This is a journal thing I wrote a year or two ago, but goes along well with the last post I just wrote. Again I'd love your thoughts. This one is written more from an exclusively Christian perspective and my views have changed a bit since I wrote this but I still generally agree with the spirit of it. Let me know what you think.
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I’ve realized over the past while that as a society we are facing a crisis that not many are aware of. We are losing masculinity and femininity. Why is it important that there are recognized distinctions between the genders? We are made male and female separately we are not the same and need to be real to who we are as God’s creation. It is only in the unity of male and female that we see the full characteristics of God who created both genders separate but in his image. It is important for healthy sexuality for men to grow up knowing they are men and that women are other and for women to grow up knowing they are women and that men are other. These are vital to our sexualities and our desires for one another in true love.
The crisis arises in that as a culture we have lost all idea of what is male and what is female. We have decided to define male as what is not female and female as what is not male. The problem with this is that perhaps because of the feminist movement in western society (a generally positive movement, I believe) pretty much everything is now accepted as female. Thus because of our definition of male as what is not female there is an ambiguity as to what this means. What we are left with is a view of male as an extreme form which few women have taken on as feminine. It is an extremely superficial, greedy, brutish, slob, thick headed view of the person. This is what is becoming accepted as what it means to be a man. The sad part is that for the most part of society we have accepted this view. This is not the idea that God had in store for us. Men do more than fight, love more than sports and want more than sex. Many of these things are healthy desires in men, and I don’t in anyway want to say that these things aren’t great and unmanly; they’re really needed in our society and are definitely something that applies to mainly men. The problem is that these are the only things that are seen as manly. If a man does pretty much anything else it is seen as feminine. This is not so we have let the feminist ideology trample over us, actually we have surrendered with open arms to their claim on many practices.
One example of this is dancing. Back in biblical times dancing was not seen as a feminine activity. David, one of the most manly characters of the old testament lead the entire nation in dancing. Do you think at the time anyone was laughing at him and calling him a woman? No, of course not, he was the mightiest warrior in the nation. But he danced with all his might before the lord. Am I saying that dancing should then be a male activity, no, not anymore than playing the guitar should be a gender issue. David probably was not doing the same motions and moves as the women were. His dancing was distinctly male. The issue in our society is not that feminine dancing has been labelled feminine but that the entire category of dancing has been labelled only feminine. In our society what is the choice for men to dance. Either they must learn to dance as women and in doing the things that women do, lose a sense of their God given masculinity or they must refrain from dancing. There is very little room for male dancing. Male dancers are often mistaken for homosexuals as homosexuals have found the freedom of dance but in a style that is still very influenced by femininity but since having a homosexual identity this is expected and encouraged by society.
This should not be, men need to recognize the areas of society that their involvement has become limited in since it has been given the name feminine.
I also am not trying to condemn the woman’s lib movement. Masculinity and femininity are always spectra. There is a wide range of people and characteristics in each gender and many of these characteristics overlap as we are also singly the image of the divine. I think it is important not to limit a gender as a whole in what they do. God gifts people differently from different genders. Should we not let a man who is extremely gifted with bringing up children in the lord teach Sunday school? Should we not let a woman who has been gifted with the gift of prophecy speak in front of the church a word from the lord that he wants us all to hear? My mind always runs to Deborah who was a gifted leader in the book of Judges, she was recognized because of her gifts, she was not condemned for leading nor did anyone believe she led because there was an absence of male leadership. She led because she was uniquely gifted by God in that circumstance for leadership of a nation. And she followed God’s call on her life. During the entire time though she was seen as a woman, the woman of God that she was. So why should we be so quick and thoughtless about categorizing certain things as man things and certain things as women things? Shouldn’t we let people be who God has made them and not so limited by human categories?
1 comment:
Amen to Rachel Dorr.
Men who can dance are hot. So are men who cry, men who love children, men who are sensitive and nurturing, and men who would rather write poetry than kill things when they go out in nature. My own dad embodies the above portrait (except the dancing part) and yet the word "feminine" would never cross my mind in a million years if I were to describe him.
My mom, meanwhile, farts more than my dad, drinks more beer than he does, and stomachs gory TV shows ten times better; and yet I would never think to call her "masculine."
My dad is Male and my mom is Female, and that is that.
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