The Women

Wow, has it really been over a month since my last post? It seems so strange that it has been so long. The politics of sex have always been a strange topic, and especially when examining Biblical society, but it is still true in modern society. Some have asked me to write commentaries on Dinah, Ruth, Deborah, and Esther and perhaps I will find the time to write about these women in addition to Tamar's commentary in the previous post. Each of these women has a story to tell after all with love, tragedy, humor, and other assorted qualities of a good story. However, this is not that sort of post.

My topic this time is the politics of the women. The women in general, what does it mean to be a woman? This varies from places like Saudi Arabia where women don't really exist as people, to places like Iran where they become doctors and lawyers, to places like the USA where in some cases they are high powered and in other cases they are screwed. Femaleness is apparently very political. Why is it so political? I was once told that it is so political because men are jealous of women's ability to give life and therefore feel a need to exert control over women. I don't think this is the case. I think that what we have here is an identity crisis and it is brought on by men forgetting how to be men and so women can't really be women. This is an over simplified view of the world of course, but seeing as I am planning on moving on to greener pastures at some point in the not too distant future it is important to keep things as simple as possible.

There are obviously many ways to be male or female, but this is not a post about masculinity being dead or my thoughts and feelings on that topic. This is a post about the political system interacting with women. If Margaret Thatcher had been a man would people have mocked her as much as they did and call her the "Iron lady" probably not, she'd probably have been treated much the way Vladimir Putin has been treated, he's been mocked in the context of Russian history but no one has commented in a mocking manner about the way he acts as a man.

Positions of power are always tenuous and need special attention no matter who is in them, but it seems that once in a blue moon power gets turned on its head. Looking at for example the Thompson campaign. If Mrs. Thompson was 24 years older than Fred would people say the things about Fred that they say about her? It's an interesting question. What is power and where does it come from, who really holds the power in these couples?

The most interesting example of women politically speaking I believe is the women of Iran. Iranian women are very free and yet very un-free at the same time. This is often more true of American women than we wish to admit (perhaps this is also true in Europe I don't know). The Iranians are a very proud people and should be given more respect from people than they have been getting.