July 7, 2005 4:00 PM
London and the feminization of war
Like everyone else, I am grieved about London.
I am grieved that my country has been so feminized that we tie the hands of our military and treat them like we need to protect the world from them, rather than letting them protect us from the world.
Our country has been emasculated by the Women's movement and all the crazy limits that we set on men and boys.
Think about it.
Men can't conduct war the way it needs to be conducted. We have the likes of Dick Durbin wringing his hands because because the air conditioning was turned down at Guantanamo until the detainees shivered. Imagine that! Imagine trying to make someone with terrorist connections uncomfortable enough that they will spill the beans before more innocent people get killed. What brutality!
It starts when they're little boys with mommies who won't let them play wargames and pretend shoot-'em-ups. Mommies (as I once was) who don't understand how basic that is to maleness. With four boys in a row I had a no-toy-weapon policy too until I realized that every broken branch or sausage link could become an imaginary weapon in the hands of my sons. And their obsession with weaponry was only fueled by my making them taboo. Then I realized that there were things about boys and men I needed to learn and I'd better hurry up.
Mommies, we always have to be thinking outside the box! If we come into motherhood with our own expectations and then try to force everything into our mold, our children will never realize the special potentials built into them.
Part of being a mommy means being open to learning and changing and growing every day. As I began to accept my boys' masculinity - to hold my tongue whenever I started to say, "Watch out! Someone's going to get hurt! and just let them be rough - I began to appreciate masculinity more.
The feminist movement did accomplish some good things - better healthcare and childbirth for women, representation in the arts, equal pay, opening up some fields like medicine where a woman's touch was sorely needed - but they did a lot of damage.
One of the worst results was the introducation of the thought that girls and women were normal, the yardstick by which behavior could be evaluated. Boys' behavior was then labeled "abnormal." Our concept of elementary education is structured around this girl behavior normal/boy behavior abnormal concept. Consequently, boys get rambunctious, "act out," and are put on medication just for being boys.
We insist on allowing women jobs that should be men only. I don't know about you, but if my house is burning down and I see a 125 pound woman climbing that ladder to get me and my family out, I'm not going to feel reassured. And women in the military is a huge problem, breaking up families and weakening our defense.
I'm getting far afield. Tomorrow, I'll post an old article I did on the difference between boys and girls. You can see what you think.
But today, I just want to say, if we would support men in being men, encouraging them to protect and defend us instead of identifying with the enemy and feeling sorry for them, if we would allow our military to do their job, we might not have seen what happened today.
God bless our allies. God give them courage for the journey and the peace that passes understanding. And God help us raise leaders and then to let them lead.
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Comments
Oh Babara! Hear Hear!
Let him/ her who has ears, hear!!
Earlier today, I was talking with my Mam, who is and always will be true to her British heritage, wherever her feet may roam (currently, Australia). We were discussing Mr Blair. When will these male leaders arrange for a little back-bone and do what is necessary to combat terrorism, instead of attempting to put out (eternal) fires which men bear against those who may, on any occasion, threaten their families and homes? When will men be allowed to be men and deal with "circumstances" appropriately, instead of being hushed and encouraged to consider the "Biggerpicture"? Well, isn't the "Biggerpicture" here and now? Isn't our universe the happiness we have now, whatever brings about that happiness ~ particularly the simple things in life? And, if anyone should threaten that fundamental happiness, is it not good and right for our men to defend/ retaliate appropriately without receiving recommendations to add frills and lace?
Oh, how I love to watch and to savour my men being men. If only women would realise that they cannot ~ simply cannot ~ put a female head and heart on male shoulders, perhaps there would be much more harmony not only on the "homefront", but also in the "homeland".
Thankyou for the spotlight you've put on this issue.
Blessings to you and yours (and your men!)
Helen
Australia
Posted by: Helen | July 8, 2005 3:57 AM
Amanda at Wittingshire had a post on this a few weeks ago, how her boys kept turning sticks and things into guns. She linked to another blogger who was saying the same thing.
Barbara, I wonder if there are many people around who have done as much of a direction change as you have?
Posted by: Julana | July 8, 2005 12:16 PM
Isn't it crazy that for many, many years, little boys actually had real weapons--but it's only been the last decade or so that they've been using them on each other? What makes it stranger is that it's only been the last decade or so that we've been encouraging the "violent is always bad" mentality...
Posted by: Minky | July 19, 2005 4:59 PM
I arrived at your blog from a site http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/ that gave a link to this entry. I had just been reading a section on their FAQ's called Myths of Feminism Exploded http://pub32.bravenet.com/faq/show.php?usernum=2692425141&catid=3205 and then read your blog entry. They both started me thinking about how I need to be careful about the presuppositions on which I rely. I have no children, but my husband and I are a Big Couple and we have a Little Brother.
Posted by: Gigi | August 2, 2005 2:24 AM
