Grasp Equality

Not grasping equality, letting go of rights. Foreign concepts to Americans? All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Women were excluded by name (all men created equal) in the Declaration of Independence, but they attempted to rectify that problem at Seneca Falls, NY. Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott tried to grasp their equality when they wrote the Declaration of Sentiment. Which states:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a absolution.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

These ideas and words may have been penned in 1848, but they are the ideas that shaped the 20th century's Women’s Liberation Movement. They are the foundation for the modern world we now live, and the one in which most of us as women are thankful to live in, yet struggle to understand.

If we are created equal, endowed by God with certain rights, should we not demand equality at every level with the men in our lives? If we demand equality, what does that equality look like? Is it equality of treatment, equality of position or equality of standing? What equalities do we fight to obtain, why do we have to fight at all?

In the end, if we are equal we should not have to demand nor fight for our rights. The Creator took Eve from Adam’s side, creating her equal to Adam. In Christ, we are neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all one. It is because we are equal in value before God that we as women or more specifically wives are called to submit to our husbands. If we were not equal in worth, God would not ask us to surrender our ability to lead to our husbands. It is because we are of equal standing in Christ that we as women must yield our desire for equal position or even dominate position in our families to our husbands.

The principle of submission is even more difficult to live out today than it was for women who lived prior to the Declaration of Sentiments given at Senece Falls. In the modern era, girls are no longer raised to care for children (children are a “choice”), love their husbands and keep their houses well. Instead, they are told that they need to stand up for their rights, taught to debate, discuss, and argue their point.

Men are raised to believe that there is no difference between them and their female counterparts, chivalry died with the Feminist movement. No longer are doors held, groceries carried out, or women protected by men. Women are expected to earn a living on their own as well as have children. They are no longer valued for their willingness to serve others, and are only as valuable as their bank accounts. The rate of abandonment and divorce has skyrocketed in the years since feminism has taken root in our culture.

Women wanted equality, and to their own detriment at times, they got it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am thankful for the right to vote, thankful that my voice and the voices of millions of other women are valued in the United States of America. I am grateful to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton and others just like them who stood up to say, “Hold on, aren’t all people created equal?” To women who held up the words of the Declaration to the light of reality and questioned the divisions within our society.

The problem that often arises in reform movements is that enough is never enough. When a revolution careens past its stated goal, and moves into a frenzied madness. I am sure those women who went to Seneca never imagined that women’s rights would lead to a mass movement condoning abortion on demand. The main “right” that defines women’s rights.

Freedom is one of the greatest gifts God gave to humanity. It needs to be valued, defended and at times fought for. Sometimes it demands sacrifice, even a sacrifice of itself for the good of another. In grasping, we often grasp beyond our rights and end up destroying the rights of another.