John Stonestreet’s article in Breakpoint is a perfect follow-up to my post of yesterday. John writes:
You probably won’t see her on Fox News. And she doesn’t have a column in National Review. But a lesbian academic trained at Yale, Camille Paglia, who describes herself as a “notorious Amazon feminist,” is an unlikely prophet of cultural doom. And maybe that’s why we should listen to what she has to say.
In a wide-ranging interview in the Wall Street Journal, Paglia says most feminists today deny the basic differences between the sexes, and as a consequence are setting us up for a huge fall. “What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide,” she says.
How? Well, Paglia says, many members of the cultural elite have no experience in the military and in fact disdain military service, a traditionally male province. “These people don’t think in military ways,” Paglia says, “so there’s this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind…. They literally don’t have any sense of evil or criminality.”
Friends, as our friend Chuck Colson would say, this isn’t primarily a knowledge problem. It’s a worldview problem. Paglia says modern feminists pass that misunderstanding onto the rest of us at the earliest opportunity—in kindergarten.
“Primary-school education is a crock, basically,” Paglia warns. “They’re making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters.” As the Journal article relates, “she sees the tacit elevation of ‘female values’—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.”
And the same thing happens, she says, all the way to college. “The PC gender politics things,” Paglia says, “the way gender is being taught in the universities… is all about neutralization of maleness.” Another prominent feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers, who first alerted us to the ongoing “war against boys” in the culture, agrees, saying, “Boys are languishing academically, while girls are soaring.”
Male neutralization, Paglia says, includes the idea that men and women are biologically the same and that gender is nothing but a social construct. And this is why we shouldn’t be surprised that California schools have started to allow kindergartners with supposed “gender identity” issues to go to whichever bathroom they choose.
Paglia warns us that men have “no models of manhood” in our culture, adding: “Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There’s nothing left. There’s no room for anything manly right now.” The culture, this feminist admits, needs men and it will die without them. Wow.
So what to do about it? Paglia suggests a “revalorization” of traditionally masculine trades, such as construction, electrical, and plumbing work, which pay well enough but don’t come with the PC cache of a college degree. Well, that’s a start, but what I’d really like to see is a “revalorization” of traditionally masculine virtues.
We have too many guys, even in the church, afraid to be men. We need men not afraid to be strong risk-takers, to be courageous, to take responsibility, who are self-controlled, gentle leaders and willing providers. We need these real men in our homes and the public square, in churches and in neighborhoods. Remember, God made us male and female. We need both.
Now I realize I may be walking on thin ice here, because virtue is not gender specific. Women can also be strong! I pray my own daughters will be bold risk-takers for the kingdom—but as women, not as men.
Come to BreakPoint.org for some strong Christian resources and good reads on masculinity, what it means to be a man—for men and for boys. . . because we need strong women and strong men. In fact, Western civilization depends upon it. Just ask Camille Paglia.
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Demi Moore, Abortion & Prostitution
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged abortion, Breakpoint, children, Chuck Colson, CNN, Demi Moore, feminism, Indian sex trade, Mara Hvistendahl, men, missing women, Nepalese girls, Ross Douthat, sanctity of human life, sex trade, sex traffic, sex-selection abortion, women on July 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Colson, in his Breakpoint commentary of July 8, noted that Moore became emotional during the broadcast. Understandably so. Slavery and bondage as a prostitute should never happen. But the problem, Colson believes, is that we are ignoring the driving force of this “inhumane traffic in innocence.”
The New York Times ran an article following the CNN documentary titled “160 Million and Counting.” It referred to the number of “missing” women in the world. Colson points out “missing” as in “disappeared,” rather, as in “never born in the first place.”
Ross Douthat, author of the Times article, reminded readers that 26 years ago the number of “missing” women was estimated by experts to be 100 million. These experts concluded, after examining skewed sex ratios in China and India, “that something terrible was happening.” Twenty year later, the estimate has grown by 60%. But those concerned about this terrible thing, Douthat notes, remain reluctant to name the cause: abortion.
Colson writes, “Citing the work of social scientist Mara Hvistendahl, Douthat points out an uncomfortable truth: what Times readers would no doubt see as ‘female empowerment’ lies behind the missing women. According to Hvistendahl, in places like India, ‘women use their increased autonomy’ to abort their daughters and ‘select for sons,’ who enhance their social status.”
Sex-selection abortion may have originated among the “affluent,” but now all women can select — or reject — their preborn child based on sexual preference.
What is the impact? Colson notes a 2008 article by two Loyola Law School professors who found that by “reducing the number of potential brides, selective abortion in India increased the demand for sex workers.” And, Colson continues, “one way that ‘demand’ is being filled is through the Nepalese girls featured in the CNN documentary. The ‘lucky’ ones are ‘smuggled and purchased from poor countries like Nepal and Bhutan to be brides for Indian men.’ The more unfortunate are sold into the Indian sex trade.”
India and China have outlawed the practice of sex-selection abortion because of the social ills and suffering. But the practice continues because, says Colson, “cultural norms are hard to overcome.”
Douthat notes that sex-selection abortion puts Western liberals “in a distinctly uncomfortable position.” Colson explains why. “They can’t deny the reality of the practice but, at the same time, their own worldview leaves them hanging in mid-air.”
“After all, they insist ‘that the unborn aren’t human beings yet, and that the right to an abortion is nearly absolute.’ ” But, continues Colson, “160 million missing women and the suffering it radiates in all directions tells you where that kind of thinking inevitably leads.”
Colson concludes, “It’s hard to imagine a better example of the poverty of modern thinking: faced with a great evil and unable to address the answer.”
Slavery and prostitution are great evils. But, the Christian worldview addresses the answer. When we value human life in the womb, we will better value and protect all human life. Including Nepalese girls.
__________
Breakpoint is published by Prison Fellowship ministries.
For further reading: “Gender Discrimination Fuels Sex Selective Abortions” (Lemoine & Tanagho, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, 2-23-08); “160 Million and Counting” (Douthat, New York Times, 6-26-11); “It’s Raining Men” (Kim Moreland, Breakpoint blog, 5-24-11)
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