John Stonestreet – Page 43

Feminism Without Women?

Nov 8, 2021John StonestreetTransgenderTransgender

*John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center*

Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood became a feminist icon for her dystopian novel in which women are enslaved for the purpose of childbearing. Her writing is both the basis for a hit Hulu series and the unofficial mascot of the #MeToo movement.

Recently, Atwood retweeted an op-ed criticizing the use of phrases like “pregnant person” instead of “woman.” “Why can’t we say ‘woman’ anymore?” the article’s author asked. And the backlash to Atwood’s retweet was swift and vicious. Opinion pieces in USA Today and the Independent called her everything from “misguided” to “transphobic.” She was compared with Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, who has consistently rejected the trans narrative, and each of these onetime progressive heroines are now labeled a “TERF,” or “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”

This conflict between the “F” and the “T” in the acronym is real. The feminism of Rowling and Atwood assumes that women are real and are oppressed by men. But those in the camp of T claim that “woman” is a self-identifying construct, which men can fairly appropriate. So what’s coming in this narrative? Will feminism eventually be edited to exclude women?

Dads on Duty

Nov 1, 2021John StonestreetFamilyFamily, Fathers, Parents and Family

Security guards and local police were at a loss about how to deal with the rampant violence plaguing a Shreveport school. Detention and even arrests weren’t enough to curb fights on campus. So, a group of dads stepped up, and have committed to being present at the school every day. There hasn’t been a fight in over a month, and now kids say they love going to school.

They call themselves “Dads on Duty,” replete with sweatpants, gas station coffee, and dad jokes worthy of eye rolls. They fist bump students in hallways, providing a fathering gauntlet that is deterring fights and decreasing gang activity. “Not everybody has a father figure at home – or a male, period, in their life,” one of the dads told CBS News.

The crisis in Shreveport required more than good intentions. It required fathers. After all, God created dads for just this kind of thing. I love how these dads stepped up and stepped in. Their actions offer a real-life example of the difference it makes when we find ways to answer four simple questions: What good can we celebrate? What’s missing that we can offer? What’s broken that we can fix? What evil must we oppose?

No Female Is In this Picture

Oct 25, 2021John StonestreetTransgenderLGBT, Transgender

Admiral Rachel Levine, a man who identifies as a transgender woman, was commissioned into the U.S. Public Health Service’s Commissioned Corps. Officials called Levine’s promotion “historic” because, they assured everyone, Levine was the first female four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps.

When something like this is announced the way it was – surrounded by fanfare and reporters constantly reminding us that this is a woman – it’s not cynical to wonder whether the job was earned by qualification or just a PR campaign. But it is unsettling to consider that the administration might promote someone more for the photo op than their abilities. And it’s frankly condescending to the Admiral, though he didn’t seem to see it that way.

This feels a lot less like a culture that’s soberly “following the science” and a lot more like a culture heading “through the looking glass.”