A humanist....

I posted a magazine article last time and that is the first for me. I usually opine on magazine articles or other things that I have read...this time though I could not quite wrap any words beyond the ones that were written. It has struck me lately the plight of women and children in the world. The smallness of my fight here in the US to be heard in certain circles pales in light of what women endure to survive in so many many parts of the world. Some would say that the nature of this paternalism beast began when Eve ate and Adam waited. Maybe..Is it because Adam came first so therefore he wins? How has this helped the human race...this idea that being a man is better then being a woman? In China and India, as the magazine article stated, little baby girls are thrown away in favor of the boy. In the Muslim, Mormon, Catholic, some protestant, Buddhist, Jewish...OK all faiths: being a woman means that you serve the needs of the man, protect the needs of the man, cannot lead or teach men, it is a curse to be a woman, cannot get to heaven unless you are attached to a man, need to be covered because of men, have to be hidden because of the weakness of men, return as a woman if you have failed to be a man. Do I really need to go on?
I hear this idea of 'better than you' in church pulpits, in staff lounge conversations and boys bantering and insulting each other. I see it in men's groups who have to learn how to be 'the husband' and in pornography's power. I see it in every ha-jib and fistula's surgery.
When a woman becomes equal in her creation and honored in the Image that God has imprinted of himself in her...then we become more like we were created to be. It isn't ever about women's power or liberation, it is about our own humanity.
If I had a soap box, this may be it...and the irony is...the more often I speak about empowering women to join humanity the more I become labeled a feminist. I am not a feminist...I am a humanist.I like that as humans we come in different shapes and genders.
We are both equally created to be equally honored, to equally steward creation, to equally raise the next group of equally wonderful, created, image of God, human beings.