In Favor of Feminism: Share Your Views
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Holy carp, I cannot keep up with this thread, but I'm enjoying trying! A few notes:
- Thanks for sharing that info about Judith Love Cohen! Pretty sure based on timing she must have danced alongside one of my first ballet mentors in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.
- Free To Be You and Me still feels very relevant to me, as a child of the 70s/80s/90s...even and maybe especially when so many of my peers and our children are identifying as genderqueer, genderfluid, NB, agender, dual gender, etc. For my 23 yo, it's cringily gender-focused, and they really don't understand how necessary that focus was for us to make any progress.
- Also, thanks -- I think? -- for making me take a closer look at the JK Rowling controversy. I'd kind of accepted the word of friends and neighbors that she is a TERF and we should all feel weird about liking her stuff. But now I'm looking at her actual comments...and the ones I have seen so far both avoid TERFdom and resonate with me...so perhaps I'm missing stuff, but...more to investigate there!
- Eddie Izzard, whom I've always loved, now identifies as genderfluid, and everything I've seen says prefers she/her pronouns.
- Having worked in only one steel company, I can't speak to the industry, but I can say it was easily one of the most toxic places I've ever worked -- particularly towards women, immigrants (whom it employed aplenty), and anyone who didn't vote the way the boss did. It was like being thrust back in time, and it was terrifying.
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Saltmarsh - Thanks for the Marlo Thomas memories - Free to BE You & Me.
And thanks for the update about Eddie Izzard. I saw him (her) in person several years ago. Glad to know her preference.
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I'm kind of sad to hear that Eddie Izzard is trans. Not that I have any right to define her, but I liked that there was a popular and prominent man who fancied women but also fancied a good shade of lipstick. She normalized "feminine" expression for males. Now she's just another woman. If this helps her feel more comfortable and happy in her body and style, I'm happy for her though.
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While searching for something else, I came upon this rather buried story presented in 2019 on NPR re: #METOO with the twist #NUNSTOO about nuns being sexually assaulted by priests. Clearly in the Catholic Church women (nuns) and men (priests) are not equal. The rapists keeps his job and the pregnant nun gets booted. "These poor women are forced to leave their order and live alone raising their child with no help," she says. "Sometimes they're forced to have abortions — paid by the priest because nuns have no money." Appalling yes, surprising, no.
After Years Of Abuse By Priests, #NunsToo Are Speaking Out : NPR
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magiclight, thanks for posting the link. I've read similar articles about the abuse of nuns. They are treated as the lowliest of lows. Your linked article shares stories that are egregious:
.....very hard for a nun to report she has been raped by a priest because of the mindset that, in sex, women can always say no. "These nuns believe they're the guilty ones for having seduced that holy man into committing sin because that's what they've always been taught."
.....a 1988 case from Malawi, where a bishop dismissed the leaders of a women's religious order because they complained that 29 nuns had been made pregnant by local priests.
.....a priest arranged for a nun to have an abortion; the nun died during the abortion, and the priest then officiated at her funeral.
.....a national TV channel revealed some sisters had been kicked out after reporting sexual abuse by priests.
Also unsettling is that nuns will shun any nun who dares to report her priest offender.
When the Catholic Church so easily covered up the pedophilia epidemic among its priesthood, no one should really be surprised by their covering up rape and sexual assault of nuns by the clergy. And yet, Catholic church-goers turn their heads and choose not to see it. I've even read that priests are often coddled and babied by the lay women of their congregation, who cook, clean, run errands and drive them to doctor appointment. These women are not going to believe a nun has been raped by Father Priestly who they see as a small child in need of their maternal, eternal help. Why he wouldn't hurt a fly!
I was raised Catholic, left it at age 16, became a born-again Christian and attended a Pentecostal Church. Christianity is one avenue in which the patriarchy revealed itself to me. From that point I evolved and these days consider myself agnostic.
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Hmm. I have a hate-indifference relationship with the Catholic Church. I was born atheist into a devout Catholic household. It was during confirmation classes that I realized I never had faith. Then I learned more of their atrocities. Here's one:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/9-000-children-died-irish-mother-baby-homes-report-finds-n1253862
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It's the largest, nastiest cult in history.
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Serenity. The treatment of pregnant, unmarried girls and women until more recent decades is a subject that greatly enrages me. I've read numerous books on the topic and saw the movie "Philomena". It renders me almost speechless at how these (usually young) women were ostracized, shamed and disgraced. A majority were sent away to have their babies and give them up for adoption, countless mothers and children's lives forever altered because "social morals" hated that these women had a penis in their vagina that resulted in a big fat pregnant belly now a baby is going to come out of your vagina how disgusting she isn't even married.
