Ramblings on Gender

Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking on the subject of gender, gender roles, and interactions between the sexes. It is a complex subject and I feel that before hand I should warn you that my thoughts are highly disorganized, and try as I might some male bashing may slip in. I'm sorry guys, it happens.

On principle I am against giving the guys a hard time. Not to say that men can't have very unfair assumptions and attitudes, but I feel this is over emphasized in our modern society. In fact I feel that these days that we are in fact over compensating for the past and discriminating against men, and not bothering to give them the benefit of doubt. I guess when there is such drastic change, there is always a bit of whiplash of some sort.

Of course upon hearing this, some may ask,"so... are you a feminist, princess?" and I don't have a very good response for that. I think because I believe in the equal dignity of women I am a feminist, but I'm a very strange feminist. For one thing I'm rather pessimistic about the whole thing. While we have come a long way, a lot of it is forced and over the top, and I feel until we can appreciate both the differences and the similarities between the sexes there will never be true equality. I think it will happen,just probably not be during my life time.

On one hand there is the problem of holding each other at arms length because the two have such clear differences. We both hold the same dignity and intellect that is intrinsic to being human, so why don't we stand together, why do we fixate on the differences? As I have said I doubt this will be fully addressed during my lifetime. But then again this may just be due to our fallen nature, and in fact there is a certain amount of recognition of differences that is healthy. I guess I just don't understand why we think these differences are perceived as bad.

I mean, there are times when I just want to prance about and say, "thank goodness I'm a girl!". I get to wear pretty dresses, I'm more likely to get to hold a baby, I have the power to bring a child into this world, I can inspire in men great emotion for both great good and great evil. I hope some day to become the one person cheer leading squad for that one special some one who has promised to both protect and love me as long as we both shall live. Truly I am a being of both power and beauty. I was created in the image and likeness of God for a special purpose. No, I would not trade my femininity for anything in the world.

But what good is all of this if there are no manly men? We are both incomplete with out the other, and on no account should this be tampered with by repressing manly nature. Let men be men, and let women be women. I'm not saying men can't be good nurses, and women can't be good firefighters, I'm just saying that we should be happy for the little differences that give our live variety and joy.

But alas we are fallen... and try as we might, nothing is perfect. But despite my pessimism I feel that nothing good will happen unless we keep working. So take time to appreciate your own gender, then take some more to marvel at how well we mesh by our differences.

~Your meditative Princess