Aug 27, 2016

Off-site Highlights: Man, Woman, and Gender

(Compiled by Anna)

I recently read an article that complained about how "conditioned" we are as a society to view breastfeeding as a female thing.

Why are we so obsessed with casting off the bonds of reality?


These links are helpful in understanding the subject and addressing it in conversation with others.

1. First up: We can't talk successfully to our liberal neighbors about these topics until recognize the huge gap in perception about who is being persecuted and marginalized in America. We can't communicate a loving attitude unless we realize that in the eyes of many Americans, a Christian stance on sex and sexuality is the rhetoric of the powerful and tyrannous. Dr. Veith links to a helpful piece here:

Are Christians the Powerful or the Marginalized? From Dr. Veith's blog
[W]hen a Christian baker refuses to participate in a gay wedding, the secularists see the Christian heteronormative establishment discriminating against marginalized and oppressed gay people. 
While Christians see secularists–who control the culture, the entertainment industry, the educational establishment, the government, and the law–imposing their sexual ideology on those with traditional Christian values and punishing them for their minority religious beliefs.

2. It's quite true that many of our "gender expectations" are cultural. Yet others are based on Scripture and biological reality. This blog post provides a quick summary (with Scripture references) of what God's Word says. 

Mark's thoughts: Questions about God's ordering of the relationship between man and woman by Pastor Mark Surburg


3. What does it mean to say that gender ideology is "demonic?" This (Roman Catholic) piece is a helpful read. 

The Devil, You Say? By Fr. Paul Scalia
Fallen man is always at odds with his body. Christianity seeks to heal that division. Gender ideology seeks to codify it. The latter rests on the principle that there is no real relationship between body and soul. So absolute is their division that a person can be physically one thing and spiritually another. 
Closely linked to this is the demonic hatred of procreation. The devil cannot procreate. But man does. Man and woman cooperate with God in bringing a new human person into being. The devil is envious because God is generous. Of course, gender ideology rejects the complementarity of male and female – and what their union accomplishes. . . . 
If we have no lived experience of the complementarity of man and woman, of bridegroom and bride, then we are at a loss for understanding Christ the Bridegroom dying for His Bride. And neither can we grasp the meaning of God as Father, God as Son, the Church as Mother, etc. It’s in the devil’s interest to deprive of us of these natural signs of the supernatural. MORE.


4. For more on a related note, you might want to read Rachel Lu's excellent piece about the way the human body stands in the way of the liberal conceptualization of equality.


5. Most contemporary action movies present the idea that women are only powerful once they can punch as hard as the men. Yet perhaps we have another, different kind of power. 

Why Man and Woman are Not Equal by Glenn T. Stanton
Anthropologists have long recognized that the most fundamental social problem every community must solve is the unattached male. If his sexual, physical, and emotional energies are not governed and directed in a pro-social, domesticated manner, he will become the village’s most malignant cancer. Wives and children, in that order, are the only successful remedy ever found. MORE.

6. There is a lot of pressure currently on parents to accept the idea that children as young as two or three can be transgender. This piece is a helpful reminder that liking "boy things" doesn't necessarily make a child boy. 

I am Ryland -- the Story of a Male-Identifying Little Girl Who Didn't Transition by Lindsay Leigh Bentley
I wanted to be a boy.  Desperately wanted to be a boy.  I thought boys had more fun. . . . Thankfully, my parents didn’t adhere to the archaic stereotypes that “boys like blue” and “girls like pink;”  that “boys play with dinosaurs, and girls play with dolls.”  Had they told me that liking these things made me a boy, I would have concluded that I was a boy. 
They just let me be me.  They let me be a girl who wore jeans more often than skirts.  They let me play with slingshots rather than princess wands.  They didn’t conclude that I was gay, or transgender. They didn’t put me in a box that would shape my future, at the expense of my own free will. MORE.

7. This fascinating piece from NPR isn't about gender, but it discusses the way our moral stance effects our ability to evaluate danger. Is it possible that the progressive stance on gender morality drives the feeling that it is dangerous to children if their parents cling to old-fashioned ideas of the sexes?


8. On-topic from our Archives:

Who Can Find a Real Woman? by Caitlin Magness

Rearing Children in a "Gender-neutral" World by Anna Mussmann

Raising Sons in a Sexualized World (Q and LA)

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