Wow! I posted last night and figured there might be at the most, 5 responses this morning. I had no idea there would be such a flood of discussion!
Anyway, I have never considered myself a feminist because the contact I had with women who identified themselves as such were completely unbalanced in their veiws. They were anti-God, non-religious and actually made me at times feel embarassed to be a woman.
There were times I almost felt I had to apologize for being female.
I have been working in male-dominated fields for a long time and as such, I have experienced discrimination in the form of being ostracized because I was seen as weaker, etc.
For example, when I was at skills training for Law Enforcement, when we got to the portion of the class where we had to strategize and carry out a raid, most of the guys in the class refused to work with us. I ended up leading a group containing the only 2 guys who saw us and respected us in our capacity to do the same job.
Of course we went in and kicked butt and completely blew the other teams out of the water (because women have a natural ability to strategize)
During the process because of my own mistake I got shot with a .9 mm paint bullet, but it stung more to have so many people we considered to be friends turn their backs on us without realizing that physical strength isn’t everything.
My roommate up there was an avid radical feminist and when we were nearing the end of our skills program we all had to fill out surveys. One afternoon I was in the hallway and the program head pulled me aside. Since that was usually a
bad sign, I was shaking in the knees thinking I had really messed something up!
Rather, he asked me how I felt women were treated in the skills program. He wanted an honest answer–and I knew he was asking becasue I knew what my female feminist friends had written on their surveys.
So I was honest. I told him that there was more bias on the side of the students than the instructors. I told him that some of the visiting male instructors had refused to look at the women in the class but that I didn’t care: they were retired and I would never have to work with them. And if I had to work with someone like them then so be it…they could not take our presence on the job away. Furthermore, whether they wanted to teach women or not, we were still benefitting from the knowledge they had gained from years on the job. And maybe something those chauvenist instructors had taught would one day come to mind and cause one or more of the women in the class to make a decision that could potentially save thousands of lives.
Put into that perspective, I could deal with some man not looking me in the eye while he taught the class.
I was honest and told Grant that I had learned a lot from every instructor and that as a woman, I felt prepared to go out and do the job.
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Women are women and we do deserve respect in the workplace, and to earn the same money, qualify for the same benefits, etc. But we also deserve to be respected for what and who we are…women as God created us. So what if we sometimes have mood swings or are somewhat emotional? That can often be controlled. Hormones don’t cause us to shoot guns uncontrollably or make bad decisions. We have intellect and the ability to see through our emotions to react according to whatever situation we are cast into.
My experience with feminism for the most part has really beeen radical feminism and I’ve found it to be demeaning and I’ve often been made to feel that my feminity is a weakness.
I agree with the feminism taught to us by the Ark of the Covenant and now I embrace that and hope that we can help the world to see that this is the true feminist perspective.
Sorry I wrote a book.
But what chaps my hide is that the radical feminists make it mandantory that it stays that way!
