the average full-time salary of a black female college graduate is less than that of a white male high school drop-out...

-the newspaper designer's handbook 6th ed. tim harower

Once in cabinet we had to deal with the fact that there had been an outbreak of assaults on women at night. one minister suggested a curfew: women should stay home after dark. I said, "But it's the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew let the men stay home, not the women.

-Golda Meir, former Israli prime minister

the namesake

in the beginning of the movie the namesake, Ashima gives up her friends, her family, and her entire country to marry a man that she meets for the first time. this is what their families want them to do. this is what they are expected to do.
i would rather give up my husband than give up my life. maybe that's why american marriages fail so much, or maybe i'm just not ready for that.
the point of the movie, however, did not strike me as being about gender as much as it was about freedom. at the end, Gogol goes off to travel, and be free. i want to travel like that and be free for a while.
the namesake was a good movie. it made me want to be free.

christian feminists...

this semester i realized that it's totally ok to be a Christian and a feminist. Egalitarians believe that God created men and women equally in his image. they also believe that men and women are equally responsible for sin.
Egalitarians reject the idea of the hierarchy and believe in mutual submission in marriage.
They believe that the curse that followed the Fall of man was descriptive, not prescriptive. When Even and Adam ate the apple the curse is what happened because of that. It was not necessarily what God wanted to happen. Adam would struggle with wanting to dominate Eve, and Eve would desire Adam.
In the church, egalitarians believe that men and women can both be leaders. They believe that in marriage, roles should be determined by giftedness and situtation, not by gender.

men and women are equally created by God. they may be different at times, but they are both equally capable of leadership and equally respsonsible to God.

so if I get married, the man will have to understand how i feel about this and be willing to deal with it (maybe he'll even agree with me)

Men's Movements

and then men reacted...

Men’s Movements
-Many men lived in privilege based on their biological sex, however, this privilege was based on ethnicity, race, social class, age, physical ability, and sexual orientation
-Frederick Douglas, James Mott, Henry Blackwell—advocated women’s suffrage.
-Max Eastman 1910 founded Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage
3 developments that challenged traditional men’s roles: 1.technological advances 2. distrust of established institutions 3. women’s movement
-1960 convergence of women’s rights movement, antiwar movement, and the new left wing movement
-feminism forced men to reconsider men’s roles
-1970s men’s movement (or trend, rather) involved consciousness raising groups, focused on individual and group growth
-til mid ‘80s, one guiding ideology: the elimination of the belief that one sex is superior to the other
-1960s and 1970s- fathers’ rights in divorce and child custody cases. (At first men got custody most of the time be they took the possessions from the marriage, but then at the turn of the century women were viewed as more important to young children than men, so women were awarded more custody then men.)
-Andrew Kimbrell- says that it’s important to change our culture’s view of men and fatherhood.
-Mythopoetic movement- men are encouraged to seek out different parts or roles within themselves.
-Robert Bly- help men find the “community inside the psyche” 1990
-promote men’s self-discovery and masculinity thru nature and tribal rituals
-Million Man March- Oct 16, 1995- 400,000 men, Washington D C. Organized by head of the nation of Islam, Louis **rally the black community and strengthen black families by emphasizing the role of fathers
-Bill McCartney and Dave Wardell—the Promise Keepers. held first conference in July 1991, 4,200 men.
-“Christ-centered ministry dedicated to uniting men thru vital relationships to become Godly influences in their world”
-Promise Keepers concerns some feminists bc they think that they are trying to return men to their “rightful” place at the head of the family.

· Profeminists (or male feminists) worked to make their behavior match their egalitarian attitude. They believe that men and women should have the same privileges, opportunities, rights, roles, and societal status. They fight for equal pay, men embracing their feelings, and ending violence against women and men.
· Masculinist movements believe that men are the ones who suffer from gender discrimination. They want to restore pride in being “real men” (tough, rugged, individual, macho, self-reliant). They believe that men are oppressed by military drafts, shorter life spans, more health problems, and unfair child custody laws. (include Mythopoetic movements and Promise Keepers)
· Antifeminsim opposes any measures that advance women’s equality, status, rights, or opportunities. First tried to prevent women’s right to vote, then stressed the conventional view of women as sex objects, then stressing morality and submission.

· If women have equal rights, then why one woman in four the victim of assault by a man? Why do women make 86 cents to every dollar that men make for the same jobs?