Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Media Makes Me Crazy

Today, during a break at work, I found myself getting caught up in some wording in the media. This happens quite a bit in our culture I think. The media stirs everyone up and then everyone gets all stressed out and angry. Media is no longer about reporting the facts or the news, it is about distorting perspective and making everyone more suspicious and less tolerant in their daily lives.

This is an example only, I am not posting in favor or against this particular organization but it is useful in clarifying my point. As I was flipping through a Newsweek, that family with the 18 kids I think they are the Duggers was featured in one of the news snippets. I have watched this family periodically on TLC when channel surfing. I don't really find the day-to-day workings of a family that large very interesting. In fact I find in quite stressful. All that I can think is how if I lived in a family that large I would have to have my own apartment adjacent to the house so that I could go off by myself and get some peace! I hate being around people all of the time, even my own family. I get this feeling like I am being suffocated and if I don't get alone time I get very, very, very crabby. My kids and my husband know this and they are very good to me.

At any rate, this post is not really about the Duggers directly or my frantic need for peace and quiet. It is about the wording of the feature. The article talked about how the Duggers belong to an organization called "Quiverfull." In the article they referred to this organization as only "a backlash to feminism." Now that got my attention. My feeling is that feminism is the acknowledgement that women are human and any organization against this must not believe in the humanity of women and consider them to be property much like heads of cattle.

I googled "Quiverfull" and I must admit that I didn't spend much time on the site, but I did spend enough time to know that they don't exactly bill themselves as a backlash to feminism. They bill themselves as a support network for people trying to raise large families in today's world. Fair enough. There are many people out there who choose to have large families. As long as I am not forced to have one, I am great with having them exist.

My point here is how the media stirred me up and got me going over nothing. I am sure that this organization considers themselves to be a backlash to feminism or their definition of it. I have noticed that very few conservative organizations have ever done any reading about the definition of feminism and probably get most of their "facts" from media personalities like Rush Limbaugh. I guess if you don't want to research the true facts and use such personalities as your source that is your individual right.

I can see where doing so can get people stirred up and angry though.

No comments: