Fighting for Rights

Recently I was talking to a friend and realized that I often have a hard time empathizing with minority groups because I have never had to fight for my rights. In some parts of the world women are treated badly, but here in the US, I've never felt shamed for not being a man. Actually men are more often portrayed as clueless idiots in American movies and TV comedies with the wise women keeping them straight. OK, there are some wacky women portrayed, but I think mostly men hold this distinction.

Where I live I've felt I just belong. The only "fights" I've fought are for political candidates in mostly local races. But I didn't feel I was fighting for my rights.

So, yeah, I often have a hard time fully understanding the thoughts of those who feel held back because they are not a certain ethnicity or gender or religion.


I think this also came to mind while reading author Kenneth Bailey's thoughts on some writings about women by Ben Sirach. Maybe they were taken out of context in the book I was reading. I've read some of his writings and found them lovely. Not so much what Kenneth Bailey shared. I wonder if having living sixty years in the Middle East and seeing how women were often relegated to lower status colored Mr. Bailey's views. Perhaps he thought Ben Sirach's views were much like some tribal and Islamic/cultural views that made women seem deficient somehow. And his dislike of these practices made him misrepresent Sirach's writings. Just speculating.

I never had to fight for women's rights because someone else fought that fight for me. I never had to fight for much of anything. How about you? Do you have any current battles you are fighting?