Thursday, October 2, 2014

Fighting Fire with Fire?

When I was a kid, the phrase "fight fire with fire" never made very much sense to me.  I would assume that if my home were on fire, I would not want to fight the fire by adding to the flame.

I have children, and that means that sometimes I see one of my children hurt another.  The weirdest thing is when, as an act of penance, I guess, the perpetrator hurts themselves to make up for it.  I think to myself that the act does nothing for the hurt child.  But now two of my children are hurt.

I think this kind of reasoning is pointless and fruitless.  That's why I though Emma Watson's speech to the UN was so good.  It pointed out that feminism needs to not be perceived as "man hating."  So often we get the idea that to fight discrimination, we should discriminate in the opposite direction to balance it out.  If that is the primary method of feminism, then it is going to be seen as man hating -- basically hate men as much as women perceive that they are hated.  That's pretty unsatisfying.

Rather, let's build each other up.  Let's be positive.  Let's look at the real goal and work for it together.

No comments:

Post a Comment