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  • About Egalitalk
  • No Middle Ground?
  • How Do They Get That Way?
  • How To Deal With Hard Core Traditionalists
  • Egalitarian Marketing Lesson
  • Egalilists
  • Definitions

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About Egalitalk

This blog is owned by Pat Gundry and is here for the purpose of promoting egalitarian understanding, egalitarian principles, egalitarian practicalities, information useful to egalitarians, and as a sounding board for egalitarians.

It is not here to bash non-egalitarians, nor argue with non-egalitarians, nor nit pick about side issues. We're not here to argue, but we will discuss nicely just about anything remotely relevant to egalitarianism.

The people who write posts here have been invited to participate by Pat and asked to please play nicely. All material written by guest bloggers is owned solely by the writers and they are solely responsible for what they say.

Comments are welcome, and will be moderated before they are posted. That means someone will be reading them first and deciding if they should be posted here or not. If not, sorry, but they will either be deleted, or the commenter will be asked to edit them before they can be posted.

Thanks for visiting, please come back often.

Pat

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No Middle Ground?

By guest writer Jeannie Babb Taylor.

Recently a traditionalist stated, "Complementarians and egalitarians may take profoundly different positions in the debate over gender roles in the home and church, but the two sides agree on one thing: there is no middle ground in the debate."

Well, I believe there is always a middle ground.  It may not be good ground, it may not be a desirable place to be, but it is always there.

People with extreme positions like to pretend it is all-or-nothing.  They talk about "the slippery slope" as if it were a real thing, without knowing that it is the name of a logical fallacy!

They make stupid statements like, "If you believe in women preachers, you HAVE to believe in homosexual preachers, too."  Sorry but no one tells me what I "have to believe."

And there is no slippery slope.  It's actually a continuum.  Nearly all beliefs are. I can show you how even seemingly polar beliefs like evolution and creationism are a continuum. Even people who make statements like "I take the Bible literally" are not as extreme as they think.

Not only does middle ground exist.... For years, comps have claimed that they ARE the middle ground!  So I for one am glad to see them admit that they are, in fact, extremists.

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How Do They Get That Way?

Recently, musing about the obsessiveness some people exhibit in promoting and pursuing the subjugation of women in the name of God, I wondered again how they get that way. Like, if I wanted to create one (perish the thought) what would I have to do to get that result: a rabidly obsessed, grabbing at straws, desperate need to keep women down?

And, they do exist. Not a lot of them maybe, population-wise, but enough to lead the uninformed, unwary, and somewhat-to-quite-a-bit misogynistically inclined. They are persistent, loud and clangy, and, not a few of them, unprincipled in their methods.

I'm taking about the males. I know why the females do it. They have given up so much in opportunity and self actualization in loyalty to the premises hiearchicalism is based on that if it turns out to be not right, not valid, it's too devastating to face the loss. They must protect themselves from that awful realization, that terrible evaporation of their life's meaning and opportunities.

But, the males, why do they do it? They aren't being oppressed, they haven't lost anything, why ride that pony to its last breath?

Some possibilities:

1. Early trauma and deprivation. John R. Rice's mother died when he was three years old. I think it may have affected him profoundly for the rest of his life. His mother was an angel, but one who'd left him. How does one reconcile the two? I'm not sure such children ever do.

2. An authoritarian mindset. Authoritarians have their own particular thought process. They need to follow the rules. Those rules will keep them safe and out of trouble with God and others. Someone, an authority figure, will tell them what those rules are. Someone like Bill Gothard, for example.

3. Over influenced by a strong mentor. It's the authoritarian influence, and it can be a parent, a preacher, a teacher, or someone else. If that person hated women, resented women, or oppressed them, even if the follower thinks they don't have the same motivations, they have learned the thought patterns, logic, and behavioral patterns of the mentor.

4. A perception of sexual physical limitation or shortcoming. I hesitate to say this, but believe it is probably a strong factor for some men. That is, they may feel inadequate sexually, perhaps because they've decided their genitalia are too small, or out of the ordinary, or they, for some other physical reason, have been made to feel inadequate through bullying by other males or females. Or, they may suffer from some sexual misfunction such as premature ejaculation, sexual obsesssion, or some other aberration such as a perversion or need for or desire for fetishist sexual experiences. Rather than deal with what seems impossible to deal with, they transfer their own self loathing to women, and feel better when they put women in inferior positions and restrict them.

5. A feeling of personal inferiority. Proposing and promoting the subjugation of women, with no less than God as one's authority on it, provides a step up from the inferior position they feel they are in.

6. Undealtwith rage. Bigotry, which I suspect is at the root of much obsessive hiearchicalism, is always displaced rage. They are unhappy about something else, and it makes them feel better to dump it on someone else, either an individual or a whole group.

7. Obsessed with a desire for power. Some people are power hungry. They are never-enoughers. They get power where it can be found. If that drive for power can be combined with any of the other factors in my list here, then that's a favorite place to exercise it.

8. Hate. Some men actually, really hate women. They hate them all, to one degree or another. I remember the way I felt when I first realized that is the case. What a shock. That does not mean that all who hate women will admit they do, maybe not even to themselves most of the time. But, it's there, underneath it all, moving the oppression along, creating victims, justifying the cruelty and deprivation.

