March 4 Respect: unsilent women, authority, and feminism.

Some people use the word 'respect' to mean "assign authority". And some people use the word 'respect' to mean "assign human dignity". Which leads to the point where someone says, "You must respect me, or I won't respect you." And what they mean - and will frequently act out - is, in fact, "You need to recognise me as an authority, or I won't treat you with human dignity."

As such 'feminism' is anathema to men who use the term 'respect' to mean 'recognise as an authority' because it no longer takes male authority as the last word. 

It also occurs to me that when men or male authorities talk about "being respected" they're largely talking about being assigned authority and recognised and acknowledged as such. So a man feeling disrespected is most likely because he isn't considered the last word, the leader, the ultimate authority. However, when women talk about "being respected" they're largely talking about being assigned humanity.  A woman feeling disrespected is likely because she's not being considered as a person  - rather, she's an object, a usefulness, or an adjunct.

As such 'feminism' is anathema to men who use the term 'respect' to mean 'recognise as an authority' because it no longer takes male authority as the last word. This explains a lot of pushback against feminism in Christian and peri-Christian (Christendom?) circles. When 'respectfulness' is seen as "you will recognise, acknowledge, and submit to my authority for no other reason than that I am male" then, yes, feminism is dangerous to the rigid end of complementarianism and a slippery slope to the more flexible side.

In contrast, 'feminism' to most feminists means  the recognition that a woman is a person: fully whole, legally independent, individual and worthy of decent treatment without regard to whether or not a male finds them personable, socially acceptable, or fuckable. Women are worthy of existence and human rights simply because they are (...made in the image of God, the Christian mentally adds).

I have never ever had a conflict between my feminism and my faith. Jesus' closest followers included women who not only fed him and washed his feet, but also learned from him and were witnesses to his resurrection. And his behaviour and teachings are what we would these days call 'feminine'. So, yeah, of course God sees me as any man's equal in human dignity, therefore any human dignity accorded a man is my right, too. And yeah, it gets messy when we bring it into society where men hold the power, the authority, and even the truly godly ones are not above tweaking the system to give them the advantage. Human nature is human nature, after all. That doesn't mean it's wrong, just unpopular. (And shouldn't we as Christians know about not-wrong-just-unpopular? I mean, that's a biggie in our cultural victimhood...)

I want to say something cynical about the rather notable silence about the March4Respect from most of the churchgoing people that I know. I won't. Some of them are trying; some of them aren't. Most are focusing on the Great Trans Fight that will kick into gear over the next 12 months, because from that will come the dollar signs of religious education and our right to teach and preach our views like they're dominant and nobody is going to question them.

But I still think we're spending our coin on the drug of 'moral self-righteousness' that will leave the broader church with no witness in the world. But I'm nobody on that point - who'd listen to me?