follow A Selection of Varied Topics

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

To steal and kill and destroy

I am more angry at patriocentricity than I have ever been, triggered by what might seem like a small thing. Tonight I stupidly, at the end of a long and stressful day, took a look at a few patriocentric websites that I hadn't been around in a while. As a result, I missed being able to really talk to my best friend [who I've been almost too busy to talk to the last few days]. I was engaged in becoming rapidly more upset and depressed by the sanctimonious blather of people who recommend a recent anti-feminist film ['The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women', by the Brothers Gunn] as excellent material to show to girls in pregnancy crisis centers, who are so hard up for something to criticize that they lambast the recent film about that gal who lost her arm to a shark a few years ago [and happens to share my name] as not being distinctively Christian and promoting personal fulfillment [and even manage to get in a knock against long-haired guys in the same post! What depth! What virtuosity!], who say that girls who declare they 'don't like pink' and 'aren't girly' are actually insecure, competitive for boys' affections, intent on covering up their own social awkwardness or lack of beauty, and generally feel superior *, who ......you get the idea.

* For the record, I have often declared that I don't like pink, am not a 'girly girl', don't like feminine High Drama, detest sewing, am proudly willing to shoot and clean a wild rabbit with my bare hands, and otherwise done my best to distance myself from my perception of the fluffy-headed female. Apparently half the rest of the female population of the world is bent on doing the same thing. And it is no longer socially acceptable [in patrio circles] to be proud of who you are, just as in less conservative circles it is ONLY socially acceptable to be proud of who you are.

So I'm no longer original, just feministic. And bitter. And insecure. And proud. And to heck with it, because I will not change for the anti-feminists. They can just TAKE my quirks and geekiness [they'd say they don't give a hoot, I'M the one who will have to deal with people disliking my contrived unoriginality!]
-------------


To conclude this little anecdote, I wound up so rattled by the anti-feminists that my distant-time-zone friend was forced to retire by the lateness of the hour and my steadfastly terse responses. Ah, small thing, but it shocked me to my senses, a bit......I became first miserable that I'd missed talking with someone I deeply care for and hadn't been able to talk with in longer than I'd like, and then enraged. 

Enraged because this is only the latest small event to convince me that patriocentricity, legalism, and faithless 'religion' will steal everything I have. Friends, college, happiness, love, enthusiasm, peace. And Jesus. [On that note, just about all of Galatians is applicable....] 

Friends, rather stereotypically, because you can't trust someone if you are convinced they are bent on leading you astray. 

College [self explanatory].

Happiness [also self explanatory].

Enthusiasm and peace, ditto. 

And love. Patriocentricity, for all its grand words, is NOT about loving your husband or anyone else, least of all God. I had rather a shocking, though not unexpected, thing said to me recently. In essence, that the worst thing this person could imagine was that his future wife might someday succumb to patriocentricity in its most extreme form. And that he wouldn't WANT her to.

Surprising, no? [Or maybe not.] Isn't the stereotype of conservative homeschooled Christian men that they [secretly or not] want a wife who is bent on 'generational faithfulness' and Submission to Men in General [including the woman's own younger brothers] and being a 'keeper at home' [to the exclusion of all else] and fulfilling her 'dominion calling' and remaining silent in the churches and being MEEK AND QUIET and steadfastly refusing to be an equal. 

Stereotype or no, accurate or no, I think I've encountered a specimen of that rare species, the Non Patriocentric Man.
---------------

But I got a bit off topic. I am angry at patriocentricity and its associated cadre of legalism. Remember that passage in John about how 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy'? *   That's patriocentricity for you.......to steal joy, kill love, and destroy hearts. 

* Remember too the rest of the verse, spoken by Jesus Christ:  'but I am come that they might have life, and have it to the full'. 


Really, all this ferocious rhetoric is partly a cover for the fact that I am still a very scared person. And sometimes being angry is a good way to shake off despair. 

And as a reminder, down in print, that patriocentricity holds nothing good for me. 



8 comments:

rae said...

We all need a reminder - trust me, I know. I have a tattoo design in the making that is personal for me, to be a permanent reminder of the freedom I have found in Christ - the LIFE to have to the FULL! :)

I too dislike pink (love green!) and enjoy adventures and intellectual pursuits. And my husband wouldn't have it any other way. He says the more I am myself the more we can work together, as a team. The more we can be one flesh. It was so unhealthy for our marriage when I was trying to fit some patriocentric mold.

HUGS.

I like you the way you are. :)

Camellia Day said...

Well, I must be very insecure and my mother must be too. xD

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hate sewing. Bleh. I hate cooking too!

I feel the same way. When I start thinking about things like patriocentricity I get angry and become irritable. Not good.

Hope you're doing well!
-Lia

Bethany said...

Thanks so much for the comments, I appreciate them :)

Sarah said...

Hey Bethany. Nice post. It's nice to see that there are Christian women out there who don't believe that we must be anti-feminist have a happy, sucsessful life. :)

Bethany said...

Thanks Sarah. And I know, it's been a huge encouragement to me over the past few months to find that there are Christian women who- yeah, what you said :) Something about 'by their fruit you shall known them'.

Gray said...

IAMSOOOOOOWITHYOU! OHMYWORD!

Bethany said...

Hehe thanks Gray :) I'm happy people are still reading this post, it turned out to be sort of a battle cry...

Libby Anne said...

In 1918, the Ladies Home Journal suggested that little boys should wear pink, because it's such a manly color, and little girls should wear blue, because it's such a delicate color. No joke. Look it up. Pink for girls and blue for boys developed after WWII. Oh yes. So guess what, people? Gender specific colors are a cultural construct! Dressing your little boy in pink will NOT make him gay! So get over it! /rant