Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Chris Mathews: Host of "Hardball" Displays a Sexist Attitude Towards Hillary Clinton and Other Women Political Figures

Lady of Light

In a recent article"Does Chris Mathews Have a Problem With Women?", it does appear that the talk show host of "Hardball" has demonstrated a sexist attitude towards Hillary Clinton and others, based on a series of remarks cited in the article.


For example, about Hillary he stated:
"The reason why she (Hillary) may be a front runner is that her husband messed around" and that "she didn't win New York on her own merits."
Additional comments were made about other female political figures as well. (Read the article for more detail on that.)

As I look to the Word of God on the subject of women in leadership positions, I observe that in the Old Testament in the book of Judges, there is a specific instance where God puts a woman in authority as a judge: She was chosen among a series of male judges - Ehud, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson.

""And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in mount Ephraim, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment And she sent and called Barak,...and said unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded saying "Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Napitalli and of the children of Zebulim? And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin"s army, with his chariots and his multitude, and I will deliver him into thine hand.." Judges 4: 4-6

Deborah was respected and recognized as one who was "raised up" by God for the purpose of leading Barak into battle and into victory over the Sisera. Not only did God specifically "raise up'" a woman for this task, but Barak recognized her power, position and authority to the point where he would not even go into battle without her going with him.

"And Barak said unto her, If thou will go with me, then I will go, but if thou wilt not go with me then I will not go." Judges 4"8

Ultimately, Barak was given victory over the tribe. If he had had a sexist attitude, he would not have had this victory, and God's purposes would not have been successfully accomplished.

In Judges, Chapter 5, verse 1, it tells us that Deborah and Barak sang together after the victory saying,
"Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves..._

Based on this recording of bible history, I can see that it becomes necessary at times for us to take stock and examine our attitudes towards women such as Hillary Clinton, for example, and examine those influentially commenting, such as Chris Mathews. I believe this account from the bible has shown me that we must be flexible when it comes to our looking at the possibility of women in leadership - open minded.

It is interesting to note that the name of the male leader was Barak, the first name of Democratic candidate Obama!




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2 comments:

provguy said...

Barack Obama should announce his intention to offer the vice presidency to Bubba Bill Clinton.

Lady Of Light said...

provguy - Thanks for your thought - it is interesting that I have not heard anyone else come up with that during the campaign!
Lady of Light