The Truth about Double Standards

FEMINIST - There are quite a few women out there who are expecting a double standard from their relationships.

ie. They want a man who treats them with respect and equality, but at the same time expects the man to be the sole breadwinner.

ie. I think it is ridiculous some women out there still expect the man to pay for their dinner/etc on a date.

#1. It makes you look like a gold digger.

#2. Its impolite.

#3. You should be independent and not dependent on the male for anything. If the male insists on paying, fine, let him have his ego trip, but don't expect him to pay all the time.

Applying this double standard of desiring equality and yet expecting the old treatment is backfiring and just creating more inequality. It backfires because the male either grows to resent your dependency or they expect sexual favours in exchange for your dependency. Its one or the other sadly. The male who can just give, not worry about it, and not expect anything in return is one in a billion.

Lets say you got on a date with a guy and he pays for the taxi, the meal, the movie tickets and drinks afterwards. In other words he pays for everything. He is EXPECTING SEX after the date.

Same goes with a marriage where the man is the sole breadwinner. If the woman is at home all the time what he is expecting is:

Food on the table.

A clean home to come home to.

Clean clothes.

Lots of sex regularly.

Essentially the housewife is a slave because in theory she has no life outside of the home. If she isn't performing her "wifely duties" in the bedroom then the man starts looking elsewhere for sex... secretaries, co-workers, affairs on the side. (And this is equally true for women sitting at home, bored and craving romance and sex on the side.)

Now it is true that at certain ages children can be a handful and it is wiser to have one parent stay at home to take care of the kids. But this task should be split equally between both parents so they have equal time to bond with their children. Its only blatant traditionalism that dictates the woman is the only one who can stay home and take care of the children.

Stay at Home Dads is a relatively new idea, but its a growing idea and one I feel deserves applause.

For women its simply not practical to be dependent on someone else for your finances. If the man ditches you and leaves you with nothing, what do you have to fall back on if you don't have any money of your own? It is far more practical to have your own career, your own money and be able to stand on your own two feet if the need ever arises.

"If you're going to wear the pants you have to pay for them yourself."

Christian Feminist lives Biblically for a Year

RELIGION - Rachel Held Evans describes herself as a Christian feminist and she has gone to great lengths over the last year to test out the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible.

The 30-year-old blogger and author from Dayton, Tennessee has spent a year doing the following...

She slept in a tent outside of her house while she was having her period (Leviticus 15: verses 19-33).

She praised her husband at the city gates (Proverbs 31: 23).

She made her own clothes (Proverbs 31: 22).

And she even spent some time on the roof contemplating her contentious ways. (“It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a contentious woman in a whole house.” — Proverbs 21:9.)

Evidently the last one was more for fun and to give herself some time alone to think.

“It was sort of like doing penance,” she says. “It was part of submitting to my husband, so I would spend time on the roof just seeing what it’s like to live in a house with me, a contentious woman. Now obviously that’s not in the Bible; that one was a definitely a stunt of my own making.”

Evans lives in a small community in the American Bible Belt, was raised as an evangelical, and she wanted to explore the idea of traditional Biblical womanhood and its meaning in modern society.

The conflict between conservative Christian and liberal feminist values may seem disparate beliefs that would hardly mesh, but she was drawn to the task and has been blogging about her exploits. A book is forthcoming in Autumn 2012.

“I really enjoy the contrast, conflict and the almost dissonance in scripture about women. I find that kind of encouraging because there’s not a single mould that women need to conform to. Really there’s no such thing as one biblical model for womanhood,” she says. “People are still trying to put (women) into categories and we don’t all fit. That’s true for the women in the Bible, too. They didn’t all fit easily either. On one hand, you’ve got Peter telling women to have a gentle and quiet spirit and, on the other hand, you have Jael who drove a tent peg into a guy’s skull, which is not exactly gentle and quiet.”

Evans was inspired by A.J. Jacobs’ book "The Year of Living Biblically". She loved the book, but felt that it would be very different if it was written from a female perspective. Conversations in her local evangelical culture made her want to challenge some of the assumptions about the ideal of Biblical womanhood.

She didn’t embrace polygamy however, which was a reality for many women in scripture.