The Touch of Human Kindness: Women and the Moral Center of Gravity

I've finished reading this article and I still can't decide how I feel about it.  Much of this article seemed to be a commentary on the feminism movement swinging too far the other way and actually devaluing women and men.  I'll write some of the best quotes in here, but most of it will be my thoughts.  I think this talk was given at a devotional or something like that.

There is a shift taking place.  "And so today, many people are skeptical about the very idea of "belonging" to a family.  After seeing family bonds as valuable ties that bind, some now see those ties as sheer bondage.  It feels like vast forces are eroding our foundations of personal peace, love, and human attachments.  Whatever held family relationships together suddenly feels weaker now.  At times it feels like a kind of ecological disaster, as if a vital organism somewhere in the environment is disappearing."

The moral influence of gender-specific gifts is being devalued in 4 main ways.

1. Motherhood is being devalued
1. This is pretty straight forward.  Motherhood is the spirit of self-sacrifice and that doesn't seem to be valued anymore.  Feminists are almost making the choice to be a mother out to be a negative.  Almost as if that women is choosing bondage.  This isn't true.  Really, men and women are suppose to be interdependent.  There were lots of good quotes on motherhood that I'm just too tired to type.  Sorry!
2. The gifts of sexual behavior is being devalued
1. This one was tough for me.  It almost seemed to reinforce the idea that women are the gatekeepers for sexuality.  It went on to say that wasn't the case, but then seemed to follow it up with all sorts of "Women, by demanding that a man can be chaste and now allowing it to be otherwise, you can change the world"
3. Society has stopped prizing women's innate yearning for permanent marriage bonds
1. Women are no longer demanding more permanent relationships from men and this has caused men to not want to be in permeant relationships.  The authors said that men naturally don't want to be in relationships and women should demand that of them.  I don't agree with that.
4. We are devaluing the gift of women for nurturing human relationships.
1. Women are great at nurturing human relationships.  Pitting women against each other makes this tough.  We aren't playing into the strengths of women.

There were more stories and examples in there, but that's the general idea of it.  It was pretty wordy, but that's the meat.