What Feminism Is Not

If one was to condemn the entirety of Christianity based upon the actions or words of people who do not represent the actual ideas of Christianity, Christians might easily detect the logical errors being used.  They might say, rightly so, that just because someone claims to be a Christian does not mean that he or she is one, adding that Christianity itself needs to be appraised separately from the words of ignorant, slanderous, or fallacy-prone individuals.

But some of these same Christians might condemn everything which bears the title "feminist" because of charlatans who claim the movement as their own.  They mistake the concepts behind feminism for misandrist ideas that seek to silence, degrade, or exclude men.  Certainly, some people who call themselves feminists might be misandrists.  I despise these people just as much as I despise misogynists, and the true doctrines of the Bible condemn sexism against men just as fiercely as they condemn sexism against women.

One can use the terms egalitarian and feminist interchangeably, as they can refer to identical concepts.  Not everyone who claims to be a feminist means anything more than they would if they called themselves gender egalitarian.  Some Christians might wish to identify as egalitarians in order to avoid using a polarizing word, but there is nothing unbiblical, evil, or illogical about legitimate feminism.  It is just another word some can use to refer to the application and recognition of gender equality in social, church, and family life.

Words like feminism can be treated with suspicion or contempt by conservative Christians who refuse to educate themselves about concepts they were not raised to accept.  Calling oneself a Christian feminist might be met with near-charges of heresy.  The simple affiliation of an idea with "feminism" might be enough to deter some from considering it further, when, in actuality, such people have only slandered Biblical teachings and other people in making their asinine assumptions.  Instead of assuming that feminism is about subjugation or loathing of men, these Christians need to ask people who call themselves feminists what they mean by the term.

Not everyone who calls himself or herself a Christian is aware of the actual contents of the Bible or is a great example of Christian ethics in practice.  It is a sign of intelligence to distinguish the ignorant pretenders from Christianity itself.  The same is true about feminism: rejecting an idea because of a handful of malicious, irrational imbeciles is not a use of legitimate reasoning.  The concept of feminism itself is not about misandry.  It is not about inverting historical and contemporary sexist errors.  It is about the deconstruction of sexist ideas and practices and about treating men and women as the metaphysical, social, moral, intellectual, and spiritual equals that they are.