Tag: equal rights

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Christianity’s History of Oppression aka Hypocrites of the High Seas – a series

Hello lovely readers! I hope you are having a wonderful evening and are ready for some meaty material. I have been studying Christian Patriarchy, MRAs, and other misogynistic practices for a little while now and decided to write a multi-part series detailing some of the information that I have come across in my travels. So, without further ado, here is the first segment in the series. I hope you enjoy it and, as always, please share this piece with friends and enemies alike!

You might not think that Evangelical viewpoints have anything to do with you. If you come from another religious tradition or no religious tradition, you may feel comfortable living in America, because it is known as the home of the free. We take for granted the separation of Church and State and we couldn’t possibly be like other countries that have national religions and oppress their people based on religious doctrine.

If this is what you think, I will give you a moment to Google and mull that thought over.

Unfortunately, the separation of Church and State that we have always assumed was our earthly right is being eroded in our country. It has been for many years, but with this POTUS* we see the agenda much more clearly. Not only did he promise to dismantle women’s, gay, and civil rights, but he has shown himself to be a white nationalist and a misogynist. He was the one candidate on the Republican side of the aisle that was willing to do whatever it took to win and what it took was promising the Evangelicals that he would be their guy.

“Still”, you ask, “does this really affect me? I mean – I feel pretty safe here in America because I was born here and I pay my taxes. I think I can overlook the craziness of this administration because in a year we will be rid of this POTUS*.” And my answer to you is, YES. It affects you. It affects every single one of us. It even affects the Christians that think they are doing what is right. We are moving toward a nation that is not free and that will hurt EVERYONE.

How do we fix it? First, we need to understand the people who are lobbying for changes in our society. Evangelicals have a specific belief system that prioritizes the power of men over women. The most obvious example of this is something called ‘Biblical Patriarchy’ or ‘Christian Patriarchy’. This form of patriarchy is not very different from the definition of patriarchy that exists in modern society, and it could be said to be the basis for this modern understanding. Christian Patriarchy touts the idea that men are the head of the household inasmuch as they oversee their wives and children and direct their lives. Women are, in this scenario, considered helpers and their domain is merely the home. According to a literal reading of the Bible, women are responsible for raising the children in the way that their husband has set forth. Here is an example of this structure that I have seen shared in many online forums to describe this movement, with verse references:

Original creator unknown – The Biblical Model for Godly Homes

That last line is chilling. They have, 100%, worked in that direction and with the current administration they are getting many of the things that they have been striving toward. But why are they so powerful? How did they get someone elected who would move America away from the separation of Church and State and toward a ‘Christian’ nation? The better question is how can we turn this ship around? If we don’t understand the Christian Patriarchy Movement, we are defenseless against what it could do to hurt our Egalitarian society. We have issues with Patriarchy, on the daily, in our secular lives, but adding Christian Patriarchy to the mix takes the struggle for equality to another level.

Again you may wonder: What exactly does this have to do with me? Christian Patriarchy spreads across all denominations of Christianity. It is not just centered on Evangelicals, although we often see them as the largest faction within this movement. Evangelicals have successfully lobbied all levels of government to put their agenda front and center.

Consider this movement as a cruise ship. The Evangelicals and other Christian Patriarchy movement folks are all on the cruise ship and they offer everyone a ticket to their cruise but in order to board you have to leave behind some of the pieces of your identity that you may or may not be able to shed. In essence, you are either on the cruise ship, willing to get on the cruise ship, lost at sea on a raft or small craft, or simply treading water, for eternity.

