Friday Ruminations

Hey, it's Friday, what do you want from my life?

Is the personal really political? Should it be? Is there a way to separate the two? What's more important, sexual freedom or democracy? I think Western women constantly want to impose "our" ideals of freedom on women of the East, and that's pretty screwy. What have we got anyway? (What the hell you got, 1968, that makes you so damn superior... uh, sorry.) No Equal Rights Amendment. Women still earn less on the dollar than men do, and no one opens the door for us anymore. Forget a man offering a woman (even a pregnant one) his seat on the subway. If we don't work, we're told by "feminists" that there's something wrong with us. Running a household and raising children while the man brings home the paycheck is considered undesirable. So, what's more desirable? Going to college, learning to distrust and disrespect men, going to work to be underpaid and underappreciated, always having to work harder, then returning to a single woman's apartment, putting career first, maintaining independence, until when? Until you're too old to meet anyone to have a passionate relationship with, until the most important thing is how well your furniture works together and that he's not allergic to your five cats? What's the point of all this "feminism," all this independence, if the equality we receive is the superficial kind? "Thank goodness the women want to be equal, now I don't have to pull out her chair at the restaurant or pay for dinner." Also, you know what? Men and women aren't equal. We aren't the same. The Equal Rights Amendment shouldn't be about androgyny, but about, you guessed it equal rights.

OK, I know I'm rambling, but I'm working through a lot of thoughts here. These aren't carefully crafted arguments.

I started thinking about this stuff when I read a letter online reacting to an article about women in Islam. The writer says, "I will respect Islam when I look around and see women able to wear what they want, shake hands with and touch men in public, date and marry whom they want, and yes, sleep with whom they want. It would also be nice to see women and men worshipping side by side. I don't see these things in the U.S., much less in places like Saudi Arabia."

Why do Western "feminists" insist on imposing their values on people from other cultures? In a lot of these seemingly mysogynistic cultures (Hasidism, Islam, et al), the root of the way women are treated is a respect for women. Even if that sounds fishy to you or me, who are we to tell other people how to behave? Besides, shouldn't we be more focused on the rights of these women to vote and to drive? If the women are truly oppressed, that's the freedom they want. Real freedom, not just (or even) sexual freedom. Is dating the most important thing to a woman who feels unable to leave her house or family, if she wants to? What did the sexual revolution ever get American women anyway, besides STDs, emotional baggage and the loss of general respect from men? And speaking of "worshipping side by side," if it's part of your religion that you don't worship beside men, why would you want to? If you want to change basic aspects of your religion, you're in the wrong religion.

[For real. If you insist on being part of a religion or religious movement, unless you're the founder, how can you want to change parts of it? If you don't like all the parts of your religion, why do you need it? Isn't it possible to worship the god or entity you believe in without going into a church or labeling yourself as part of a group? I guess I've just never seen the point of church without the unquestioning acceptance of the dogma. Otherwise you're a free thinker, and you don't need the denominational aspects of your religion. Eh, I guess I really just don't understand it, never having been involved in one, so I probably don't know what I'm talking about. Actually, just ignore the whole religious aspect of this post.]

Maybe what really gets my goat is that it seems like the feminism and civil rights movements both petered out before they got anywhere. They started strong, but without strong follow-through, that is, with the younger generation being complacent about their situation, more and different problems have been created. It reminds me of something I recently read that Bill Moyers said about Bill O'Reilly. He said that O'Reilly's passion was equal only to his "stubborn, ignorant denial of complexity." I think a lot of people deny complexity in political issues. Hell, I certainly use the black/white approach overmuch. I guess no one wants to appear wishy-washy on an issue, so admitting that it isn't necessarily easy to figure out or resolve is undesirable. Maybe we're happier when we can believe that everything is either right or wrong, for everyone. God, is this where that whole Liberal/Conservative nonsense comes from? I never could figure out how a person could seriously label themselves that way, then propose to hold a rational political discussion. Are all our conversations about politics just about trying to convince the other side of or validate our opinions? Is it possible to have a discussion where both sides are willing to admit that they have learned something?

Where the hell is this going? Just thank your lucky stars you're not sitting next to me in a bar listening to me yell this stuff at the top of my lungs.