This is why I'm a fan of Jimmie Briggs... He is literally going out of his way and speaking up for all the women who have been forgotten over the years. It's true that women are far more vulnerable than men... which is why we need more men like Jimmie to stand up and ask each man to "Man Up". It's a responsibility. I know what you might be thinking, "Collyn, you're taking us back 30 years! What about all that "Women's Equality" stuff?" Well, I most certainly think that intellectually men and women should be revered as equal. In fact, there are things that women can do that men can't and vice versa. I don't know where people perverted the idea of equality to stretch so grotesquely across the board... are you all blind? Of course there is a MAJOR difference between men and women. One can give birth, the other can't. The way our minds even WORK is different- Men have a more difficult time multi-tasking, where as most women excel in this area. Of course, these are BROAD generalizations and don't apply to every man and every woman, but if there is one thing that we can all agree on, it's that men and women are DIFFERENT. What Jimmie gets is that women all over the world need men to stand up and say, "No, it's not okay to gang-rape a village of women into submission. It's not okay to sell your daughters to a pimp so she can be trafficked. It's not right for men to buy young girls (and boys) and perform disgusting sexual acts with them." This sort of stuff has been happening since the beginning of time, but guess what: WE KEEP GETTING STRONGER AND WISER! Let's use that momentum to free women from sexual bondage and violence. Please vote for Jimmie Briggs so he can continue his work with a little bit more help. All of you men who have a Jimmie Briggs inside, please stand up! Thursday, September 30, 2010
Man of my dreams: Jimmie Briggs
No matter how you slice it, we know that men are generally stronger than women... just speaking of the pure physical brawn of a man and the general delicate nature of a woman. Of course this isn't always true, but a lot of the times it is. This is exacerbated in developing countries and poorer communities when intimidation, coercion, brute force, and gunpowder is added into the mix. Welcome to the rest of the world where women are not valued at all. After reading the book Half the Sky by Nicolas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, it became clear to me that the inequity between men and women is the cause of many of the world's pain. It's so blatant too! For example, there was a story of a girl in the Congo who was raped by the bully child-soldier militia. She became pregnant and then became the social pariah of the community. When it came time to have her baby, she didn't have any doctor care. When the baby was stuck in her birth-canal (sorry to be so graphic, but there is a point... I promise), there was no one to help her. Days and weeks went by- unable to walk, feed herself, do anything. The fetus had died but left the mother incontinent from the material injuries. The communities solution to this was to put her in a hut on the outer-rim of the village so the wild dogs could kill her... Tell me, would a community rally for that same decision if it were a little boy with severe injuries and needing a surgery? I don't think so. If you don't believe me, I sincerely hope you pick up a copy of Half the Sky and at least read the first 10 pages... then you'll see what I'm writing about. Oh and not to leave you hanging on that story, a male missionary happened to come across the girl and took her to a specialized hospital that would give her the surgery she needed. As far as I know now, she is a fully functioning human being.
This is why I'm a fan of Jimmie Briggs... He is literally going out of his way and speaking up for all the women who have been forgotten over the years. It's true that women are far more vulnerable than men... which is why we need more men like Jimmie to stand up and ask each man to "Man Up". It's a responsibility. I know what you might be thinking, "Collyn, you're taking us back 30 years! What about all that "Women's Equality" stuff?" Well, I most certainly think that intellectually men and women should be revered as equal. In fact, there are things that women can do that men can't and vice versa. I don't know where people perverted the idea of equality to stretch so grotesquely across the board... are you all blind? Of course there is a MAJOR difference between men and women. One can give birth, the other can't. The way our minds even WORK is different- Men have a more difficult time multi-tasking, where as most women excel in this area. Of course, these are BROAD generalizations and don't apply to every man and every woman, but if there is one thing that we can all agree on, it's that men and women are DIFFERENT. What Jimmie gets is that women all over the world need men to stand up and say, "No, it's not okay to gang-rape a village of women into submission. It's not okay to sell your daughters to a pimp so she can be trafficked. It's not right for men to buy young girls (and boys) and perform disgusting sexual acts with them." This sort of stuff has been happening since the beginning of time, but guess what: WE KEEP GETTING STRONGER AND WISER! Let's use that momentum to free women from sexual bondage and violence. Please vote for Jimmie Briggs so he can continue his work with a little bit more help. All of you men who have a Jimmie Briggs inside, please stand up!
This is why I'm a fan of Jimmie Briggs... He is literally going out of his way and speaking up for all the women who have been forgotten over the years. It's true that women are far more vulnerable than men... which is why we need more men like Jimmie to stand up and ask each man to "Man Up". It's a responsibility. I know what you might be thinking, "Collyn, you're taking us back 30 years! What about all that "Women's Equality" stuff?" Well, I most certainly think that intellectually men and women should be revered as equal. In fact, there are things that women can do that men can't and vice versa. I don't know where people perverted the idea of equality to stretch so grotesquely across the board... are you all blind? Of course there is a MAJOR difference between men and women. One can give birth, the other can't. The way our minds even WORK is different- Men have a more difficult time multi-tasking, where as most women excel in this area. Of course, these are BROAD generalizations and don't apply to every man and every woman, but if there is one thing that we can all agree on, it's that men and women are DIFFERENT. What Jimmie gets is that women all over the world need men to stand up and say, "No, it's not okay to gang-rape a village of women into submission. It's not okay to sell your daughters to a pimp so she can be trafficked. It's not right for men to buy young girls (and boys) and perform disgusting sexual acts with them." This sort of stuff has been happening since the beginning of time, but guess what: WE KEEP GETTING STRONGER AND WISER! Let's use that momentum to free women from sexual bondage and violence. Please vote for Jimmie Briggs so he can continue his work with a little bit more help. All of you men who have a Jimmie Briggs inside, please stand up! 
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For more information on these stories, either read Half the Sky or click here: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/stories
ReplyDelete"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." – Edmund Burke
ReplyDeleteThe word ‘evil’ is too often reserved for the most horrendous of crimes (like the atrocities in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia), but indifference knows no such bounds. Whether a foreign government justifies inaction on the semi-legitimate basis of respecting the sovereignty of other nations—as was the case in the aforementioned genocides—or a villager ignores a little girl in need on the very tenuous grounds of having too small an impact because they are just one person, people have, for thousands of years, successfully absolved themselves of responsibility for righting the smallest of wrongs and the largest of evils.
What does it say about us as a people if we refuse to help our brothers in need? Are we weak of character? Do we no longer (if we ever did) possess a strong moral fiber? Are we so callous that we genuinely do not suffer when our neighbor suffers?
Perhaps, but it seems more likely that indifference boils down to a simple lack of common understanding rooted in the strong barriers erected between various subsets of the population.
Combatting these sorts of evils, then, requires but one real conviction: that we are ALL “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This is because segregating the rights of men from those of women or children (or any other group) incorrectly affirms the notion that our rights are somehow different and, more importantly, invariably results in a failure of one group to respect the not-so-well-understood rights of another. A less literal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, one that allows for the historical context of a largely sexist populace and the general lack of gender-neutral pronouns in the English language, recognizes that our forefathers intended statements like “all men are created equal” to outline basic HUMAN rights.
To that end, I believe the story of the little girl from the Congo is an example not of her female right not to be raped, nor of a child’s right to retain her innocence, but of her HUMAN right to be protected and cherished as an immeasurably valuable member of our species. So too is genocide an example of our failure to protect basic HUMAN rights. I’m sad to say that I think categorizing these wrongdoings as anything other than a violation of basic human rights appeals in vain to a population that largely does NOT identify with the rights of children, women or “outsiders.”
To your point, though, it is an unfortunate fact that, in most societies, the voices of men are heard and those of women are ignored. I guess I have to agree with you that, in such a sexist world, it too often requires a man to protect a person who can’t protect themselves, but, in a better world, it would require only more people like you; people who stand up for something (against whatever odds) because it’s fundamentally the right thing to do; people who have empathy for people outside of their own group because they recognize the violation of basic human rights we have the luxury to expect in this country.
A+ for you Zach! haha!
ReplyDeleteYes, I do agree that it's a HUMAN right not to be raped, robbed, etc. This is true. However, you write from a very American perspective when most of these atrocities are happening outside our boarders. There aren't many laws in India, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. that lay out an equality of rights between men and women. Perhaps in the future, such sexism won't exist, but for now, this is how it stands. You see, the rest of the world is far behind on the rights of women, children, and the disabled. That's why I believe it's necessary for FIRST men to stand up for their women. Next step is equality amongst all. For now, no one is standing up for these women except for a select few. A movement is necessary, much like one started by Mr. Briggs. Not all men in these countries will feel fondly of standing up for women's rights, but as soon as a few stand up, more will follow. The "least of these" can't be exalted without advocates. The biggest voices heard by those who can evoke change are those of men. This is why I ask men to stand up and step up to the greatness they were created to become.