Ridiculous

Even more reason to forbid Ann Coulter from opening her mouth. Harsh comments? Well, see for yourself what she has to say about a woman’s right to vote in this interview with the New York Observer.

Has she forgotten that she, herself, is a woman? If she was denied the right to vote, does she not realize that she probably wouldn’t be able to write her radically conservative books, or voice her absurd opinions? Does she think before she talks?

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, this woman spewing out these ridiculous ideas, or people actually believing her.

Sick of Driscoll

A few years ago, I read about a pastor/writer in the states by the name of Mark Driscoll. He’s in charge of a fairly large American church called Acts 29. Between him, Pat Robertson, Jack Van Impe and a handful of other ridiculously conservative Christians, I feel sick whenever I hear or read anything these people have to say.

What’s prompted these harsh words as of late? After watching the latest Driscoll video, A Good Soldier, I should really avoid anything that involves this man’s ideas – for the sake of my own blood pressure, and keeping away from dangerously high levels. The video is essentially Driscoll’s view on the three variables that are lacking in the areas of church planting and church growth. His 3 variables?

1. The man

2. The mission

3. The message

What does he count as most important? Well, hear what he has to say:

“The variable that makes the only difference is the leadership ability and the quality of that senior leader, of that founding pastor, of that man who is to endure hardship and then fight like a good soldier…”

What’s the problem here? He isn’t merely using the term ‘man’ to cover both men and women, but he is solely referring to men, and not women. Once again, we run into Driscoll’s misogynistic views, implying heavily in this video that the only people who are able to plant churches are men. The video is not only targeted for men in ministry, but suggesting that only men are capable of doing the job well. As the name of the video hints, Driscoll uses a battle or war theme to describe the struggle and journey of men in church planting. After stating that 60% of Christians in America are women, he goes on to say:

“If you want to win the war, you’ve got to get the men.”

“If you win the men, you win the war.”

Excellent. What are the women good for? Taking care of the children? Cooking and cleaning while their husbands are out trying to build up the church, and ‘fight the church war’? Give me a break.

I often wonder what would ever happen if Mark Driscoll suddenly woke up as a woman one day. You know, as if he would have unknowingly undergone a sex change. These nasty thoughts lead me to thinking about John Rawls and some of his philosophical ideas. Not about sex changes or anything obscure as that, but of his concept of the Veil of Ignorance.

Rawls developed his concept of the Original Position, which could be arrived at through the thought experiment of the Veil of Ignorance. Under this veil, one would imagine themselves as free of race, gender, social class, religion, etc. In other words, each person would be equal. One would then imagine what ‘place’ they would end up in society – so, wanting the best outcome possible, most people would want to have favourable circumstances no matter what position they were given (ethnicity, gender, disability, etc.). For example, if an individual were under the Veil of Ignorance, they would not know anything about their status in real life. If they put themselves in the shoes of an individual of visible minority, living in poverty, they would want access to as many resources as possible in order to potentially escape their poverty. This individual may want a free education system, free health care, and may want laws that prevent racial discrimination. These infrastructures and laws in that society would have the potential to improve that individual’s life, if they were in that situation.

Back to Driscoll – if he were to put himself under the Veil of Ignorance, what would he have to say? Surely, as he is preaching now, he favours only men to be in the ministry. What happens, if he, under the Veil, didn’t know his gender? Wouldn’t he want an equal opportunity to carry out God’s work? One would think so. The concept of the Veil of Ignorance is to encourage justice system that promotes fairness in society. Too bad the women’s movement hasn’t been able to have an impact on Markie Driscoll.

Just for kicks: Driscoll refers to ‘the man’ at least 30 times (in saying ‘the man,’ or ‘him,’ etc.) in the span of 8 minutes.

An Abeyance Already?

And, only after 2 measly posts? Well, not quite. Although school started a little over than a week ago, this student is still studying. Why ’still’? Well, I have to joy of writing yet another standardized test: the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). All universities in the USA require the test for entrance into any graduate program. However, I’m not applying to any graduate schools in the States – it so happens that McGill is one of the few in Canada that require it! Just my luck. Anyway, that’s a week away, and also where the word “abeyance” comes from. I had never heard of the word before I cracked open the GRE book (there’s a verbal section that uses a lot of large words that no one uses). So, abeyance, as I learned, means a temporary lapse in activity, or suspension. I will try not to have too many abeyances with this blog!

This week, in a health care program evaluation class, we were taking a look at a marketing approach to public health. The prof showed us 3 commercials to demonstrate how some commercials were geared towards certain audiences, and how certain public health programs should target certain groups in a population in order to be effective. One of the commercials she showed can be found here.

As it so happens, Kenny had sent me the commercial a few months back, so I had already seen it. I had heard of some of the Dove beauty campaigns they had started, and I have always thought there were good ideas. This commercial in particular obviously defies the traditional marketing norm by demonstrating the artificial nature of many ads on TV/magazines, etc. The ad wasn’t even advertising any product in particular, but the Dove Self Esteem fund. In terms of beauty/aesthetic-related product advertisements, how often does one come across a real and natural depiction of beauty? Not often!

After the video was shown in class, someone made a comment that the motives of the ad were no different than any other beauty product commercial – it was great that Dove has this fund, but the underlying intention was not of caring for the self-esteem of young girls, but selling products. I’ll admit, that thought did cross my mind – of course the company wants to sell their products, how else would they survive? BUT, do they have to make these commercials? Did they have to start an awareness campaign? No. Do I see any other beauty product companies launching similar campaigns? Last time I checked, Herbal Essence commercials were still trying to convince me that if I used their products my shower would be, uh, “exceptionally pleasurable” while giving me shiny hair, and Crest was trying to tell me that my teeth need to be whiter than my baby teeth were. From what I have seen, this company uses real women in their ads, and not celebrities, or models. It’s as though they’ve come down from the high and mighty Hollywood empire to mingle among the normal plebeians. I must admit, I don’t know a whole lot about Dove’s campaigns, but I like what I see.