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@pursuewisdom First, I want to say thank you for actual intelligent conversation. I work in an environment where lots of lazy people nonetheless have very impassioned political views.

Some of the most recent ones I heard were “they’ve [the person never clarified who ‘they’ are] proven Trump is the first president ever to stand up for what’s right” and “the democrats admitted they put out a new flu every year to get you to buy the newest flu shot! That’s what the cloud lines behind airplanes you see are.”

No exaggeration. So I’m both (clearly) rusty in the express-an-opinion-to-an-educated-and-rational-person department, and really refreshed.

“Absolutely yes, I think there is a lot of resentment by women (in general) about the Biblical responsibility of wives to submit. As a woman, I’ve done my best to learn what I could about the context, audience, purpose of Paul in saying this in his letter/s, and so I’ve reached the said conclusion above. 🙂 Another item to note is that it’s never good to take Bible verses or even passages out of context.”

I think this is a supremely divisive issue that will never be properly settled. Even among the prestigious commentaries there are wildly differing interpretations between “this is actually highlighting that family Bible time is supremely important” (Matthew Henry) and “it is a woman’s place to be modest [yeah yeah, modesty’s good] and bashful and it is unnatural for her to be bold and confident, and even speaking in church shows sinful pride in a woman.” (Gill)

Here are some commentaries on that verse: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_corinthians/14-35.htm

I think the most contentious verse on the point is 1 Tim 2:12. And I say “contentious” in terms of “even most of the most liberal churches in my area adhere to this, and the one church that allows women pastors is declared heretic by the rest.”

Moar commentary stuffs: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_timothy/2-12.htm

I think the bits in 1 Cor. are more easily “dealt with.” How many churches actually enforce rules that women can’t speak, to any degree outside of exclusion of teaching? Even in the NT, as you’ve pointed out, Priscilla was mentioned instructing Apollos alongside her husband in private. I think this could either point toward confirmation of the interpretation of 1 Cor. 14:35 that women can teach in the privacy of the home, or it could simply have been an incidental account not intended to be propped up as an example of ideal behavior. The usage of gifts such as prophesy are certainly highlighted as publicly acceptable, which is interesting.

(At this point I’m not really trying to make an argument against you, BTW =P )

“I find an issue with your usage of the term “twist” in reference to Christian “counterculture.” … I think I tried to convey that equality can be defined differently depending on what one is using the term for. Equality of importance in society vs. equality of sameness in society can be vastly different.”

I think you succeeded. I believe people of all different beliefs and opinions twist definitions maliciously, as well as just accidentally not clarifying what they mean. Like, above, I used “privilege,” but I meant it as “something like a right given to some people” and not necessarily as the buzzword it is usually. That was legitimately stupid of my not to clarify =P

I think conservatives tend to prefer the dictionary definition of equality, which is generally closer to “treating everyone equally as though there were no differences between them.” I think liberals tend to prefer a definition closer to that of equity, something more like “treating everyone with the care they need to meet their individual needs.”

From my flawed and anecdotal viewpoint, I feel I see liberals ignorantly misuse words more, and I feel I see conservatives maliciously misuse words more, in that the conservatives come to the conversation with more education as to what both sides believe the language of conversation to mean, and that they tend to knowingly use that knowledge to confuse and confound their opponents.

Specifically in the Christian sphere, this is a technique I was taught in apologetics. I was taught that truth belongs to the Lord, and so it’s best to use fallacies and bad faith argument to further the cause of the Lord, because the end result should be a crippling breakdown of your opponent’s mind as they realize their world is a lie without Christ and you win.

I’ve had other, better apologetic teaching aside from that, but other people I learned with still use these techniques. You might have seen them around on YouTube comments =P

I kind of went off topic, sorry.

“Our society is contradictory in that 1) people expect others to accept them “the way they are” and yet 2) society also expect everyone to be “equal” in their abilities and performance.”

I think the cultural argument is “given truly equal opportunity, most people could achieve the same levels of performance in most areas. Most people do not have equal opportunities.” I’m going to ignore far-right obsessions with white supremacy because I don’t think that’s something either of us think is actually integral to a generally conservative or Biblical viewpoint. That aside, I think most people agree with the above cultural argument.

