In a recent edition of our town’s newspaper, we received the monthly publication for women, “She” magazine.
Now you would think with such a name that it was filled with all things feminine. Not so. Posed on the front cover is a ‘biker woman’ in her black leather vest and weather-beaten skin. That should have warned me right there, but I caved to my reading appetite and cracked open the magazine.
As I perused the contents, my dissatisfaction level rose. First came an article about the editor’s family vacation...wow…I really wanted to know about that. Next, a conversation with a woman in healthcare…not too bad…oh, here’s the featured article. Lovely! A huge article about four women who love motorcycles. Yay for them! So inspiring! And I quote “It’s the freedom. It’s hard to explain. There’s just a lot of freedom when you’re on a bike.” Or this one: “It doesn’t matter what people ride as long as they enjoy it.” If you think freedom and enjoyment consists of getting soaked when sudden rain comes up, knowing you’ll be on the losing end in any accident, and wiping bug guts off your face, all I can say is more power to you.
Back to the magazine. Now we have a 2-page advertisement for Bud Lite. (How distinctly feminine. Definitely a must for entertaining at your next ladies luncheon!) The next article is about a woman who climbs mountains, followed by instructions about how to fish as part of an ongoing series that “takes women into life’s typically male-dominated tasks”. Hmm, can we say ‘déjà vu? Methinks we’ve been this way already. A few recipes are next (gasp! Isn’t that a little too…well…domestic??)followed by an article written by a guy. I guess this is to give us a little male flavor in the midst of all the flowery articles? He hits us hard with new and original thoughts never before seen in this issue about things like “the two genders [are] much more alike than we often acknowledge.” Oh really? I hadn’t caught onto that theme yet! He describes scenes from a recent major flood in our town and states that during this time “Gender stereotypes were obliterated in the blink of an eye.”
THIS, my friends, is what bothers me. He has expressed in one short sentence what should be the mission statement for the “She” magazine. At least, that’s the logical conclusion one must come to after reading the magazine. Someone remind me what’s wrong with a woman being different than a man because I must have missed that. If God wanted everyone to be the same, why did He create us as “male and female”? And why do women feel such a need to compete with men? Is it because they assume men look down on them? If this is the case, we are only proving their point by competing with them. This tells the world that we think the ‘womanly arts’ are not worthy to be compared with a man’s world; therefore we must prove ourselves by competing in their turf instead of excelling in what we were made to do.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying ‘manly’ activities occasionally. But when our focus and energy is spent on erasing any perceivable difference between men and women, I believe we are throwing away our real opportunity to influence as a woman.
