Quotation for the day, from ‘The Key Issues in the Manhood–Womanhood Controversy, and the Way Forward’ by Grudem in ‘Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood’ (Crossway, ed Grudem):

‘Wherever men are thought to be better than women, wherever husbands act as selfish dictators, wherever wives are forbidden to have their own jobs outside the home or to vote or to own property or to be educated, wherever women are treated as inferior, wherever there is abuse or violence against women or rape or female infanticide or polygamy or harems, the biblical truth of equality in the image of God is being denied. To all societies and cultures where these things occur, we must proclaim that the very beginning of God’s Word bears a fundamental and irrefutable witness against these evils.

“[footnote:] A tragic example of male dominance was reported on the front page of USA Today: International Edition (Sept. 6, 1994) […] The story goes on to quote Harvard professor Amartya Sen as saying that there are now more than 100,000,000 women “missing” in the population of the world, including 44,000,000 fewer women in China and 37,000,000 fewer in India than should be alive according to normal sex ratios at birth (2A).

“[fn c'td:] This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. In addition to the harm of these lost lives, we must think of the destructive consequences in the lives of those women who survive. From their earliest age they receive the message from their families and indeed from their whole society, ‘Boys are better than girls,’ and ‘I wish you were a boy.’ The devastation on their own sense of self-worth must be immense. Yet all of this comes about as a result of a failure to realize that men and women, boys and girls have equal value in God’s sight and should have equal value in our sight as well. The first chapter of the Bible corrects this practice and corrects any lurking sense in our own hearts that boys are more valuable than girls, when it says we are both created in the image of God.”

So, why, reading gritty literature or science fiction, is it so hard to stomach when my sister or sisters enjoy it too? If misogyny is my #2 top hate, how can it be so deeply entrenched in my heart? In all societies and cultures these things occur, as we twist right respect into wrong setting apart and machismo, and I detest this struggle to set our minds right and know how to balance equality and complementarity. It is a tragedy of society, and reading nasty books for me is a prime example of it.