Beyond the basic argument, I think conservatives tend to argue “industriousness is sufficient to overcome most or all unequal opportunities, and so we should expect people to compensate industriousness for unequal opportunities,” and liberals tend to argue “we have a societal responsibility to rectify unequal opportunities, and we should not expect people to compensate industriousness for unequal opportunities.”

I think the science of expertise supports the idea that in most cases which are mentally-based rather than frame-based (I don’t know a better way to put this, but I mean things like leg length or the musculature of a typical man vs that of a typical woman) it is indeed more a matter of opportunity than of innate talent or ability that impacts performance in most fields which society considers valuable today.

This is a great book to begin reading on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebook/dp/B011H56MKS

And yes, society is contradictory, being formed of millions of people, each with their own agenda =P

“Would it not be considered inequality if we expect men to be drafted but women to not be?”

I should have clarified previously. If we’re not talking about combat roles, I am absolutely in favor of women being drafted as well as men. I see no reason they should be exempt.

“Would you say that our society’s definition of and views concerning equality is twisted? And so when Christians use the terms, there is much confusion/lack of mutual understanding due to ambiguity of definition?”

We have a lot of recent historical baggage attached to the politics of the language of equality. We just had Martin Luther King, JR day, putting the phrase “separate but equal” in the forefront of most peoples’ minds. I don’t mean to equate the plight of black people during the civil rights movement to women’s rights today, but I do think we have reason to be leery of anyone trying to argue that two people are equal when they don’t both have the same freedoms to do what they wish for no other reason than a biological trait which does not practically affect the issue at hand.

In light of what I’ve said in my previous, stupidly drawn-out blocks of text, I don’t think society has a twisted view of equality, no. I think Christians tend to use the term in a way that fits their worldview while they know it is removed from the common understanding of it. I’ll concede I don’t think the majority of Christians do it out of malice, but out of a sense of wishing to reclaim the usage of the word at the cost of proper communication.

“Back to first principles – who do you consider to be the originator of “rights” and ‘privileges’? Unfortunately, my mind kind of wants to “shut down” when I hear ‘equality’ and ‘rights’ and ‘entitlements’ any more.”

I don’t blame you and kind of agree with you =P Of course the easy, basic answer is “God gave everyone whatever rights they have.” I believe in a perfect world no person would think of their own rights but would be diligent to do what was best for others. This isn’t a matter of logic, because no one deserves mercy. We probably don’t have anything meaningful to discuss on this topic.

“I don’t recall the Bible forbidding women to be leaders in general.”

Yeah, I think we agree :-} Unfortunately there are a lot of people who don’t. Anecdotal, yada yada. The prevailing opinion in my local church scene is it would be wrong to vote for a female president because women aren’t to be put over men as per 1 Tim., regardless of the context of the verse.

“While I agree with your point that society and Christian conservatives alike want to give women freedom to choose between homemaking and “going out” to work, I have to disagree with your view that our society is not pushing women to be more masculine (despite their personal preferences or wants – this part in parentheses, by the way, is usually not mentioned). I’m told multiple times as a woman that I should prioritize myself and my career over anything else.”

I see society putting huge focus on things that are flashy achievements and prestige and all that jazz, and I can absolutely see how that fits into what you’re describing. I don’t see flashy achievement as something inherently masculine or manly.

I do see a decent amount of “can I just be feminine/like dresses/like pink things/be a mom without people telling me to stop following stereotypes?” online, in secular spaces, so you’re definitely not alone!

I continue to be baffled by Christians pushing against criticism of toxic masculinity (which, due to the whole definitions thing, people on both sides seem unwilling to acknowledge is actually different to masculinity as a whole).

Like, this is the language the APA brief uses:

Masculinity ideology is a set of descriptive, prescriptive, and proscriptive of cognitions about boys and men (Levant & Richmond, 2007; Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku, 1994). Although there are differences in masculinity ideologies, there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence. These have been collectively referred to as traditional masculinity ideology (Levant & Richmond, 2007). Additionally, acknowledging the plurality of and social constructionist perspective of masculinity, the term masculinities is being used with increasing frequency (Wong & Wester, 2016).

