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Feminism vs. Just Gittin’ It Done…
Let’s be clear: I am no feminist. I do, however, write stories about strong-willed women who overcome some pretty stout obstacles. Often, my heroines are based on real people.
So, why am I not a feminist? Isn’t modern feminism basically the belief women should be treated the same as men? One dictionary defines it as advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
Hmmm. Let’s not give that platform a blank check. The FACT is women are different from men and when two things ARE inarguably different, they don’t always need to be treated the same. For example, only women can get pregnant. A woman shouldn’t be allowed to kill a baby growing in her uterus under the guise of women’s rights, or pro-choice or whatever pretty euphemism you’d like to use.
Furthermore, God’s Word draws a distinction between men and women, calling us the weaker vessel. Weaker. Not defective. Physically weaker.
Generally speaking, women didn’t sail the seas to find a new country. Women didn’t hack trails out of the wilderness to see what was over the next hill. Women didn’t trek deep into the heart of the mountains to trap beavers. When gold was discovered in California, women didn’t saddle their horses and ride hell-bent-for-leather to stake a claim.
Feminists would say slow female participation in these events was due to a society that held women back. Everything from unfair property laws to corsets, to educational barriers kept us from tackling great, ground-breaking, destiny-defining adventures. I say phooey. That is a bogus construct.
Women—namely, American women—have always done what they needed to do when they needed to do it. Especially if they really wanted to do it. Our female ancestors lived on the frontier, fought in the Revolutionary War, drove their own wagons west, panned for their own gold, opened their own freight lines, ranched on the edge of Indian Territory, won the right to vote. These endeavors were harder for them. Yet, rather than whine about their circumstances, like their physical limitations and ignorant men, they forged ahead.
And did all this without playing the victim, amplifying their own sense of self-importance (read “selfish” here), or casting off their moral compass, along with their femininity.
I believe the content of a person’s character is the true determining factor in their success. You can’t keep a good woman down and smart men eventually figure that out.
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Speaking of strong-willed women, you should check out my book Grace be a Lady. Yep, it’s the tale of a feisty heroine who did what she had to do without selling her soul in the process.
The Lady Behind A Lady in Defiance–My Sister
Life is messy and gritty. People can be simply awful, totally unlovable. And God loves us anyway. These were the things going through my mind when I started writing A Lady in Defiance. One of the main characters is based on my sister Suzy’s life. Suzy went through a lot. Overcame even more. A beautiful, victorious woman of God who inspires me every day–even twenty years after her death.
If you’ve never read the Foreword to A Lady in Defiance, I wish you would. If you need a lift today, a hug from God, a little inspiration–it’s there. Read on and be blessed:
They say truth is stranger than fiction. I prefer to say that truth is more miraculous. What we as authors can make up in our own heads doesn’t compare to what the greatest Writer of all can do. Take for example the story that inspires my character of Hannah:
Suzy at 14
In the early 70′s, my family used to drive up from Florida to camp in the mountains. In the summer of ’73, we discovered a beautiful, sleepy, small town in Western North Carolina. My sister also discovered a boy there—her soul mate, really, but who would have believed that? The following summer we moved from Florida to this town and, not long after, my sister Suzy announced she was pregnant…at the tender age of 15.
I cannot repeat the things my mother said to my sister. Sadly, while my sister forgave her years later, I don’t think my mother ever forgave herself. Certainly, my father and most of the locals weren’t much kinder. Florida trash. Floozy. Slut…you name it, they said it. I can still hear my mom’s high-pitched, screechy voice as she screamed hysterically at Suzy.
My sister was pushed by both families to have an abortion and she agreed. How could she refuse? After all, it was pretty clear this would “ruin her life,” and there was “no future for an unwed mother,” especially since she would “never claw her way out of poverty.” With prophecies like that, abortion was a godsend. In the doctor’s office, however, Suzy changed her mind and said she couldn’t go through with it. The phone rang and it was the father of the child; he didn’t want Suzy to go through with it, either, but he still wouldn’t marry her.
Suzy went instead to a half-way house in Alexandria, Virginia to have the baby and give him up for adoption. A month before she was due to deliver, the father of the baby finally stood up to his father and told him he loved Suzy and was going to Virginia to get her. Suzy told me years later that this boy had asked her to marry him much earlier . . . on their first date! They were simply meant to be.
