A week ago the Washington Post did a spread on Linda Hirshman’s article in the American Prospect, championing working mothers. Well, that’s looking at the glass half-full; conservatives saw Hirshman on a campaign against the American mother, flag waving in the background, apple pie in the oven. There was a huge tirade of stay-at-home mothers expressing hate over the blogs but today I found the first article championing Hirshman’s viewpoint on Slate.com.

I believe all sides will just defend their own mothers and to be upfront about it- my mother is a working mother. (and somehow I didn’t end up a crack dealer.) So I guess I took it personally when all these mothers were attacking Hirshman, herself a working mother, trying to show how their logic was so much better than Hirshman’s though, and not saying Hirshman’s was perfect either, the mothers’ logic is just based on stereotypes.

Consider some of these arguments:

 "It is unnatural and benefeits no one when women rebel against nature"

 Since when is working, rebelling against nature? Actually backtrack- does this mean that not conceiving a child is against nature? That would lead me to conclude that barren women are unnatural. However, I would think that artificial insemination and surrogate mothers are really what’s unnatural- hence their adjectives.

But also, working is hardly unnatural, even in the Christian community. Eve was created for Adam as "a helper to be his partner". Arguably, since this was said before the fall and the curse of pain in childbirth, conception was not supposed to be the "help" that Eve was created to offer. Furthermore, women were given generally the same capabilities as men- arms that could hold more things than toys, legs that could run after more things than babies and brains that could think about more things than diapers. I fully believe these were given for a purpose, though they do deteriorate without use.

 "Caring for children isn’t valued in our society".

If that were true, would Linda Hirshman have received such a backlash? 

 "Saying that women don’t have the choice between stay-at-home motherhood and working is a step backwards for feminism which originally stood for "the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men"

 Yet, stay-at-home moms are certainly not politically, socially, or economically equal to men. First they have no money because they dont’ work- they are completely dependent on their husbands. Second, they cannot socialize with the vast majority of the populace which is employed- almost all the men and many women. Third, politicians don’t care about stay-at-home mothers except as a symbol, or insomuch as it pleases their husbands. Stay-at-home mothers have no leveraging power and are really only an easy target as consumers. So Hirshman’s opinion is an attempt to realize that stay-at-home motherhood is not empowering to women as a whole or individually. Not only are you impacting yourself but, according to the Slate article, making it harder for women who need to work for the money, who may have lower education and fewer connections- from having bargaining power or role models with which to break the glass ceiling.

 "It’s wrong of her to say her way is right and the only way"

Isn’t this the argument most often used against Christianity? Honestly one only says this if they’re offended personally and don’t have any factual way to back up what they do or who they are. I mean, if she’s right then she’s just a woman publishing her research and you’re just a woman reacting.

"She differentiates between her biological children and her step children."
"I bet she never had children."
"I bet she has never worked in the corporate workforce."
"She doesn’t know anything about academia or argument"

These arguments are all irrelevant and are just catty and most often untrue. (Hirshman has 3 children, practiced law for 12 years in a firm and who cares if she differentiates between her biological children and step children for clarity in an interview?/) 

Honestly, I accomplish nothing but I do look to be a role model in the workforce just like my mother

I was really interested in Slate.com’s feature called “Blogging the Bible” which just recounts a writer’s thoughts after reading each chapter of the Bible, starting from Genesis. I thought, this is a great idea. We should all share our thoughts and feelings about the Bible and furthermore, we should refresh our memory of the Bible in the order that it was written.

Well I can’t start from Genesis because I know my reading would be tainted by what’s already been done so I’m starting from Matthew.

Matthew 1
Matthew starts off with a genealogy and it seems like just a review of all the celebrities of the Old Testament. There is a lot of discussion as to why this genealogy does not match up to the one in Luke and well, I don’t even want to touch that because I don’t have the tools to do it. But I’ll take it at face value and this Matthew genealogy shows that 1) Jesus really did have monarchy in his heritage and 2) not everyone in Jesus’ family tree were good, wholesome people.

Consider:
Jacob tricked his brother and father multiple times for blessings.
Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to sleep with her father-in-law, Judah (and notably, Jesus didn’t come from Joseph, the “good brother”)
David committed adultery and had a man killed.
King Asa was so wicked he introduced numerous idols to his kingdom and was not buried in the sepulchre of the kings
etc etc

However, it is of great note that there are 4 women mentioned in the genealogy- a practice very uncommon in writing genealogies during that time. Even though these women weren’t all Jewish (Moabite, Canaanite, some other non-Jewish origin), weren’t all noble (a harlots, an adulteress), I think Matthew is propagating Jesus’ women’s rights activist side, not to mention extending the right to Gentiles. NOW would be proud.

Another thing NOW would be proud of is Joseph. Joseph isn’t hailed as any kind of feminist, even for his day (I mean, he’s a man after all). But Mary is pregnant and she and Joseph aren’t even married yet. In verse 19 it says that “[Mary’s] husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly”. It’s interesting that Joseph is described as “righteous” because I would think that “righteous” would mean following the law- particularly the law coming from God. And God’s law concerning adultery:

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. “(Leviticus 20:10)

So many “righteous” men had put their wives to death. Noah was a righteous man and he sailed away on an ark while the Earth’s population died. Lot was a pretty righteous man who ran away as Sodom and Gomorroah burned away. Abraham was a righteous man who almost killed his own son. Righteousness is almost equivalent with death or the willingness to murder in the Old Testament.

But in the New Testament, Joseph is righteous and he doesn’t want to even tarnish his bride-to-be’s reputation, let alone kill her. It seems that Joseph cares more about Mary’s reputation than his own because he would surely be justified by putting Mary to death, according to Levitical law.

In any case, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph just in time to prevent any reputation stain or bloodshed and tells Joseph, hey she’s still a virgin. Don’t be afraid because she was conceived through the Holy Spirit (yeah, doesn’t sound any less scary or weird to me). Stay with her- though that would probably hurt both their reputations since they weren’t married yet- and name the boy Jesus.

And then it says that Joseph didn’t have marital relations with Mary until she gave birth, some say to show that Mary was indeed a virgin when Jesus was born or maybe just to show that Joseph practiced good hygiene in case the angel of the Lord was wrong. That Mary ought to have gotten tested.

My pastor said that Christians who truly understand the gospel’s effect become better at forgiving. And yet so many Christians find it very difficult to forgive. My pastor pondered why this was so and he came up with this gem: if you find it hard to forgive it’s because you think that you had fewer sins forgiven at the cross than this other person. You think that somehow you are more righteous, more in-the-right, that you’re basically just better than this other person. I am completely guilty of this and furthermore, my Bible readings as of late have just struck me with God’s forgiveness. I feel really free.