So I was arguing with someone online about the whole idea of feminism… — The Melanin Archive — TG.ME

So I was arguing with someone online about the whole idea of feminism being incompatible with Christianity, which I find to be intellectually dishonest. When I told him that, his first answer was to ask me to mention a type of feminism that doesn’t advocate for women to become clergy. That’s not even an insane thing to say, even though I disagree with it, but he framed the question as if that were the whole goal of the movement. I find this absolutely ridiculous because these types of people reject a movement just because there are one or two ideas, or maybe three ideas, that are incompatible with their worldview, without even considering the possibility of adopting the good parts and leaving the rest. There are lots of types of feminism, some being radically secular, liberal, and even religious. I disagree with Western radical feminism and so on, but me agreeing with some of their points doesn’t mean I’m adhering to their entire philosophical package. It simply means that I think those particular points are morally correct. Just because some points don’t match up with the Christian worldview doesn’t mean we should panic whenever we see a movement that ends with “feminism.” Just like any other ideology, it can be adapted to the Ethiopian reality and used to address the many issues we have. The next point I want to make is in regard to people who say, “We have the Church, and it can address the issues feminism tries to address.” The Church, of course, has the moral authority to tell a husband not to beat his wife or a man not to rape a little girl. But in its thousands of years of existence, it has not been able to even reduce these issues significantly because it lacks institutional efficiency. It doesn’t have sufficient mechanisms for reporting abuse, legal advocacy, public education campaigns, and so on. I am sorry if this sounds offensive to all of you here, but these days, all the churches in Ethiopia seem to do is inaugurate churches and preach prosperity gospel to each other. So it is very dishonest to say that the Church can address these issues simply because it has the moral authority to condemn them. Moral teaching alone is not enough. If a problem persists, we need institutions and mechanisms capable of actually confronting it. The third point is the idea that “feminism in Ethiopia advocates for homosexuality.” Not necessarily. As for Western institutions hijacking feminism and spreading certain ideas, yes, that is probably true to some extent because Western institutions often wish for other societies to adopt their values. But tying the spread of homosexuality exclusively to feminism is outright wrong. I used to have more or less this idea as well, but I now believe homosexuality is a spiritual/moral issue independently of feminism, with many other factors potentially contributing to it. If feminism disappeared tomorrow, homosexuality would still exist and could still increase in prevalence. So opposing feminism on the grounds that it is “turning people gay” is not really a substantial argument. The last and most frustrating idea I see is the belief that Ethiopia is somehow a “blessed” country and that we “corrupt” our culture whenever we adopt foreign ideas. The latter is true in some respects because harmful or destructive ideas can certainly make a nation more degenerate. But let’s not kid ourselves: Ethiopia, just like any other country, has been corrupt for a very long time, and, might I say, evil as hell in many respects. A country where people rape the elderly and insert shards of glass into the genitals of little girls is by no means holy or sanctified. We are not chosen, nor will God simply make us glorious in the future. So let’s stop living in this delusion and instead work toward making the country better, if that is even possible.