Welcome

Thanks for stopping by! I created this blog as a companion to my website, Becoming Godly Maidens.com. I hope you enjoy reading what I have posted and that you will come again. Let me know what you think! Leave a comment :)






Monday, November 22, 2010

Meet the CEDAW

    I just read the scariest thing I have read in a very long time. No, it’s not another Frank Peretti novel. I’ve learned my lesson in regards to those. Actually, I just finished reading the text of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The purpose of this treaty is to end discrimination and degredation of women. The problem is that it is being dealt with in a very humanistic manner and that legal force will be used to ensure the equality of both sexes in all spheres. Translation: governments will force man and women to abandon traditional roles. This is stated very clearly in the Preamble: “A change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality between men and women (CEDAW, Preamble, par 16).”  What does this mean? I will allow the CEDAW to explain:

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures:
(a) To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women;
(b) To ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children, it being understood that the interest of the children is the primordial consideration in all cases (CEDAW, Article 5).
     In other words, the goal of the CEDAW is to abolish traditional roles. How will this affect you and me? I plan to eventually marry, have children, and stay at home to raise and educate them while my husband acts as the head of household and primary breadwinner. According to CEDAW, my husband would be treating me as an inferior being, taking advantage, of me, and discriminating against me. I would be a victim of a tyrannical spouse, and my children would be labeled as “abused,” and probably removed from our home (most certainly, if the Convention on the Rights of the Child passes). I don’t know about you, but the freedom to embrace my femininity is more important to me than this so-called equality. I feel more degraded at the thought of being forced to follow a humanistic pattern for my life than I do at the thought of staying at home.
     What makes me seriously offended by the CEDAW is the concept that I will be forced to follow what the United Nations thinks is a good plan for my life. I don’t even have any say! It will be illegal for me to say that I am submissive to my husband. Yet it will be permissible and even condoned for a woman to badmouth her husband at every opportunity. I really don’t care if some other woman wants to pursue a career, run the household, and give her husband no say in family planning. Really! It’s no skin off my nose. So why on earth does that woman care whether or not I stay home and raise my kids? It’s none of her business, it’s none of Hilary Clinton’s, and it’s none of the United Nation’s business what I do in my personal life.
     Indoctrination of children is written into this treaty. You are probably already aware that the feminist movement is highly lauded and thoroughly covered in public school text books. The CEDAW wants to go one step further:
“The elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education by encouraging coeducation and other types of education which will help to achieve this aim and, in particular, by the revision of textbooks and school programmes and the adaptation of teaching methods (Article 10, section c. Emphasis added).”
     Yet another reason to homeschool. However, I have reason to suspect that homeschooling will not be sanctioned under the CEDAW, as a woman’s place will no longer be in the home, but in the office.
     What does the Bible have to say about this? We know that to God, men and women are already equal. We are different, but we are equal, as stated in Galatians 3:28 – “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” God has different plans for men and women. The head of the woman is the man (1 Cor. 11:3), or as the New Living Translation puts it, “A woman is responsible to her husband.” This does not mean that a man is better, more important, superior to a woman (as anti-Christian disputers proclaim), it is simple the God-appointed way to keep order in the home, the church, and in the world. Pastor, Bible commentator, and writer Chuck Smith writes,
“I do not believe that the Bible has ever taught that God favors the man over the woman. The Bible does teach that God made man first, and then from man formed the woman. When God looked at man and said, ‘It is not good that man should live alone,’ and so He made the woman from man that she might be a helpmeet for him.
Now, some people misinterpret that. The helpmeet, the word meet is an old English word fit, a help that is fit for him, created for him. No way does it signify a subservient position. God saw that man by himself could never make it, and thus, the woman created, as God said, ‘for the man.’”
     We don’t need any new laws to make men and women equal. Do you want to feel worth and purpose? Follow God’s plan for your life. Not the United Nations’.



Find out more from Michael Farris

7 comments:

  1. Has Congress ratified it yet?
    -Chelse

    ReplyDelete
  2. No, but I'm going to be calling my legeslators to let them know that I don't want it to be!

    http://www.parentalrights.org/

    ReplyDelete
  3. i totally had no idea about this issue. i absolutely do not want it. People (in this case woman) should have a whole hearted freedom, in which they can make their own decision on what they would like to pursue in their lives. I for one want to go to medical school and work in the medical profession. But That doesn't mean i dont want a family. I think when/if God wants me to marry I will eventually settle down and adopt a few kids, (maybe even from other countries). I think us women should ban together and unite as one, in pursuit of this never becoming law. NOW WHO'S WITH ME?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't think the CEDAW/United Nations is going to FORCE you to follow any sort of certain plan for your life. They are not going to force you into a career you do not want. Nor do I think they are condoning women to badmouth thier husbands at every opportunity (although that is already permissible through Freedom of Speech haha). Freedom of speech will also protect your right to say that your are submissive to your husband. It will not be illegal to speak. I think instead of physically forcing women to change their roles in society, they are going to try and change people's thinking in regard to how women are percieved. I don't necessarily agree with the CEDAW, but I think your rant was a bit overreactive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anon,
    Thank you for your comment :) I always appreciate feedback. Since you have already read the entirety of the text of the CEDAW, I would suggest that you read a few commentaries by lawyers of different opinions so that you may understand it fully.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Perhaps you can post a link to the text of the CEDAW and some lawyers commentaries so I can better educate myself. I assume you have read the whole thing?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes, I have read the entirety of the convention. You can read it here http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm
    Also, here are links to a couple of lawyer’s analysis.
    Michael Farris: http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B0042D75F-CD9C-418B-920C-F9EA902E83AE%7D
    Jessica Riggin: http://www3.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/hrlr_journal/42.2/Riggin.pdf
    Both are well written and thoroughly researched. I am not familiar with Jessica Riggin, but I have read much of what Michael Farris writes and heard him speak, and I highly respect him. I also have to say that I agree with his views on the CEDAW over Riggin’s. This is not only because I see things from his perspective, but also because I think what he predicts for America with the CEDAW is more accurate than what Riggin predicts.

    ReplyDelete