Miss Rants

When I tell anyone that there is a pro-patriarchy movement, they are shocked. I think this is in no small part due to the fact that the people I tell are good post-modern academics who know their gender theory and aren’t afraid to use it. So I would imagine that most everyone I know personally would be shocked to learn that there exists a book entitled Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God. The book is a passionate and surprisingly well-written full frontal attack on feminism and the “evils” it has wrought and was actually sent to me by one of its co-authors Stacy McDonald.

Stacy (who by the way is a very nice lady despite every preconceived notion I had about her) along with Jennie Chancey are actually good writers. I don’t like or agree with the vast majority of their ideas but they are good writers. I read Passionate Housewives in a single day. And what’s strange is that I think they and I see many of the same cultural phenomena as negative. Where we differ is on the cause and the solution. For example, I too am deeply troubled by the incredibly narcissistic nature of our culture. McDonald and Chancey call “me-ology”. I just don’t think feminism, humanism, or liberalism is the cause of this. In fact, I would argue it probably has a lot to do with the demands of the consumer culture which needs us, all of us, to be terribly wrapped up in ourselves in order to keep spending money on ourselves.

The absolutely weirdest part of reading this book for me was that I have so firmly come to believe that the cultural divide in America, in the world is such that the two sides cannot even agree with each other on what reality is.

This book flew in the face of that assumption. We are all seeing the same play here, people; we are just interpreting it differently. That does not mean that the divide is any more surmountable, but it does make me feel strangely comforted. It means that we are all human; doing our best to make sense of what is often a nonsensical world. I know all too well that I for one would be a more compassionate person if I remembered this more often. The world would probably be a better place if we stopped calling each other baby killers and sinners, bigots and wingnuts.

I think when she sent me the book Stacy was expecting me to think and write more about its actual arguments. I have not done that here and I probably won’t to be honest. Clearly, the arguments are ones with which I disagree. That we disagree is obvious. The hard part is salvaging some understanding from those disagreements. I believe that at the heart of the faith that Stacy McDonald, Jennie Chancey, and I share is the call to relationship: relationship with each other; and through that relationship with each other, union with the Creator. If we are all truly desperate for God, we shall find him most quickly in one another; whether or not we are housewives or students, community organizers or governors. Reading their beautifully written odes to family and community that make up much of the book, I am lead to believe that Stacy and Jennie believe that as well. Perhaps, for a moment, that is enough.