Waymo has been a fun adventure this summer, but at the same time, it’s a harsh reality to realize that a driverless car didn’t make me nervous, but instead gave me an unexpected sense of relief. It’s a harsh reality that so many women and children go through life never experiencing what so many take for granted — an aura of safety. I’m living in a society where even the option to choose a female to give me and my child a ride on Uber or Lyft is an illusion, leaving me with the decision to lose the cost of the ride or put me and my child inside the car with a man we don’t even know. I’m living in a society where trusting driverless technology is more reliable than trusting men.
I know there are some protective men out there, but the truth is that we live in a society that wears the illusion of chivalry like a mask, but one that doesn’t really protect women and children. Men are escaping responsibility and abandoning their families both emotionally and physically at a high rate without consequence, leaving women to deal with the aftermath. Women trying to escape abuse are thrust into a society where they are at the mercy of a system that pretends the evil they’ve experienced doesn’t exist, where rape and abuse are met with bond and a slap on the wrist, where a piece of paper signed by a judge is expected to protect them, where they’re forced to show their home address everywhere they give an ID, where men they’re trying to escape can legally track them whereever they go, where they’re left trauma-ridden and vulnerable on the streets, where they’re left financially strained and emotionally broken from a family court system that works against them, and where a church system is more concerned about celebrating an image than fighting for the deliverance from evil.
I’m hearing male voices talk about their love for women and children and how women should be held accountable in the fight for life while those same voices refuse to fight for harsher consequences for men who hurt women and children. They refuse to show up and speak for women who chose life who are living in the aftermath of abuse, these women and children who are instead ignored, abandoned, and discarded.
All lives are valuable, but we’re living in a society where abortion thrives because men would rather stick to what sounds good and works for them then actually take on their God-given responsibility to protect women and childen outside the womb.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. – Psalm 82:4
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. – Ecclesiastes 8:11
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. – Proverbs 25:26
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. – Isaiah 1:15-17
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. – Ephesians 5:11-12
