An Honest Confession

I am about to reveal a subject I struggle with that I rarely allow to be open for discussion because I reached a point of being so tired of ever arguing this subject with any Christian guys who accused me of femi-Nazisim that I decided it best never to go there. But I'm going there, and I think it's okay. I hope. First it must be said that no part of me thinks girls are better than boys. No part of me wants to lead a guy. Ever. I don't think a woman should run our country (especially if her name starts with an H and ends with an ilary) and I think that the mark of a wife wearing the pants in the family is nothing but a pure sign of evil straight from the Fall. And I've never felt differently. I'm not even sure I should necessarily be teaching the word of God to guys my age, and recently refused the opportunity because I'm still wrestling with the line drawn for that. Boys should be in charge, and I don't struggle a bit with that. But I do struggle with man-resentment sometimes. I know it's wrong. I do, and I hate it in myself. I have not felt man-resentment in a very long long time but today it reared its ugly head in full form and I must tell why.
We have been discussing ethical issues of healthcare this week in class. They are not graded or tested lectures, they are simply to spark discussion among us as peers as well as begin the formation of personal opinions and decisions to make change happen. But in my case, these "discussions" make me feel as if I am opening up deep deep wells of turbid passions and emotionally charged subjects that make my insides crawl and scream and scrape to be heard and be understood and be right and to MAKE other people see things my way and adopt that as their own view. Abortion has always made me very emotional, but I have typically been around people of like-mindedness. Here it is not so, and I am finding it difficult to feel compassion for my peers and teachers this week. So how does all this relate to man-hate? Here goes.
So today we discussed the U.S. healthcare system versus socialized healthcare of other countries, and in that discussion we brought up the issue of providing healthcare to unemployed/underserved portions of the community. On the way home my roommate Naureen and I continued our discussion on ethics and healthcare for needy people, for people with no way out. And Naureen, who is Pakistani, shared with me that in her country, girls who become pregnant outside of wedlock are stoned, by Muslim law. So what about girls who are raped? Girls who are raped and choose to report it are actually put on trial for adultery. They have to prove that they did not tempt the man who raped them. Politicians, notorious in Pakistani for their common use of sex slaves, recently passed a law abolishing the old requirement for four witnesses to have to prove that she tempted the man; in other words, it is now his word against hers in a court of law. She usually loses. So what is the result? Girls who are raped usually do not report it, plain and simple. A matter of survival. So what if she gets pregnant? If she can't find a guy compassionate enough to marry her immediately to hide it, and she usually can't, then you can guess her fate. She must choose to have an underground abortion, very dangerously performed, to kill the life within her, to save her own. Naureen is from Karachi, the second largest city in Pakistan and certainly very modernized, and this happens. So let's sum up: a girl goes through the most horrific and nightmarish experience of brutality and helplessness and not only can she not receive treatment, justice, and at the very least, simple human compassion, she is instead put on trial for her character and probably her life. So she waits for a month in dread, praying that she will not have visible effects of "her" crime so that she can pick up the pieces of her life and carry her secret with her to the grave.
This makes me hate the idea of men. Not all men. Not any men I know, sheltered and babied as I am. Just the idea of men, the knowledge that men are bigger and more important and corrupted by power and ultimately, in authority over me. I relate to this girl and I feel this same hatred when I know I am being watched in a dark parking lot or when I drive past my house because I know I am being followed or when I triple-lock my door at night and pray for safety. So I recognize that this hatred comes from fear on my part. I am afraid, and that is sin. And even if I was this girl and this happened to me I still could not hate because God gives me the power to love, even in this. Even.
And so now I need this same grace, this same compassion, to look in the eyes of my peers, my new friends whom I really and truly love, I really do. Sometimes I look at them and see Jesus and that is when I love them, and sometimes I look at them and see in them a killer, and that is when I am afraid of them and I would give my life to change them or have them see without darkness in their hearts. But instead I am opportunity to manifest God's GRACE. Such a beautiful beautiful answer. The only one, I think.