If you’re a female and you’re not a feminist, then you either don’t value yourself as highly as you should or you simply don’t understand what feminism is. Sure, it’s easy for me to make broad statements like that; I’m a straight, white male, and I’ve been privy to societal privilege for, well, pretty much forever. It’s that very privilege, however, that should incite a push for feminism. It bears mentioning that some feminists are man-haters, and, if I’m being transparent, those women really scare me. But it should be recognized that man-hating is not characteristic of the movement itself. Feminism is simply the belief that women deserve equal rights to men. Women cannot afford to not be feminists because knowing one’s own worth is naturally followed by representing oneself in such a way for others to see it as well.
And hey, while we’re at it, men can’t afford not to be feminists either. To not advocate equality is to tacitly approve of inequality. And honestly, if you think the “go back to the kitchen” or “go make me a sandwich” jokes are still a worthwhile stock punchline, then maybe you should stop listening to Dane Cook. Men don’t get off the hook because it’s not “our problem.” It is our problem because we’re a part of this culture (think Treebeard and the Entmoot choosing to attack Isengard). It’s our problem because we’re reaping the benefits from someone else’s discrimination. Gender-based discrimination is not an us versus them issue or a men versus women issue. It’s simply a matter of human rights.
Despite what might seem like a trump-card, religious beliefs cannot excuse sexism, so let’s table 1 Timothy for a moment and think about it pragmatically. At a conservative religious institution, women often receive a quasi-scriptural message that they are lesser by God’s design. If that is the case, then that is our church-culture misinterpreting scripture and, more despicably, misspeaking on God’s behalf. Whether or not we would like to admit it, church-going people are more than capable of discrimination (see Birmingham circa 1963).
Women need to set an example for men to follow by being outraged when, say, there is an inexplicable pay gap between women and men. A gap that is not, in fact, entirely explained by job sector. Of course, women being pressured by culture into specific jobs based solely on their sex is a problem to itself. That, however, is additional to inexplicably being paid less than a man working those very same jobs. Are the pay gap statistics often skewed? Yes. But there is still a pay gap, and men — or anyone with a position of advantage in an issue of equality — are bound by virtue of not being generally selfish and hateable to reject that advantage for the sake of equality. Sure, it’s our responsibility as Christians to advocate human rights and to align ourselves with the marginalized, but it really shouldn’t require a scriptural guilt trip to bring us to that position; indignation ought to be our instinctive reaction to inequality.
