"Equality" is NOT Synonymous with "Dignity"

We live in a really messed-up culture. Like that's a newsflash of any type.

It's amazing how much we still hear the term "equality" thrown aroudn like so much chaff on the wind. Which it is, by the way.

So often it's used in reference to marriage, both partners should be "equal". To our culture, "equal" does not mean "equal in dignity", for our culture also does not understand dignity. It defines equal as "the clone of" whatever is being compared.

Well, I'm putting my foot down. As a woman, I am no man's clone! I do not want to be "equal" to a man. I do not want to be compared to him in all that I do for as a woman, God has given me other gifts, other roles to fulfill, and men cannot do some of them.

Why must I have to be like a man in order to be a good woman? How does that enhance my dignity as a woman? Or does forcing me to conform to this idea of "equality" rather inhibit and usurp my dignity of a woman?

The latter, people. Women, take note. If you are seeking to be like men, and denying your femininity, then you have lost the battle. You are not a man. Don't act like one.

This, coming from an ex-cop, ex-firefighter. Let me give you all a dose of reality;

I was never really that much of a tomboy. I liked my Barbie dolls, sure, but I also liked GI Joe. Fine. I wore dresses, I painted my nails, but something in me made me pursue law enforcement as a career. So in college, I set out to conform myself to what I thought I had to become in order to do the job; I set out to masculinize myself. Just as every woman does who seeks such jobs.

Why? Because she has to. Because she has to be "equal".

They changed the standards in some of the tests to meet the abilities of womem, but let me tell you...some of those physically-demanding tests recognized abilities we have and made OUR standards higher and sure enough, we blew the guys out of the water on those.

As I pursued this goal, I saw my body more as a machine to be trained, to be honed...so that I could compete with guys on their level...and even surpass them.

It was more so in firefighter training. Do you realize that a woman has to work three times as hard to do the same job? Why? Because the job does not cater to us...we need to be able to lift heavy equipment, drag heavy equipment, and develop a thick skin in order to fit into the male culture. We have to change to become something else because pursuing that job is not natural to us.

I was injured in training and while on light duty, I met a female firefighter who had been on the job for many years. She was one of the few non-lesbian women on the job, and she was very candid with me regarding the toll the job had taken on her physically.

"You want my advice? Do whatever basic time you have to, and then get promoted. I've been doing this job for almost 20 years...I was one of the first women hired on this department, and my body is wearing out. I can't keep it up. I can't keep doing this, and I'm in worse shape than women I know who are not on the job. We have to work so hard to do what comes so easily to the men that it takes a toll on us, physically...."

Wise words from a woman who could not have forseen what would happen to her.

I am not against women working in traditionally male-dominated fields. I have known many gifted female cops and firefighters, and they serve their communities and God in a special way. It is a calling, whether male or female, and women do have special gifts and abilities which are indispensible to the careers in question. The presence of women in the cited fields has definitely changed things for the better, so do not think that I am anti-working-women. I am simply not.

What I AM against, however, is the complete denial that women are different than men. We need to face that fact, and we need to do it now. I, as a woman, should not be forced to try to "overcome" my femininity because being a woman is not a "condition" to be cured...it is a very state of being. It is a gift from God.

Affirmative Action has been harmful to women. If I could count the number of times people have suggested that I only got into my jobs because I was a woman and they had to fill a quota, AND I didn't have to work as hard....WRONG! I had to work my TAIL off to get into those jobs, and I'd do it again. But NEVER suggest to any woman that the standards were "easier"...in fact, they are more difficult because we have to do MORE to reach the same standard.

It is not natural, and that which is not natural is dangerous to our dignity both as men and women.

Women trying to be like men is harmful to the dignity of men. Men need their own places in society, and via the femininization of our culture, we have robbed men of their natural inclinations...and we have created a couple of generations of wussy men. How sad. No wonder I'm not married...it's so hard to find a real man these days, someone who is not afraid to speak up and say that God got it right and we need to stop messing with it.

What has radical feminism done? It has confused children who have grown up to be confused adults trying to be "equal" while denying their very gifts specific to their sex. We all have special gifts, special needs that belong only to our genders, and when we try to be something we're not, it doesn't only affect us, but it affects society.

Feminism has caused motherhood to be looked down upon. It has gone from a source of justice (voting in the 20's), to the right to kill their children, forcing this "right" upon others without due explanation as to the detriment of such an act both upon the baby and the woman, and it has tried to make women into men. Feminism has made women into objects of lust, rather than obtained more respect which we are due. And likewise, men suffer...they are objects, too. Where is the dignity in that?

In my quest for the jobs I noted, I lost some of my femininity, and I'll never get it all back. I had to be like a guy...I had to be tough, and even though I painted my nails and curled my hair, I still had to work hard every day to avoid the insult, "You did that like a girl".

Being like a girl was a bad thing...how sad, considering that I am now, and I always was...a girl. A daughter of God.

Our culture does not recognize this. They try to make us "equal" where no equality exists. They try to make us see each other as identical, but this is a denial of what we are really meant to do, a denial of our natural instincts and tendencies.

Motherhood is beautiful. A gentle nature is beautiful. Strong women have always existed. I'll be the first to say the Blessed Mother was a very strong woman--her very "yes" to God was a risk of public defamation leading to a death by stoning. We must never forget that, for this poor girl risked death to bring life into the world...she stood up to the culture in order to do God's will, and in doing so, she fulfilled her gift of femininity...and her divine Son saved the world.

Women, do not shirk away from who you are. Be proud to be a woman, and walk...no...RUN away from anything that damages what it means to be a woman. Run away from contraception for it stops the process of life and gives men control of our bodies. We are the ones who suffer from the use of such toxins in our bodies...not men. By using thse things we give men permission to see us as objects for their pleasure. Does that make you comfortable? Does it make it OK for men to be "used" in the same way...especially when it is still women who are suffering the consequences and side effects of the poisons in the form of a little pill? It is we, the women, who flush our children, unknowngly, down the toilet each month.

Did you know the pill causes abortions? If conception occurrs, the chemicals in the pill cause too harsh an environment, and even without our consent, a life is born..and a life dies and is flushed away.

A couple generations of women have now flushed millions of children into the sewer with the rest of our bodily waste.

How is that an affirmation of dignity? How does that make us equal to anything but sewer scum?

If being "equal" means that I have to deny what it means to be a woman, then I don't want to be equal. I just want to be a woman, made in the image of God, retaining the dignity God gave me, and in the end, I want to give it all back to Him.

I'm just a girl, and darn it, that's all I want to be!

Give me dignity, or give me death. The "Liberties" of this society are simply not worth it.