The two teenagers were married and God’s plan unfolded for their lives. She and her husband gave their hearts to the Lord and went on to have two more children. Suzy matured into a mighty, spirit-filled woman of God, finished her GED, earned a degree as an R.N., and became a licensed minister in the Church of God, all while raising children and helping her husband farm. She was a popular speaker at women’s conferences, went on mission trips and also worked as a Hospice nurse for over two years. During that time, Suzy led many people to the Lord, some literally from their death beds.
No one who met my sister was immune to her infectious smile, vivacious personality, gentle faith, and graceful ways. The love of Christ literally shined from this woman like a beacon on a hill.
When breast cancer claimed Suzy in 1999, over 800 people attended her funeral. In a town that twenty-five years earlier had spurned her, affection poured out. The funeral was standing-room only; former patients wrote good-byes in the local newspaper; people we hadn’t seen in years called with condolences.
Suzy is not only the inspiration behind my character of Hannah, but her story is the reason I know God can take the grimmest, most hopeless situation and show us the beauty in it. Profound, miraculous happy endings are possible when we “let go and let God.”
The picture Suzy used on her minister cards
If you are the mother of a pregnant teenage daughter, I pray you will think before you speak and then speak with love. If you are the daughter, please don’t abort that baby. Give God a chance to do what He does best—bring beauty from ashes. He loves you; He loves that child you’re carrying. Trust Him to work it out.
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If you’d like to read A Lady in Defiance, it’s on sale all month for only .99 and is available in audio as well!
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Babies Have Rights, Too
Abortion. Yeah. I’m going there.
As a history freak, I’m pretty well acquainted with how hard life was for the women who settled and–might I add–fought–for this country. Sometimes they manned cannons or rode through hell and high water to deliver intelligence. They fought marauding Indians, beat off snakes with sticks, stared down cattle rustlers, stamped out brush fires with handmade quilts, heck, even crawled through blizzards. And a lot of the time our ancestors did these amazing feats with babies in their arms and toddlers clinging to their apron strings.
I read somewhere the average woman in the 19th century had six children. Most of these ladies probably would have liked to stop before then. Six babies is a lot, but having them was a fact of life because successful birth control (short of abstinence) wasn’t a fact of life. I surmise, however, if they’d had magic wands and could have “undone” any of these pregnancies, I’d bet 99.99% of these gals would have balked at the proposition. In fact, I’d bet they’d be willing to walk through hell covered in gasoline to protect their infants.
Fast forward to the 1970s when all a woman had to do to prevent pregnancy was pop a pill or slap a condom on her partner. Yet, Democrats and spineless Republicans pushed ahead (Roe v. Wade) to legalize abortion, though with “strict limitations” because those words make “murder” so much more palatable. Pro-lifers warned this was a slippery slope; man is after all evil and rebellious at heart.
So here we are today. The New York state legislature comes along and votes into law the right of a woman to kill her baby in the 3rd trimester. And she doesn’t even have to have a doctor perform the homicide. I heard this morning the Virginia legislature is considering a similar bill.
If you know me, you know I’m not politically correct so it won’t surprise you where I come down on these horrific “laws.” I am DEEPLY DISGUSTED by New York Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and NY State Senator Liz Krueger and Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran. The “sponsors” of these bills. I’d call them death merchants.
Tran
Glick
Krueger
Ladies, a law that allows the murder of a child for no reason other than the baby is an inconvenience is diabolical. Abominable. Dastardly. Evil. Heinous. Soulless. As are you.
And I’m sorry for you.
I can talk politics all day long and not lose my temper. THIS is the one issue on which I struggle to maintain patience and kindness. I’m not just dealing with ignorance or fear (as I see so often when discussing the 2nd Am), this is EVIL. Pure and simple. And I stand in Defiance of it.
Pray, people, pray. Vote Pro-Life. Donate to pro-life candidates. Support our pro-life president.
Our ancestors didn’t fight and struggle to keep their children alive to build this nation and settle a country just so we could treat human lives as if they are less valuable than cattle. Think about it. If the politicians feel this way about a 9-month old baby in the womb, who’s next? Senior citizens? The mentally challenged? Jews?
You?
Can I get an amen?
https://buffalonews.com/2019/01/22/long-stalled-abortion-bill-passes-new-york-legislature/
https://thefederalist.com/2019/01/30/virginia-democrats-propose-bill-allowing-abortions-birth/
Ladies in Defiance 