SMM: The One Where Hierarchy Is Equality

A Guest Post by Kate

Originally posted on Time To Live, Friend

So Much More, Chapter 6 Part 2

“The goal of Marx’s feminism was to Marxise the thinking of women, then men, then the entire culture. Notice how women were first on their list? Recall that Satan targeted a woman first, too. God’s enemies have recognized that women are not only the weaker vessels, and consequently more easily led, but they are incredibly influential over their husbands (think of Even again) and children, and they make excellent and loyal helpers” (67).

As Taylor Swift says in “We are Never, Ever Getting Back Together,” this is just exhausting. It’s the same lies over and over. As a woman, you’re more easily led. (And that’s why it’s so difficult for women to submit?) As a woman you’re more easily deceived. As a woman you’re weaker (not just physically, but intellectually), which means you must have a man help you understand things correctly.

How can the Botkins can keep saying “we believe men and women are equal” and then say women are weaker and intellectually challenged? (Because that’s what they’re saying in not so many words).

And yes, the Botkins DO say they believe that men and women are equal: 

“If the word ‘feminist’ meant…’someone who believes women and men are of equal worth,’ then every Christian woman should be feminist. Unfortunately feminism has not and cannot defend the God-ordained privileges and positions of women or promote equality and equity between the sexes…no true good can, or ever has, come from feminism” (72).

Damn, we were so close to agreeing there. But do they really believe in equality? Equal is defined as: “One not inferior or superior to another; having the same or a similar age, rank, station, office, talents, strength, &c.” And that’s even using the 1828 Webster dictionary that the Botkins love so much.

So if the Botkins really believe that men and women are equal, then shouldn’t women have the ability to have the same talents and strength as men? Equality has no superiority, but didn’t the Botkins say that men and women have a “hierarchy” that is established by God?

So is hierarchy just an extension of this equality? Hierarchy is defined as, “A system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.” Hm, so equal but with superiority.

I do not think that these words mean what you say they mean.

Then they say this:

“Today Marx has millions of followers who help keep his hatred alive. Most of these followers are women who continue to help Marx with a kind of … daughterly loyalty. Isn’t that ironic?” (64).

The Botkins believe that women are always going to follow and submit to some man in their life—either their fathers and their husbands or other sinful men. They’re trying to say—see! Women are followers, and women are just going to follow the god-given leaders (husbands or fathers) or other leaders like Marxists or feminists.

This is really an irrelevant point. Men and women alike follow belief systems. Men can help further Marxism (or whatever movement) and help advance another man’s vision and be “helpmeets” in that sense. It doesn’t prove anything that it’s just in a woman’s nature to always submit and exude “daughterly loyalty.” Loyalty is not strictly “daughterly” or “sonly” and neither is following a movement or leader.

“The feminist movement would have us believe that justice, equality, and opportunity did not exist for women until the feminist movement created these things in the last few years. The truth is quite the opposite. The most liberating force in all of history is Christianity. It has emancipated women the world over and elevated them to the place of honor God created them to occupy. Christianity offers women purpose, dignity, worth, and true power….Every culture which shuns God’s design for woman ends up degrading her, including the feminist invention which degrades man and makes him again a primitive exploiter of women…

…In preaching contempt for biblical womanhood, tearing down the institution of marriage, maligning the concept of godly submission, spitting on the office of motherhood, teaching women (and men) to despise the blessing of children, the feminist movement has only increased these problems in our generation” (70).

I would actually agree that Jesus presents a radical and counter-cultural view of women in the gospels, by treating them with respect, honor, and worthy of trust in a society that believed women were inferior and untrustworthy (or if that’s too bold of a statement for you, it was at least a start in the right direction).

However, I don’t believe that the version of “Christianity” the Botkins are presenting is doing the same thing. I mean how can you say that women are being treated with dignity, worth, and honor when you’re telling them that they are easily deceived and the weaker vessel? How can you tell them that they are full of worth, when you’re also telling them that this worth comes only from having and serving a father or husband?

“Women today are being used, exploited, and despised as much as ever. The difference is that women who walked into this trap on their own feet are still calling it liberation. The stupidity of feminism is so self-perpetuating and blinding that most women who bought feminism…are too loyal to wonder if they were cheated out of basic happiness by the feminism they swore by” (71).

Wow, okay, now the Botkins are resorting to ad hominems. Now you’re not just ungodly if you’re a feminist, you’re stupid.

If you abandon feminism you will have so much more worth and dignity because you’re the weaker vessel now, which is just your natural role! And you’ll have so much more power by submitting, you’ll be so much happier! But if you actually believe that you can have the same opportunities and abilities as a man, well, you’re in for depression and exploitation and oppression.

Anyone else having trouble following their logic?

Sarah [a former feminist] says,

“So-called ‘Christian feminism’ is an oxymoron. Feminism in any form is rebellion and must be eradicated through repentance, not encouraged through syncretism. We cannot fight feminism with feminism. Nor should we promote any tactics that allocate to woman a different role than God has assigned her” (73).

Accodring to the Botkins, you cannot be a Christian and a feminist because feminism is a sin. And nothing good has come of it and it doesn’t liberate, it brings more oppression.

“God created woman to be more than an oppressed victim of feminism” (71).

How can you say that women are no longer victims of oppression when you’re telling women things they can’t do? They can’t work outside the home. They can’t go to college. They can’t lead. They can’t form their own conclusions. They can’t have their own dreams.

Here’s a definition of oppression from Merrierm Webster, “a sense of being weighed down in body or mind.”

Telling a woman that she can’t do things is a form of oppression. Feminism is about giving women freedom from the cant’s that patriarchy tells them.

Finally,

“Feminism is about ‘self’ and cannot abide the principle of ‘God first, others second, ourselves last’” (71).

I don’t really want to get into this now; suffice to say I think it’s a very bad idea to ignore the concept of ‘self’ and put yourself last.

The Botkins can only see two extremes—either you embrace your femininity by being a stay at home wife/mother/daughter, or you reject your femininity by leaving home and becoming a child-hating, man-hating woman. There’s more to feminism than this, however, and there’s also more to being feminine than just being a wife and mother and having babies.