Scripture: Moses 3:18
Studying the creation in the scriptures is always an interesting experience. There are so many fun and controversial topics to delve into and ponder about, because engineering seniors frequently have lots of spare time to ponder these things. There’s evolution, man’s relationship with nature and the one we’ll ponder today: man’s relationship to woman.
For centuries the rich learned white men used the scripture to justify their suppression of pretty much everyone else. Recently the unlearned masses have been using their numbers to gain more of the things denied to them before, and in an interesting turn of events we all scream for “equality” what we really mean is that it is time for everyone EXCEPT the rich learned white men to have a share of what they previously enjoyed all to themselves.
During all this time we haven’t given a sideways thought to Meg Murry O’Keefe’s, “‘alike’ and ‘equal’ are not the same thing”. Leaving parents to raise their children in a world that tells their girls they need to simultaneously be just as physically strong, just as athletically able, just as smart in math, the sciences, and all other subjects if they are ever to be respected as “equal” to the men around them. There’s no room for teamwork, there’s no room for this word that the scriptures use “help meet”.
Women have to be strong, independent, and entirely unattached to a man if they are to be respected. Any concept of “different but equal” is used to throw back at the American South for their inability to completely change their culture in less than a generation. I wish we might revisit the idea, and consider for a second that it is ok that female athletes play differently than male athletes, that it is ok for only a few females choose to enter science fields, and that men and women just ARE different. They just have DIFFERENT ways of contributing to the society, but not UNEQUAL.
Studying the creation in the scriptures is always an interesting experience. There are so many fun and controversial topics to delve into and ponder about, because engineering seniors frequently have lots of spare time to ponder these things. There’s evolution, man’s relationship with nature and the one we’ll ponder today: man’s relationship to woman.
For centuries the rich learned white men used the scripture to justify their suppression of pretty much everyone else. Recently the unlearned masses have been using their numbers to gain more of the things denied to them before, and in an interesting turn of events we all scream for “equality” what we really mean is that it is time for everyone EXCEPT the rich learned white men to have a share of what they previously enjoyed all to themselves.
During all this time we haven’t given a sideways thought to Meg Murry O’Keefe’s, “‘alike’ and ‘equal’ are not the same thing”. Leaving parents to raise their children in a world that tells their girls they need to simultaneously be just as physically strong, just as athletically able, just as smart in math, the sciences, and all other subjects if they are ever to be respected as “equal” to the men around them. There’s no room for teamwork, there’s no room for this word that the scriptures use “help meet”.
Women have to be strong, independent, and entirely unattached to a man if they are to be respected. Any concept of “different but equal” is used to throw back at the American South for their inability to completely change their culture in less than a generation. I wish we might revisit the idea, and consider for a second that it is ok that female athletes play differently than male athletes, that it is ok for only a few females choose to enter science fields, and that men and women just ARE different. They just have DIFFERENT ways of contributing to the society, but not UNEQUAL.
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