9. Jekyll and Hyde personality. Some people have split their personalities into facets of themselves, for several reasons. They have a good guy and a bad guy personality. This comes in handy when they feel the need to oppress anyone or any group of people. The bad guy does the dirty work for the good guy. And the good guy is the preferred face to the world.

10. Misinformation. I don't think misinformation, in itself, creates an obsessive subjugation promoter and enforcer. But, it could be an important element. Some people act on misinformation, without checking for themselves, because they are such authoritarians that they feel it's disloyal and wrong to not trust their authority figures' word on what is right and true. Some are misinformed because they are just plain lazy at going for the truth. And some are willfully misinformed because they are afraid of what they might find if they were to dig into the source material. It's comfortable where they are, and they don't want to rock their own boat.

But, what about egalitarians? Aren't some of them obsessive too? Probably, but they have good reason, for the most part. They've experienced oppression, and it hurts. They see it holding down women and children, whole societies in the third world, and they want to rid those people of one of the burdens that keeps them where they are, on the bottom.

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How To Deal With Hard Core Traditionalists

Some of you may have noticed that some of our fellow Christians are not very nice. Some of them are downright nasty, deceptive, arrogant, and out to get us. Not naming names, but, they exist.

Among them are a number of hierarchical traditionalists, those who think all women should be submitted, and they will tell you how much.

There is some disagreement about how to deal with them. Some egalitarians try to be nice to them, hoping to "dialogue" to good result. I think that's mostly a waste of time and effort, and can lead to frustration and worse.

It is not always possible to ignore/avoid the malicious hard core traditionalist. In that case, I have a recommendation. Keep this quotation in mind. I hope you find it as pleasantly useful.

"Speak softly and carry a big dog biscuit." Pat Gundry, inspired by Galina Freed

Don't let its simplicity cause you to dismiss it. It is profound. And I'm the pro who founded it.

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Egalitarian Marketing Lesson

Many egalitarians feel a strong compulsion to market egalitarianism to complementarians, but aren't too sure how to go about it. Here is a marketing lesson with suggestions.

1. You see a complementarian at church. You go up to him and say, "I'm an egalitarian, let me tell you how you're wrong."
-- That's Direct Marketing.

2. You're at a social gathering with a bunch of friends and see a complementarian. One of your friends goes up to him and pointing at you says, "She's an egalitarian, and Boy! can she cook!"
-- That's (deceptive) Advertising.

3. You see a complementarian at a party. You go up to him and get his telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm an egalitarian and I think you are oppressing your wife."
-- That's Telemarketing.

4. You're at a party and see a complementarian. You get up and straighten your dress. You walk up to him and pour him a drink. You say, "May I," and reach up to straighten his tie, smile, and then say, "By the way, I'm an egalitarian ...(long pause)."
-- That's Public Relations.

5. You're at a conference, a complementarian walks up to you and says, "I hear you're one of those radical feminist bitches."
-- That's Brand Recognition.

6. You're at a conference and see a complementarian. You talk to his wife and share recipes from The Zondervan Family Cookbook with http://www.patriciagundry.com written at the bottom of the page.
-- That's Guerilla Marketing.

7. You're in the audience at the annual Southern Baptist Convention when you realize that there could be potential egalitarians all around you. So you stand on your seat and shout, "I'm an egalitarian feminist bitch and I can show you how to be one too!"
-- That's SPAM.

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Egalilists

Now, thanks to the skill and generousity of Galina Freed, my egalitarian email discussion lists are back up and running again at their new web home at http://www.egalilists.com.

There is PHOEBE-L, for women seeking equality for women in the church and men who want to subscribe too, HEIRS-L for discussing egalitarian marriage, CURRENT-L for discussing current issues, and CAFE-L for supporting egalitarian and Christian feminist books.

Come join us!

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Definitions

Sigo: significant other. "Significant other" is too long to say every time one wants to refer to someone one isn't married to, and not engaged to be married to, but one has a romantic relationship with that's more than boyfriend/girlfriend. "Fiance" isn't accurate if one isn't engaged to be married.

I wanted a short version of significant other to use, so I thought, why not just invent my own word. Not being hesitant to invent a word when needed, I declare it invented. It does have the disadvantage of sounding a little like "sicko" when spoken sloppily, but it's not too likely someone would introduce their escort as, "And this is my sicko Fred." And, if it sounds like sicko to someone, it should be a nice conversation starter.

Marriage: A legal agreement between two consenting adults providing them with certain legal rights and obligations. What those consist of varies considerably in different times and places.

Egalitarian: Someone who believes that men and women should have equal opportunity, equal respect, and equal rights under the law. Egalitarians do not believe that women and men are to be treated exactly the same. They recognize there are occasionally differing needs between the genders, and equal respect and regard would requre that those unique needs be recognized and provided for.

Christian egalitarian: Christian egalitarians believe the Bible, accurately translated and interpreted, supports an egalitarian treatment of men and women. This would mean equal opportunity in the church and elsewhere for men and women.

Closet egalitarian: Someone who believes in equal rights, but doesn't admit it publicly or apply it because they are afraid of causing trouble for themselves or others.

Hypocritical or fake egalitarian: Someone who says they are egalitarian, but who doesn't apply it in their personal life.

Got more definitions?

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