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The feminism movement should not be impeded by Bronze Age texts

Arguments: 1. Is feminism irreproachable? The very least of my argument against pro's position would be, essentially, what is wrong with “delaying” the “definition” of certain women's “rights”, as per my opponents definitions? Take consideration: an inappropriately defined right would respectively lead to said inappropriate right being established and achieved (by my opponents given definition, although such a case would not be much of an achievement in reality). For example, would the establishment of “equality” for women in the form of having them perform alongside males in athletics be appropriate, on the inherent value of a skewed sense of equality? This isn't just a purely hypothetical scenario either, such cases are already being discussed [1], even on this very site, with certain justifications for yes votes reflecting the sad state of delusion left on society by feminism, such as “Gender Shouldn't Matter Gender should not be a factor in determining the opponents and teammates of an athlete. Girls are just as strong as boys, and with hard work and perseverance can train themselves to be better at their sport then the boys. It is sexist to use gender as a factor in determining the athlete's abilities, and demeaning to tell a girl "you can't play on the team, you aren't strong enough."” [2]. The grandiose delusion I speak of in the aforementioned reference, is that males and females are on equal par in regards to physical abilities; anybody who has been through secondary education should have the knowledge that this is obviously erroneousness [3], although I wouldn't even patronise a young child by insinuating they did not know such a self-evident fact. Just in case there are any contentions about the fact that men and women are physically different, there are many scientific studies which attest to this fact (e.g. [4]), although a cross-examination of Great British powerlifting records show the disparity between the physical strength of men and women; for example, the record for the open 84kg weight class for females for open equipped squat is 212.5kg, whilst the record for the open 83kg weight class for males unequipped squat is 262.5kg, let alone the respective open 83kg weight class for males equipped squat being 342.5kg – not to mention that the women's weight class only extend to 84kg+, while men's extends to 120kg+ [5]. Furthermore, more appropriately, cross-examination of world records in athletics clearly show a difference in the physical aptitude of males and females [6]. Another example could be endeavours to establish equality in conscription laws, which would see women being legally obliged to fight on the front line as infantry, all in the aims of equalising women's rights in relation to men's. Once again, this isn't an entirely hypothetical scenario, as Norway has already started “conscripting” women, although there conscription laws being liberal in these cases, with the female population of their military being only 9% [7], clearly showing the hypocritical lack of “equality” despite their misguided ideologies. All this, clearly shows that despite what ever intentions, feminism is not infallible and sometimes needs to be challenged. In a means to increase relevancy to the overall subject of the debate, I refer you to Numbers 1:2-3 “Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, [...] every male by their polls; From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel” [8], illustrates that Biblically only men who were expected to be drafted to fight. A final question at this point, that is, does my opponent believe there is any literature whatsoever that has a right to impede feminism? 2. Does the age of literature automatically void their worth? The second area of my argument is simply a criticism of my opponents fallacious presupposition, given the resolution, that the fact that a piece of text is ancient is reason alone to dismiss it as a whole; there were many texts from antiquity [9], and to dismiss any arguments from all these texts simply due to their age is, well, silly. For example, take one of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:13 “Thou shalt not kill.” [10], which I think we can agree teaches a correct moral law, and then take Elliot Rodgers manifesto, which, once again I think we can agree, promotes immoral ideology, especially in reference to females [11]; doing so, we can evidently see that despite the antiquity of the former and the modernity of the latter, one is morally correct, whilst the other is severely lacking in morality. As a side note, I should also mention, that being a Christian, it is my view that the Bible is timeless, so criticisms on its antiquity is not pertinent – although I do not expect that my opponent will concede to this viewpoint. 3. Therefore, the pro resolution is essentially flawed. We see then, in principle, given that feminism isn't infallible and irreproachable, sometimes it should be impeded in its goals, and since the age of a text is not indicative of its worth, there is no inherent reason to prohibit Bronze Age texts from impeding feminism. My opponent even concedes to this point where he states that “[he is] not adverse to taking the good bits from [the Bible]”, but that simply he “cannot conceive of any aspect of this ancient traditional view that could impede the progress of feminism and still be considered a good bit”, displaying that its not that he is arguing that Bronze Age texts should not impede feminism in essence, but that he just has not seen any reason as of yet for any Bronze Age text to impede feminism, which I would disagree with. 4. Why Bronze Age texts (namely the Bible) should impede feminism. Now, to the crux of the issue, one example I would like to give as to how Biblical text should unquestionably impede feminism, is in the matter of abortion rights. Abortion is widely seen in feminist ideology as right of absolute free to all women [12], whilst the Bible takes opposition to such ideology, by declaring the sinfulness of abortion Exodus 21:22-24 “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her [...] if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth” [13], and as such, I believe that in the case of “women's rights” to open access to abortion should be impeded on such grounds. That is not to say that I believe that those who take part in abortions should be killed, as the referenced scripture states, in light of further scripture in Matthew 5:38-39 “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil” [14]. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I look forward to tackling my opponent specific contentions in regards to my stance on feminism and ancient texts – namely the Biblical texts. I will be saving my rebuttals for the following round(s). [1]: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk... [2]: http://www.debate.org.../ [3]: http://www.bbc.co.uk... [4]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.../ [5]: http://www.gbpf.org.uk... [6]: http://www.iaaf.org.../ [7]: http://www.norway.org.uk... [8]: https://www.biblegateway.com... [9]: http://en.wikipedia.org... [10]: https://www.biblegateway.com... [11]: http://abclocal.go.com... [12]: http://socialistworker.org... [13]: https://www.biblegateway.com... [14]: https://www.biblegateway.com...