  1. First you have to believe in their God and only their God.  Being born-again is essential, so if you are anything other than a Christian before you set foot on the ship, you need to change your religion.
    Several States have passed bills to display “In God We Trust” and/or the 10 Commandments in front of or on government buildings and on public property. This is in opposition to the Separation of Church and State, but the Evangelical folks don’t believe that it applies to them. To them, the separation isn’t protecting them, it is restricting them. Bonkers.
  2. If you are a woman, you need to put men in charge of your body (preferably White men, but we’ll get to that in a moment).  If you are a feminist, you can’t get on the ship.
    The current POTUS* has installed two judges that are anti-choice and successfully won a majority of conservative judges on the SCOTUS. This is a move toward dismantling a basic right for women to control our bodies. Christian Patriarchy folks also believe that birth control kills babies (because of course people who don’t believe in science wouldn’t understand how medicine actually works – clue – birth control pills DON’T actually kill babies, they prevent ovulation) so the next step in the legislation of this kind is to outlaw birth control pills. This is a thing that could happen in the near future if we don’t fight against it with actual scientific facts, legislation to retain the rights of women to have basic healthcare, including contraceptives, and elect more progressive people to overturn the conservative seats in the US Senate. Basically, feminists have won many rights for women that allow us to control our bodies and futures, and the Christian Patriarchy peeps do not appreciate that. So – no cruising for the feminists.
  3. If you are anything other than CIS and heterosexual, you are unable to board. All the LGBTQPIA2S+ folks are out of luck.
    Legislation in this area started with the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), bathroom bills that require individuals to present ID to prove their gender identity matches the sex that was assigned to them at birth, and bills that give cover to adoption agencies that favor straight couples to gay couples going as far as allowing these agencies to use religion as a means to discriminate against couples if they do not meet the criteria of sexual orientation. And we all know about the ‘Hobby Lobby’ case and what I like to call ‘it’s just fucking cake’ legislation. So I guess there will be no LGBTQPIA2S+ folks on the ship either. My goodness how boring it will be.
  4. Can I get on this cruise ship if I’m not White or is there a segregation clause as well?
    Well – there isn’t a segregation clause, per se, but you would need to denounce affiliation with any group striving for Civil Rights in the United States or that the cruise directors generally deem unnecessary or unworthy. This would include Black Lives Matter, the Black Panther Party, the Poor People’s Campaign, the NAACP, Affirmative Action, and any other group that is striving to help people of colour gain equality in the United States. This also extends to anti-fascist (and therefore anti-nazi and anti-white supremacist) groups, anti-hate groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or the ACLU, and any other group that seeks to make things fair across all of humanity. If you are or have ever been a member (or ever shown an affinity even for any of these groups) you will not be permitted to board.

So after all of that I say – keep your damn cruise ship, conservatives! Travel the high seas with your posse of bigots and leave the land to the rest of us.

If only it were that easy. Since we cannot exile the zealots to a ship, we have to continue fighting for our own rights here in America. We have to make this land free for EVERYONE, not just the conservative, White, religious folks. To do that, we have to join organizations, fund causes, and march. Our lives truly depend on us all partaking in the experiment that is America and getting active is the only way to ensure a better future for all. Rise up and stay standing for human rights!

Peace and keep up the fight!

Chantale – aka hippiegrrl

A few appropriate links:
Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Map – You would think that the deep south would have the most hate groups, but check out New York and California!
ACLU
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Human Rights Campaign
Black Lives Matter
NAACP
Poor Peoples Campaign
Southern Coalition for Social Justice
Homophobic Tumblr post transformed into a LGBTI dystopian YA novel

Next up in this series: Twitter, Trolls, and Trumpsters. How are these movements connected to organized religion? Get ready for some interesting information to aid in your fight for good. DWP!

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Dudes and Women’s Rights

Why do dudes think they have any claim to women’s rights in the United States?

I am in a cafe in Alabama and The Dudes Sitting Across From Me are two White, straight, cis dudes of means in their late 20s. They are discussing choice. Yes, choice. Women’s choice. I was hoping that they would be pro-choice because the cafe I am sitting in is pretty hip and progressive, but no – they are talking about how happy they are about the Alabama laws that have recently been passed to restrict abortion to 6 weeks. They want it to go farther and hope that abortion will be eradicated eventually. They look like two young dudes would, sitting at a table in a cafe, talking about the future of what women have the right to do with THEIR bodies. But they have thoughts on choice – something that has NOTHING to do with their own bodies. This surreal to me. How can their opinion mean anything at all?

Now don’t get me wrong – this is not a conversation you will solely hear in Alabama. I have been sitting in cafes in Buffalo, NY where I have heard dudes having similar conversations. The movement to take rights away from women is national – international even. Women have been consistently and constantly fighting for a little more power in the world while dudes are working to take those rights away.

The people that I take issue with, as much as the dudes, are the women who have stood, and will continue to stand, by these dudes even at their own detriment. The women who voted for Trump. The women who don’t believe other women should work outside the home. The women who think that women without children are horrible people. The women who see those of us who would choose to end a pregnancy as murderers, rather than women taking care of our bodies based on decisions we should be allowed to make for ourselves without state or federal intervention.

