I think that there is a trap in liberation, because of the structure of oppression that is already set up before liberation happens. Women are protected by men because they are desired by men as objects. If we were desired by men as people rather than objects there would be no need for protection either way.

In most of our written history, women were not considered to be human, they were considered to be objects either of sex or of procreation.

True liberation comes only when you are treated as a human, a thinking, feeling being. When you leave the trap of being protected and objectified by one man against other men who would treat you as objects, there is a new trap. Only by avoiding the trap of making yourself and others into objects can you go on towards true freedom as a human being.

I think we all wish for this freedom. In too many areas of the world, women are forbidden this freedom because of religious doctrines that bear no relation to reality. Men are also forbidden this freedom because when women are not free neither are men. Men appear to have freedom, and in some ways they do have more freedom than women, but in truth they are forced to be objects of protection/oppression, which limits their humanity as well.

And that is the trap of feminism that denies men. We forget the wound that this structure gives to men as well and seek to reject men instead of healing the whole human race. It is only as humans that we will all be free. But it is not by denying others that we become human.

When any religion discourages thought, that religion is sick. "I think, therefore I am."