Comments on Graphictruth: If your husband told you to jump off a cliff, wou...

Then your quarrel is not with religion mandating i...

2008-01-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Then your quarrel is not with religion mandating inequal roles for husbands and wives, but with the indoctrination of youth with these, or any other, values? Whether you raise your kids with a fundamentalist value system or a progressive value system, they still don't have a choice either way. A liberal, non-absolutist value system is a value system nonetheless, and gives kids no more agency than a reactionary Christian value system, right? Do you think that a kid raised in an ideological vacuum becomes an adult with more agency than a kid raised in a fundamentalist environment? I wonder, myself.

You volunteer that raising kids is a different skill-set, anyway, regardless of the family power dynamic. So then shouldn't a fundamentalist family power dynamic be irrelevant, according to your view?

At any rate, my first comment was focused mostly on male/female relations without much regard to kids, because your post seemed to hint at a disagreement with non-feminists sentiments of any sort (your title suggests this), apart from the child perspective.

Because, for adults, don't forget that religion is after all a completely voluntary association. Adult women who are subjected to a Southern Baptitst ideology are subjecting themselves to that ideology. In this situation, no majority is restricting the rights of a minority.

You talk about returning to "more judgmental times," but is your post any less judgmental, albeit in the opposite direction? It's like unqualified, requisite Equality is the unassailable Right today, just as God-ordered inequality was the one and only Right yesterday.

Sorry for all this rambling. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate and trying to get a better grasp on these issues myself. Personally, I would never raise my kids according to a fundamentalist ideology, but maybe that's just a personal preference as opposed to a morally superior choice.

Actually, I condemn neither paradigm - so long as ...

2008-01-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

Actually, I condemn neither paradigm - so long as it's a matter of free choice and that any children understand that it is because it's the best way for their parents, and MAY be good for them.

I have known many solid male sub households - and many solid male dom households, and many solid co-equal households. Indeed, I've known a few solid polyamorous households.

Some raised great kids - some not so great. That is yet another skill-set, and not one that should ever pretend that children are small, interchangable lumps of plasticine, ready to be molded in the image of mother and father.

Hell, some of us come pre-baked wierdly, like a GI Joe that says "Math is HARD!"

Divorce rates were much lower when women were considered chattel property and every social institution conspired against the liberty of women.

I see no benefit in returning to those dour and judgmental times, as we already have more than enough information to know that it did not work at all well for a substantial portion of the population, and no majority has the right to restrict the freedom of any minority - even just one person - merely for their own social comfort.

I dunno... feminism is so 20th century. I think ...

2008-01-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

I dunno... feminism is so 20th century. I think it's time for a fresher paradigm.

There are marriages wherein "hen-pecked" husbands submit tirelessly to their wives -- do you condemn this equally? Does this yield the same dangers?

Sucks for any child growing up in a fundamentalist household, but gender relations are just a small piece of the problem pie.

Divorce rates were much lower before women's lib caught on. So I dunno.