But let’s get back to the dudes. You may ask why The Dudes Sitting Across From Me believe they can STILL oppress us, even after 100 years of women having the right to vote. You may wonder why they think women of colour should have even fewer rights than white women. You may be confused about why dudes think that we as a civilization should continue on this patriarchal path. The answer is simple: fear. They are afraid because they can see that straight white dudes of means are quickly becoming a minority. So they gather and make their MRAesque plans for the future and devise schemes to keep the women down. A matriarchal society scares the shit out of them and they are doing everything they can to keep us from rising up as one.

And here is the key – women from all parts of this country need to stick together no matter our backgrounds or political affiliations. We need to vote as a bloc in this next election to oust the misogynist-in-chief from office so he can’t do 4 more years of damage to our FREE nation. We still haven’t seen full freedom for women and, most especially, freedom for women of colour and lgbtq+ women. If we don’t work to change the trajectory of the political system we will never see these freedoms. We will lose more and more freedoms steadily each day – eventually leading to that future dystopia people love to read and write about and watch on television, but don’t truly believe could happen.

If we are not careful it can happen. As evidenced by The Dudes Sitting Across From Me in this cafe, and sitting in cafes all across this nation, plotting the end of women’s rights. They may not frame it that way but that is EXACTLY what they are working on. They think it is for the best, but it is only the best for them. Straight, white, cis, dudes of means. That’s it. The rest of us can basically go scratch in their estimation. They want the world to serve them.

If the rest of us stick together and do our civic duty in 2020 by voting for the Democratic candidate, we can show them that we are not here to serve, but to live in peace and harmony with one another and, in the end, to lead. What The Dudes Sitting Across From Me don’t want you to know is that they are quickly becoming a minority and that scares them more than anything. They don’t understand that we won’t treat them the way they have treated us for 300+ years. We will be fair when we are in power. That is the difference between us and them.

So who are The Dudes Sitting Across From You? Do you want to show them that the world is made for all of us? Then join us! Make this country a better place. VOTE for the Dem in 2020 and take the country back. We can repair the damage done, but only if we rescue the nation from the brink of another 4 years of disastrous leadership. Together we can make things better and move forward in a positive and hopeful direction.

Peace and happy organizing!

Chantale aka hippiegrrl

Links to visit:
Kamala Harris for the People
Elizabeth Warren
Julian Castro
Pete Buttigieg
Cory Booker

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Pride 2018

It’s June again in America and you know what that means! Pride month! June is the month where we celebrate the strides and remember the struggles (and the folks who have sacrificed their lives) to gain equality for the LGBTQ+ community. The first weekend of the month was Pride in Buffalo and we didn’t get to attend any of the events this year, so when we visit Toronto next month we will be making a special effort to attend at least one event during Pride Toronto.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple cool pride inspired things that I have come across online while searching today. Enjoy!

Google sheets celebrates pride:
If you are in the mood for a rainbow flag on your spreadsheet, simply type p r i d e in the first 5 fields of your spreadsheet and wham! bam! rainbow heaven!

Google searches:
When searching for Pride in Toronto, the most awesome header appeared in the search results. Love.

The Free Library of Philadelphia celebrates Pride:
If you are looking for some good LGBTQ+ reads, the free library has you covered!

The Library of Congress 2018 Pride Events page

Pride hashtag on Twitter

I hope you have a wonderful Pride! And if you see any cool online things in your internet travels this month, please share in the comments!

Peace, Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

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Patriarchy, MRAs, and Dismantling the Current System of Oppression

Over the years, whenever straight, white, men feel threatened, they band together in groups to discuss the situation and ‘right’ the ship. See – when dudes feel like they are losing grip on the control that they have ALWAYS had over women, they freak the fuck out. This is evidenced by the backlash against moves toward gender equity in the tech workplace. Women, in Silicon Valley specifically as well as other areas of the country with a heavy concentration of tech jobs, started speaking out last year about the harassment inflicted upon them within the male-dominated field. At my own place of business, I have witnessed dudes that have gotten away with low levels of harassment with a slap on the wrist and a ‘just try to be better’ or ‘avoid that girl from now on’. This amounts to a wink and a nod between dudes and we, as women, continue to suffer under this horrible system of misogyny.