I don’t think that’s inaccurate. It’s not even presented, in context, as a wholly bad thing.

That breakpoint link is pretty bad =P Neither anti-femininity nor violence are straw man traits. Is Stonestreet actually unaware that being girly is considered anti-masculine? Is he unaware that fighting, heavy contact sports, war, martial arts, hunting, etc. are all considered extremely masculine things? That is, violence?

That whole breakpoint is in extremely bad faith. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to at least skim the APA brief yourself. I’d already read and discussed it before our discussion, actually, seeing as how it effects people in my circle quite a bit =P

I mean, this totally screams “we created a document to tell you masculinity is the problem with society:

“Psychologists strive to educate boys and men about the restrictive nature of masculine ideologies and their relationships to health risk behaviors. At the same time, psychologists are encouraged to help boys and men build health-promoting behaviors such as resisting social pressure to eschew health concerns, engaging in self-acceptance, fostering a positive identity, engaging in preventative medical services, and developing the habits of healthy diet, sleep, and exercise. Psychologists strive to understand some men’s reluctance to seek help by recognizing the influence of masculine gender role socialization. For instance, although men are less likely than women to receive certain psychological diagnoses (e.g., depression, anxiety), psychologists recognize that these discrepancies may be due in part to gender role socialization (Addis, 2008), which impacts men’s help-seeking behaviors and how they present their physical and psychological distress (Cochran & Rabinowitz, 2000).” (17)

The brief generally does not say “masculinity is bad.” It generally says “X is bad, and psychologists should take Y measures to address this,” and “because men tend to act like this (like, approaching things from a goal-oriented viewpoint) use this knowledge to better help your patients who are men.”

There are some things in the brief I think we could both take issue with. I strongly believe we would actually both agree there is far more good than harm in it.

“Please include me in your nerd group. 😀”

I would if you lived near me =P Maybe you do. If you’re ever near Claremont, NH on a Monday evening, stop by Triple Play and we’ll play some board games or something.

“However, at this moment I can’t think of a Mary Sue, male equivalent to evaluate my thoughts. Do you have any examples from popular film that you found have included a male MC who, character-wise, is similar to Rey?”

Specifically similar to Rey? Probably not. I will say I thought she was much better in Last Jedi than in Force Awakens. In FA, I think she was absolutely as bad as everyone claims. I don’t terribly see what the fuss was about in LJ. She had goals and pursued them, completely broke under Snoke’s force attacks (probably purely because Luke lost to Vader in Empire and Anakin lost to Dooku in Clones, but w/e) had appropriate choreography in the big fight that showed she still has a long way to go in her training even if she has raw talent, and has to face the truth that she’s just some random person without a crazy chosen one destiny. Had Luke been a better-written character maybe Rey could have played off him more, but we gotta have him be irrationally angsty and sullen because Johnson doesn’t want to play nice with other writers.

For nerd-famous Mary Sue characters in general: The Doctor, MCU Cap until Winter Soldier, Eragon, Kvothe from Kingkiller Chronicles (this one especially to the nth degree), Aragorn (I’ll concede this one for a few reasons though =P ), Paul from Dune, Robert Langdon from Dan Brown’s books, Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow from A Song of Ice and Fire, James Bond (I’ll concede him since he was designed blatantly as wish fulfillment), Mikael from the Millenium series, Man of Steel Superman (though no one likes this guy so it probably doesn’t count ) and definitely Anakin in episodes 1 and 2. I’d argue Luke in episode 4, but there might be enough argument that he’s bad at things until the end that I could concede it.

I wanted to add Neo from The Matrix, but I think he fails enough he might be exempt? Maybe that’s why I like Rey somewhat in Last Jedi when I didn’t like her in Force Awakens. She just succeeded at everything in the latter, while she failed to get the result she wanted from her past, failed to resist Snoke, and failed to redeem Kylo Ren. Not much at all, but it was enough to make me not hate her I guess =P

Sorry for the length of this post, and thank you for the length of yours! I spent three hours on this, so I’m terrified it’s a fatigued rant with no coherence. Please have patience :-}