[Vision2020] what the Bible really teaches (was Douglas Wilson on women)

[Joan Opyr]

On 19 Jan 2006, at 13:32, Michael wrote:

>  Since I’m now an intolerista and a tax gatherer, I figured I’m now 
> free to talk about my church here. So here it goes:  I think Wilson 
> makes an interesting point in response to some criticism here over the 
> woman fighter pilot thing.  So I’d be curious to know what some of 
> your responses to this would be. There’s something I agree with and 
> something I don’t, but I’ll keep it to myself for now. Wilson writes:
>
> “Femininity is creational glory. But effeminacy in men is a grotesque 
> parody of this. Equally troubling is the attempt on the part of women 
> to be masculine. A few days ago I put up a post that revealed my view 
> that Scripture prohibits training women for combat (for those 
> interested, I have a detailed discussion on this in Federal Husband). 
> Apparently, from what I have heard, a local listserve went nuts for a 
> time over this Calloused Insensitivity on my part and, once again, I 
> was a Bad Person. This is because I am a Christian who believes that 
> Scripture teaches that women were not created by God to be warriors. 
> If I were a Muslim who believed something comparable and I made my 
> wife wear a burka out to the mall, then I would be praised by these 
> same people for contributing to the rich diversity of our small little 
> town. And if I were a Christian again who pointed out this 
> discrepancy, then I would once again be a Bad Person. Since I can't 
> win for losing, then I will content myself with a chuckle.”

Dear Michael,

I appreciate your openness and your sincerity.  You have certainly 
helped to liven up this list, and I, for one, am grateful.  You give me 
ample occasion to sharpen my thinking.  Thank you.

Now, on to business.  First, I would ask what Doug means by the 
effeminacy of men and the masculinity of women?  Is a man who does the 
dishes effeminate?  What about a man who cooks?  My grandmother can't 
boil water, but my grandfather -- ah, his cooking was  dream.  I still 
dream of his steaks, his biscuits, and his barbecued chicken.  My uncle 
Morris also did most of the cooking for his family, his wife happily 
(and thankfully -- I've eaten her cooking) taking a back seat on that 
front.  Were they effeminate?  I think they'd both have been surprised 
to find themselves accused . . . and my grandfather would have laid 
Doug low for such an accusation with one strong blow of Popeye-like 
fist.

My grandfather was a master mechanic -- the first certified mechanic in 
the City of Raleigh.  He was also the first shop manager (he worked for 
Cadillac) in the city to hire a woman mechanic.  He liked women.  His 
complaint about many of the male mechanics who worked for him was that 
they didn't "work smart."  If a bolt was frozen, they'd try to muscle 
it off.  They wouldn't wait for the WD-40 to soak in; nor would they 
use clever tricks like levering the bolt by putting a length of pipe 
over the end of the wrench.  He taught me everything I know about cars, 
motorcycles, firearms, and how tell a good joke.  He never held me back 
or held me down; from earliest childhood, he told me I could be 
anything I wanted to be, if I just applied myself.  It was my 
grandmother who was concerned that I was insufficiently feminine, but 
that's another story.  I am not Scarlet O'Hara, nor was meant to be . . 
. though I can waltz, and I know how to do the Virginia Reel.

What Doug is talking about, I suspect, is not fear of male effeminacy 
or "mannish" women but his own homophobia.  All of this balderdash is a 
roundabout way of reassuring himself and his followers that, despite 
the fact that Doug prefers to spend the bulk of his time engaged in 
homosocial bonding, and the fact that he's modeled his church and clubs 
on the single-sex social clubs of Victorian and Edwardian England, he 
ain't gay.  Hell, no!  Sure, he was in the navy, and on a submarine, no 
less, but he don't know nothing about no rum, sodomy, and the lash.  
No-sir-ree, Bob.  Nothing to see here, boys.  Look away, look away, 
look away, Brokeback Church.

The fact of the matter is that history -- and the Bible -- are littered 
with examples of women fighting in war-time.  Judith and Holofernes.  
Deborah.  Viking women.  The ancient Britons.  The mythical (?) 
Amazons.  When Tolkien has Eowyn of Rohan point out that women long ago 
learned that those who were not supposed to wield the sword could 
nevertheless still die upon one, he knew whereof he spoke.  Is it 
unseemly for women to fight and kill?  I should think that a Christian 
would/should argue that it's unseemly for anyone to fight and kill.  
Did Jesus fight back at the crucifixion?  Did he lift a leg off the 
cross and offer the Romans a swift kick?  What's the Wilsonian standard 
of effeminacy in men?  My grandfather would have looked askance at 
Doug's love of wine and cee-gars.  Budweiser, fried bologna, and a 
Lucky Strike -- that was the breakfast of the manly man.

Doug's ideas of male and female are very familiar to me because, I 
would suggest, they are Southern and not Western.  My Southern belle 
grandmother wouldn't dream of splitting wood; she'd rather pitty-pat 
through a frozen house with icicles dripping daintily from her nose.  A 
Western woman wouldn't expect Daddy to get home before the wood was 
split, the fire was lit, and the elk was gutted.  When I first moved 
here twelve years ago, I thought every woman I met was a lesbian.  They 
all had short hair; they all wore hiking boots and flannel; they were 
all tough as nails.  No nonsense about male and female and who was 
allowed by gender and/or biology to do what.  Everyone out here did 
what was necessary to survive.  That's what I saw when I came, and 
that's one of the many reasons I stayed.  I actually have to tell 
people I'm a lesbian out here -- they make no assumptions based on my 
Filson boots.  Or my Filson hat.  Or my Filson vest.

To me, it is ridiculous to imagine that men and women can be easily and 
readily separated into two simple categories, one fit for combat, the 
other for the kitchen.  Whatever happened to individuality?  To 
difference within the sexes?  To freedom?  These things aren't 
convenient to Doug's paranoid theology, but they are fact.  
Inconvenient fact.  Scary fact.  Emasculating fact.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com