In 2010 there was a similar backlash within women’s studies departments on college campuses. The MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) got all twisted up about women’s studies being biased toward women. They felt the need to have male studies as well (this was in contradiction to the formal men’s studies wing of sociology that had already been incorporated into what is now called gender studies). As if all the other things that are studied in college weren’t already MALE studies. Good grief. The HIStory of the world has always been taught from the perspective of men. Women’s studies departments were created to bring some equity to the world of education and suddenly some men were getting nervous. This is what happens when people get scared. They start a backlash against the thing that scares them. And when men (specifically white, straight, cis and mostly wealthy men) get scared, the rest of us better ‘get in line’ because they have to get things back to the status quo. The patriarchy must survive and if it looks like it is being dismantled in any way, that’s when the MRAs appear to prop it back up again.

The best question we can ask ourselves, at this point in human history, is what would the world look like if the system of patriarchy that we have lived under, for all of eternity, was dismantled?

If we had a true and lasting system that was not skewed toward one sex (in this case the male sex), we would ALL be better off. Feminism works toward making EVERYONE EQUAL, not making women more powerful than men. That was never the cause of feminism. Women need more power in order to be equal to men, yes, and this is where those who are afraid of losing their grip on the full scope of power get nervous. Men who speak up against feminism are afraid of losing their power over women. They do not want to be equal because they want to continue to hold ALL the power. They want to be able to make all the decisions for the women in their lives and not allow those women to gain any traction in the movement.

This isn’t about losing equality, it is about losing the top spot in all areas of life. It is about losing the boy’s club and the ways in which the patriarchy support their policies of subjugation. If the patriarchy was dismantled, we would all be free to be ourselves and live our best lives. Women and men would both have the same opportunities and have to compete with their brains on an even playing field. Men would not be given preference, as they have for all of HIStory, in business. We are a long way from dismantling the patriarchy, but we chip away at it a little each day.

Patriarchy is not an American invention. You would not know this if you read the comment sections of any article pertaining to dismantling it though, as most Americans think that 1) our system of patriarchy has only been around for 100 years or so and 2) it’s all quite fine and dandy here in America and the misandrists (a bullshit term that denotes people who hate men and boys) need to stop trying to change things. See, when feminists (or anyone that wants to make things better for any group of people) try to make changes in society, those that benefit the most from the status quo start screaming as loud as they possibly can. Often, they find ways to back up their claims with arguments that look, on the surface, to be valid, but with a little bit of research, these arguments can be quickly dispelled.

The difficulty with research though is that many people do not want to hear facts unless they align with the position they already hold. So they listen to non-experts that spew garbage on the internet and regurgitate this crap for their ‘friends’ on social media. We used to live in a society where research and reason ruled the day, but it feels like those times are quickly diminishing. I am hopeful that we can turn the tide and stop the stupid among us from claiming expertise, but hope is not enough to make lasting change. Voting for progressive candidates that understand how to assess information is super important. If we don’t get smart people in office in 2018, we will continue down this path of stupidity that has been cultivated by the current POTUS.

So – what can we do to move toward a world where patriarchy is a thing of the past?

VOTE! Get to the polls and choose the smartest and most informed candidates, regardless of their place on the spectrum of gender.

MARCH! Attend marches in your local, regional, and national community to show support for the issues that affect you and yours the most. March with women when they gather to demand equal rights. March with people of color when they gather to demand equal rights. March with LGBTQQIA folks when they gather to demand equal rights. March with immigrants when they gather to demand a path to citizenship and equal rights. March with people of conscience when they gather to demand equal rights for all, regardless of the distinctions above.

WRITE! Go online and send a letter to your representative on issues that you find important. Hold these leaders accountable. You can even do this through text messaging with Resistbot! To setup, simply text RESIST to 50409 to get started. It is simple and awesome!

STAY INFORMED! Continue to read up on the issues that are important to you and research articles before posting/reposting on social media. The ALA has a comprehensive set of rules for evaluating sources listed here: Evaluating Primary Sources. Assessing the Authority, Audience, and Accuracy of the source will allow you to determine it’s credibility and worthiness. Let’s work together to improve the nature of what is shared on social media and on the internet, in general. Improving the reliability of sources will help EVERYONE.

So – are you ready to join me in dismantling the patriarchy to improve the world for everyone? It’s time to get to work! Leave comments below to tell me how you will work toward a world of equality for ALL humans!

Peace and Down With Patriarchy!

Chantale (hippiegrrl)