Picking a Cause: How does Christianity Fit Into Feminism?

     Hello, my name is *insert name here*. I am a *insert any number of labels about what causes you have taken up arms for*. That seems to be the introduction we must make in the world these days. Society demands you find something to fight for and defend it till your last breath. Everyone has to have a 'cause', an injustice, something with which you can stick it to the Man. We pick and drop social justice ideas as if they are a new jacket we bought and soon tired of.

        There is nothing wrong with being passionate about something. Poverty, world hunger, disease, environmental issues, human rights, the list goes on. If you feel strongly for something, than that's great. Fight for it. There's nothing wrong with caring about the whales, or the treatment of your neighbors. We were put on this earth to be good stewards of it. Fighting for God's creation to be treated well is a worthy enough cause. But why have we turned passion into pressure?

     We are pushed on all sides to pick. Be pro, be con. Be for, be against. Pick up your protest signs. March. Scream and yell until your throat is hoarse, and your hands are raw from clawing at the wicked marble buildings of the world's authority. This is what we are told to do. You aren't normal if you aren't fighting these days.

        And one of the biggest, most prevalent causes into which we are thrust with no time to think is feminism. Bear with me now, I know this is a touchy subject. So touchy that the word 'feminist' is a bit taboo in Christian circles. It brings to mind women marching in the streets for their rights to abort the children in their wombs who have no voices of their own to protect themselves with. Or women declaring that they want no men involved in their lives, they can do it alone, with no need for the companion God so painstakingly created for us. Women who riot and fight against what God intended for us to be. So you can imagine when I used the word feminist to describe myself, I got very strange looks from the people around me.

      I want to be married one day. I'd like to have kids and take care of them. I'd like to cook and clean and keep a household with my husband. But I also want to be a journalist. I want to travel the world and write about politics. To observe and use my voice for the God who made me and gave me these talents. To bring to light the way that women are treated in other countries and fight for their governments to protect them. I want both. And I called myself a feminist. Can you be both? Is the label necessary at all?

      That thought turned my mind towards why I needed to use the word feminist. Why did I feel the need to label myself with a cause? To lump myself with other women who had some beliefs so radically different from mine? Feminism originally was about gaining the vote, the right to own property on our own, the right to make decisions away from fathers or brothers or husbands who may wish us harm. It dates back far past what the issues are now. That isn't the point now. Why did I need to use the label so desperately?

      The answer is frankly-I didn't. I didn't need to call myself a feminist. The world told me I did, or I wouldn't be standing by other girls who undergo sexism and harassment every day. But I can. I don't need the label that comes loaded with so many other things I would need to explain I don't agree with. The word feminist shouldn't even be necessary. We deserve to vote and own property and walk down the street in a skirt without being whistled at. But we also deserve the right to feel good about being ladylike. About wanting a family and an apron and a white picket fence. And if being called a feminist means that I can't be both, then I won't use the label. I am a woman. God-made, daughter of Christ, who knows her worth and will fight for it if it is ever challenged. 

     But I am not a feminist of today’s world. Feminism makes most women feel bad for wanting to have someone, a husband, they can lean on. For wanting to be domestic. We can be both. Powerful. Domestic. We can work. We can serve. We can have careers. We can stay home. Feminism does not allow both. Being a woman the way it was intended, does. But most of all, God has no place in modern day feminism, so neither do I.