Feminism and Disrespect: Can I Please Have Someone Else to Vote For

Last updated on: September 29, 2016 at 7:46 am by Anne Kennedy

Feminism and Disrespect: Can I Please Have Someone Else to Vote For 2016-09-29T07:46:22-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I don’t really want to think/write about politics at all any more. However, the debate on Monday irritated me. So, to pick up what I said yesterday, as a way of jumping back in, I will quote myself, “The aggressive, mannish posture of many women in politics–the boxy clothes and insistence on equality–rob women of their natural advantage.”

It’s not just the mannish posture and boxy clothes though. The woman “making it in a man’s world” is having to ape (not to micro-aggress apes) what she thinks men are doing to get ahead. And this is where men not being decent has ruined it for women trying on the mantle of masculinity. Women–and I’m really I’m just guessing here–mistake and therefore misunderstand the aggressive hierarchical male world. Looking in from the outside, they imagine that to get ahead they must treat men the way men treat each other, which must be jockeying for position and putting each other down. But they don’t really understand the subtlety of male relationships. There may be bluster on the surface, but the core of men relating to each other is respect. It may not appear so on the outside, and certainly women don’t think about it all that much, but respect is the air that men breathe, the thing that keeps them mentally and spiritually healthy.

But, if you distilled down the feminist’s misunderstanding of masculinity, you would find that they had a brewed a clear and pure brew of disrespect.

This must be so else how can one explain the belittling manner of so many women towards so many men. In spite of all the chatter about respecting others and respecting ourselves.

If you really want to understand why great swaths of people, but especially poor white men, think that Trump is just what the HMO ordered I would put five whole cents down to it being the disrespectful tone that men endure at the hands of a “feminized” culture. A man, of whatever color and economic status, wakes up in the morning and he is told what to do by women. His mother, his wife, his teachers, the media. He is lectured. He is blamed. He is put up with. He is endured. He is never, though, understood or allowed to express dissatisfaction over his lot. If he is sensible, he will throw off his cis identity and become a “woman”.

I don’t say this in any way to victimize the man. I think if more husbands listened to their wives instead of pandering to them, or nodding dejectedly, or hiding in the world of sports, they would find that the average woman wants someone who will say what’s on his mind, even if that thing is offensive to the prevailing wind of the day.

But I do think that in a woman’s world, the men endure, and endure, and endure, and then some of them vote for Trump, and others of them conclude they have nothing to lose and join up with Black Lives Matter.

Disrespect is the drink that we all drink every morning. Either we are pouring it out or drinking it in. It is so much the one cup from which we all drink that most of us don’t hear it or feel it any more. Except under the bright shining lights of a presidential debate. There, the mutual disrespect of one for the other shines forth in full color. “With all due respect” a ready signal that something disrespectful is about to happen.

It’s not that we’ve lost our love of virtue (we have). It’s not that we’ve lost our religion (we have). It’s not that we’ve squandered the pillars of intellectual thought that have carried us so far (we have). It’s that we have lost the centrality of that foolish, ancient truth born into the world by Jesus himself, that if you put yourself first, everything else will slip through your fingers. And when you put yourself in the center, everything and everyone else must go away. To stay there, to live there, on the holy mountain of yourself, Disrespectfulness and Pride will be your food and drink, the substance of all you are and all you do.

Masculinity unmoored from self sacrifice, femininity unmoored from life giving become empty, impatient, disrespectful shadows of their former selves. The woman in politics who beats her way up the ladder, her manner aggressive and unkind, shouting that she cares for others when everyone can see she cares only for herself is perfectly matched by the corrupt, womanizing wonder who so deeply loves himself that he forgets even to appeal to the people of the nation he hopes to lead.

If we wanted to reorder our ways before the Lord, in the hopes that he would have mercy and give us someone else to vote for, a single small step might be for the women of this nation to question the manner in which they are speaking to the men in their lives. And at the same moment, the men might emerge from the shadows and margins and take responsibility for the death of virtue, the objectifying of women, the infantilization of themselves even as so many actual infants perish. Or we could just go on the way we are, but that seems like a tragic proposition to me.

Previous Post

September 28, 2016

Vote for Hillary Because She's a Woman

Next Post

September 30, 2016 7 Narcissistic Takes

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I hid two spies on my roof and tied a scarlet cord in my window to save my family. Who am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Tamar Ruth Rahab Deborah

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »