Tag: slavery

Thoughts on Feminism

When I was twenty an older woman I knew said, about me, that I would make a good wife for somebody. She didn’t say it to my face, but it was gleefully retold to me by a mutual acquaintance. It was not meant as a compliment. The implication was that I was weak, submissive, and had no leadership qualities. The woman who said it was a successful businesswoman and ran a matriarchal type household. She was definitely the one in charge of everything. At that time, I did want to get married, and I think I shrugged off the insult part of the comment without much trouble. I knew that I had different goals. And the woman who said it was not someone I wished to emulate. But the core of what she was trying to say was I was not a feminist and thus inferior. 

I want to talk about feminism. This is the definition I’m going to use, found on humanrightscareers.com

At its core, feminism is the belief that women deserve equal social, economic, and political rights and freedoms.

To give you a little background, my Grandmother Picazo went to college as a math major and had a lifetime career in Christian radio missions, my Grandmother Rigby was a nurse and a career missionary her entire life. My mother was a missionary, and then went back to school and became a Physician Assistant and worked in the medical field until her retirement. My mother-in-law has her doctorate, is an ordained minister and was a career missionary. 

I come from a long line of strong, educated, women. When I was growing up there was always an assumption that I would go to college and have some type of career. I honestly didn’t think about kids too much when I was young. Just assumed I’d probably have two, like my parents did, but it was not something I gave much thought to. I went to a christian university right after high school and studied music. And then I had a breakdown, struggled with panic attacks and anxiety, and decided, with the blessing of my parents, to take a break from school for a while. I went overseas, spent four months in Haiti and then six months in Chile. All the time, wondering what I was going to do with my life. 

During college, I made a vow to God that I was going to follow him wherever he led me. I asked him to be the one to choose my husband for me and I approached life with open hands, trusting that God would take me where he wanted me. 

I ended up getting married at twenty and then shortly after that my husband and I felt that God was asking us to trust him with our family size so we went off birthcontrol. 

Twenty-five years later, ten kids later, I am sitting here, thinking about feminism. 

I homeschooled my kids for somewhere between twelve and fifteen years, depending on how you count it. The homeschooling community is a very diverse place and I ran into all kinds of teachings and belief systems that had me scratching my head. One of the belief systems that I ran into was that feminism was bad. Women should be under the protection of their father or their husbands at all times and should be content living out their role in the home, leaving all decision making to the men in their lives. 

I disagree. And when I hear people bashing feminism, I want to remind them that without feminism, women would not be voting in the upcoming election. We wouldn’t be able to have our own bank accounts. We wouldn’t be able to own property. We would not have freedom to pursue higher education and fulfilling careers. We would be essentially enslaved to the men in our lives. I don’t think this is a just, safe way to live. We live in a sinful world, and while the idea of being raised by a gentle godly man as your father, and then marrying a perfect man who always takes care of you exactly the way you need, sounds good in theory, in reality there are girls being raised by abusive fathers and women trapped in marriages to abusive men. Without feminism, these women would have very little recourse to escape these situations. And that’s not even addressing the women who do not want to be married in the first place. 

I believe in freedom. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have been for twenty-four years. My husband and I have a very traditional marriage. We hold to the belief that he is the head of the house. I have ten children. We felt that God asked us to trust us with our family size and when we felt that we had reached that size, we took measures to not have any more children. I feel that I have been especially blessed to have the privilege to stay home and raise my children. But, here’s the thing. I chose to have this lifestyle. I believed that it was something God wanted and so I chose to obey that. It was not forced on me. I had choices. I could have chosen to not get married. I could have chosen to insist on our marriage looking different. I had a choice about whether I would have children or not and how many I would have. I chose to hand that over to God, but it was still a choice. Without choice, it’s slavery. And for those who see my lifestyle as obedience to God, I would say that without choice, it’s not really even obedience. Can a slave be rewarded for obedience when they had no choice in whether to obey or not? 

I have five daughters. I have tried very hard to let them know they have choices. And at the same time, let them know that following God is always going to lead to the most fulfilling life. 

I hope that my daughters look at me and see someone who chose to follow where God led, and as a result has lived a blessed, fulfilling life. And I hope that they look at the examples of their grandmothers and great grandmothers too and know that following God looks different for each person. 

Thoughts on Race from the Racially Awkward

Today I was at the grocery store. A group of us shoppers were crowded in line, paying for our groceries. I was just finishing paying and I smelled this amazing aroma of fried chicken. I glanced behind me and there was a really large black man standing there waiting to pay. I commented, That chicken smells so good, it makes me want to go get some! He commented back that he wasn’t even going to get to eat it, it was for someone else. I sympathized and went on my way with my groceries. A typical southern grocery store interaction. As I was walking out, I wondered why all interactions with people of a different race can’t be like that. Just two people chatting together in the grocery store line, not seeing color.

The problem is, I know that it goes a lot deeper than “I just don’t see color”. I was reading a book on American history that was focusing on the nonwhites in America. The atrocities that were committed against the Native Americans blows my mind. Sure, we all know that the white people and the Native Americans fought wars with each other, weren’t friendly with each other.. But have you ever read the actual accounts of what happened?  What is most horrifying is reading the historical documents written by the white men who led these atrocities and realizing that they did not see Native Americans as people. They just weren’t human, so it didn’t really matter. Looking at the history of slavery in America: for 200 years the white people kept black people as slaves. Again, there seemed to be a total lack of acknowledgement that black people are humans. Then after slavery was abolished we had the Jim Crow laws for almost another 100 years that were designed to keep black and white people separated as much as possible. Again, not seeing black people as humans. This is the history of our country, and it’s not a distant history. My father’s generation can still remember segregation. 

I am puzzled when people say that racism is a figment of the black person’s imagination. I see examples of it all the time, just in the comments that people make in my hearing. Besides, our country was founded on racism. It is a blight on our country. I really struggle when people say that we live in a Christian country, founded by Christians, and it is only in the past couple decades that we have wandered from our true roots. I struggle with that, because I read about our true roots being genocide. Stealing land. Enslaving an entire race for several centuries. These are not actions that I would proudly stamp with the label “Christian”. I’m not saying that our country is all bad. Our constitution laid a foundation that could eventually lead to freedom for all. But, it took us a long time to get here. And I’m not convinced that we have truly arrived yet. 

Now, things are different. All races are legally equal. All races are legally protected. We are now supposed to be a united, non-racist country. Except that we are still awkward with each other. There’s a lot of mistrust. There’s a lot of misunderstanding. I know that I myself am Racially Awkward. I see all races as equally human, equally important. But, I’m not comfortable around all races. I tend to feel like I’m walking on eggshells. Afraid that I’m going to inadvertently say something offensive. Afraid that I’m going to come across the wrong way. Afraid that my actions will be misinterpreted. I wish so much to be friends with people of other races and show that I am not racist, and show that “I don’t see color”, and say, look, I am not part of that whole horrible history of white people. But, I don’t know how to do it, and so I am just Awkward. 

I wish that we could just be blunt with each other. My family lives in a primarily black community in the South and my kids are often the only white person in their class. They relate conversations to me and I sometimes cringe. The high schoolers have no problem hurling racial epitaphs at each other and joking about race and poking fun of each other and I think, Is that ok? Is my kid crossing the line? Is he being unfairly picked on because of his color? But, at the same time, I envy them. Because they don’t seem to have any inhibitions. They just say what they’re thinking to each other. The awkwardness isn’t there. 

I’m not sure what the answers are for our country. I think some real educating on the racial history of our country would be good. Let’s not gloss over what happened in order for us to claim this land as our own and create our own country. Let’s be honest about it. As a Christian, I think it would be totally appropriate for those who call our country a Christian Country to enter a time of mourning and fasting and repentance, to stand in for the sins of our ancestors. We need to keep ferreting out laws and regulations that are keeping true equality from happening.  And then time. We need time. We need our kids and our grandkids to be able to live in a world that isn’t tainted by the sins of our past. Where they can establish true equality and true brotherhood. 

In the meantime I will continue to pursue friendships with people who look differently than me and maybe one day, I will stop being awkward. But it’s going to take practice. And that is something I can do. 

EDIT POST: I have been thinking on this some more. I have been friends with people of all races and many different nationalities most of my life. I think my awkwardness developed much later as an adult. Perhaps it’s just because I became more aware of racial tensions where before, I had been oblivious.