks of himself as a very positive person, but as far back as I can remember, he was always very negative, cranky, and hyper-critical of me and of everyone and everything else. He frames everything in negative terms and worst-case scenarios.)

It’s as though my parents took all the qualities and skills therapists say parents should instill into a daughter to turn her into a confident, resilient, independent adult, and did the exact opposite – much to my detriment.

How to Raise a Mentally Tough Daughter by J. Moye

The definition of mental toughness varies among researchers and academics, but we all know it when we see it on the soccer field.

It’s the kid who bounces back faster from disappointment, who takes constructive criticism well, and who can pick herself up and dust herself off no matter how hard she falls.

What doesn’t vary among researchers is the fact that possessing mental toughness is a predicator of success in not only sports, but also in school and at work.

• When Men Rule the World by Andrew Bauman

When Men Rule the World by A. Bauman

I do think that in some ways, complementarianism may be worse than “wordly” sexism, because Christians take sexism, slap some Bible verses on top of it to justify it, and say it’s all “God’s design.”

When Men Rule the World by A. Bauman

Snippets:

Women were less than. No one would have said that out loud, but growing up in my white evangelical utopia deep in the South, we all knew it was true: men ruled the world.

My presidents: always men, my pastors: always men. Most CEOs, elected officials, and anyone I knew who had real power, authority, or influence, was, like me, a man. I wanted power, too. I genuinely wanted to make a difference in the world and thought that developing a domineering masculinity was the answer.

American culture taught me that women were sex symbols; subjects for my lust and objects to be taken advantage of, not honored.

What I learned from the Church wasn’t much different, it just looked more respectable on the surface. Sexism was just as present, objectification just as potent, and the subjugation of women was actually worse, because it was cloaked in “Godliness”.

• Women Do Not Exist to Help Men Change; Men Do Not Need Women to Transform Themselves, by H. Schwyzer

Women Do Not Exist to Help Men Change; Men Do Not Need Women to Transform Themselves, by H. Schwyzer

The following addresses the MPDG (Manic Pixie Dream Girl) character trope that Hollywood script writers use.

However, Christian complementarians are guilty of doing this very same thing as well – of presenting women as a necessity to change men.

I’d say this is especially true in the cases of abusive Christian  marriages, where complementarians act as though all it takes is the love of a wife to change an abusive man. If that were true, there would be no need of Jesus dying on the cross, or the Holy Spirit residing in every believer.

Such views also rob women of their humanity, and make women only in to accessories who prop up men, rather than viewing women as people in their own right, with needs, fears, hopes, and problems of their own that may not have a damn thing to do with any man.

Emphasis in bold face text below added by me (all links, though, are in bold):

The Real-World Consequences of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Cliché by H. Schwyzer

Women do not exist to help men change; men do not need women to transform themselves.

Snippets:

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a well-known pop-culture cliché. The term was coined by critic Nathan Rabin in his review of 2005’s Elizabethtown to describe the cheerful, bubbly flight attendant played by Kirsten Dunst.

Since then, this character type has been analyzed everywhere, from XoJane to Slate to the Guardian. A list of film examples of the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” includes roles played by everyone from Barbra Streisand to Natalie Portman to both Hepburns (Audrey and Katharine)

Rabin claimed that the MPDG “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries.”

In a recent exploration of the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” phenomenon, though, the New Statesman’s Laurie Penny argued that the ubiquity of this stock character in mainstream movies has real-world implications. “Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story,” Penny writes. “Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s.”

• Blind Teenage Girl in Mumbai Fights off Molester Using Self-Defense Moves She Learned at School, Police Say by R. Joglekar and G. Davies

Blind Teenage Girl in Mumbai Fights off Molester Using Self-Defense Moves She Learned at School, Police Say by R. Joglekar and G. Davies

I’ve detailed on this blog before that complementarian men are insecure little sexist ass hats, which is one reason why they ask, pressure, brainwash, or cajole women into acting small, helpless, and defenseless at all times – it pumps up their insecure male egos.

Complementarian John Piper is no exception: he doesn’t think women should work as police officers, nor does Piper believe that a woman on a walk with a man should defend herself if she’s being attacked  (she should, according to him, stand idly by while her male companion beats up the attacker, even if she knows karate, I think he said). You can google these views  of Piper’s to find them for yourself.

These views of Piper’s, and of complementarians such as him, are so moronic, sexist, and impractical, and the exceptions don’t bear them out, such as…

Blind teenager in Mumbai fights off molester using self-defense moves she learned at school, police say

By R. Joglekar and G. Davies
Dec 20, 2018

A blind 15-year-old girl in Mumbai used her self-defense skills to tackle a man who allegedly sexually molested her on a suburban train in Mumbai, India, and detain him until the police arrived, authorities said.