From the article you posted: Ireland's Prime Minister said it well: ""We did this to ourselves, we treated women exceptionally badly...all of society was complicit in it." One religious order said in a statement "For our part, we want to sincerely apologize to those who did not get the care and support they needed and deserved. It is a matter of great sorrow to us that babies died while under our care."
A lot of good their sorrow does now.
This is a massive area where religion has failed. It insisted, and some still do, that all women be Virgin Mary until they are married. Rigid church teachings about sex lead to horrific sexual repression and from that, there is all manner of fallout. The church also insists women be submissive. Be good little girls. Oh, you're pregnant? Well, be more submissive and go to this home for unwed mothers, give birth, give your baby away, "forget about it" and go on with your life as if it never happened. Now don't go and shame your family, girl.
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The Catholic Church has done great harm to so many. They owe big.
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Even worse that many, if not most, of these women were either raped, manipulated into sex, or were completely ignorant of what was being done to their bodies. It wasn't their fault or decision to be impregnated, but they're the ones to suffer for a man's sins.
I also found this line very disturbing: "It [the report] did not include one single explanation for the high rates of mortality." I'm sure plain neglect was a significant factor, but convenient pillows probably played a role too. : (
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When I was in high school my mother would tell me of a few girls who were sent away after getting pregnant. It was the worst sin in her eyes. Right before I left for university all she said was "Don't get pregnant."
As a friend suggested, I should have told them I was. I would've been lying. But saying it wouldn't have been without risk.
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I was in school in the 50s and 60s. There were always girls who "went to stay with an aunt who needed help" for five or six months. We ALL knew what it meant. I was surprised when a rather quiet girl I walked to school with got pregnant our senior year and did not disappear, just kept going to school every day. I didn't keep in touch with anyone from school, but when I went to a reunion years later, I found out she was a professor of women's studies at a university in California.
My Mom could be a bit of a mean girl at times. She'd check who got quickly married within a few months of prom and graduation and have a good snicker over it. She only had two rules for me when I left home: don't smoke and don't turn Catholic. 😄 I started smoking right away (dumb). I didn't get pregnant until in my early 30s, and I married the father, who is Catholic. I converted at the time, very insincerely, and it didn't stick. But I've un-Catholicked my husband pretty thoroughly over the years! Stealth work!
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Okay, so the Catholic church has done irreparable harm to women but so do many other supposedly Chrisitan religions. My brother is a convert to Jehovahs Witness (after being raised Catholic) and this religion is more of a cult. Not only does it treat women as second class citizens, my dear niece became engaged to a guy from her church. Turns out he was beating her and she finally broke off the engagement shortly before the wedding. When my brother reported this to the elders, he was more or less told that she was not being true to the faith, her fiance was right to "punish" her for her transgressions according to scripture, and threatened her with being dismissed from the church. My brother, much to my surprise, accepted their ruling and is still engaged in their practices. My niece left the church as did her 7 siblings over the years. Only my brother and SIL are still practicing Jehovah's. I have no time for him nor his religion. He once told me I wasn't going to heaven because it was bein reserved for Jehovah's. I retorted with, "If heaven was reserved for Jehovah's I would choose to go to hell because being in heaven with them would be far worse punishment". He would not attend religious weddings nor the funerals of our parents because they were not Jehovah's. My SIL acts like someone who was raised in the '50's with her deferential attitude towards men and her tolerance of my brother's domineering attitude. I would ahve kicked him to the curb ages ago.
However, he would accept money at Christmas from my parents for his family and himself. We used to have a family Christmas get together luncheon which he refused to come to if we wore Christmas themed sweaters, etc. My mother asked us to accommodate his family of wife and 8 children so we could have this family party. It meant that my 2 brothers and their families and my family had to make the sacrifice to keep the peace. So we had to exchange gifts and greetings on the sly which never sat well with us. I no longer have contact with him and that is one less stressor in my life.
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Betrayal, I agree, there are many problematic religions. The story you tell of your brother and your niece is a tragic one. It is an horrific side of religion, pitting its followers against their own families. This has never made sense to me and another reason why I no longer call myself Christian or believe in some kind of male god. Your brother gets a lot out of being a JW so that's why he stays. You are smart to cut ties with him. I love your response to him of preferring hell over spending eternity with the JWs.
Alice, it was in yet another book I was reading by a woman who'd fled the FLDS cult that I sat looking at a photo of her with her 26 sisters all dressed in the long pastel dresses with that bizarre hairstyle that it dawned on me, yes, like the sun slowly rising from the east, how Christianity was a watered-down version of a cult. It was epiphany-like, where I quietly sat there sifting, sifting through everything I believed to be true and realized there was much re-thinking to do. As the blinders fell from my eyes, I saw the patriarchy for the first time. One you see it, you can never unsee it.
For the record, I do my best to respect the faith of others. For many years, I got a lot out of Christianity and will even go so far as to say in my early 20s, it literally saved my life and sanity (long story). I don't go around trying to get people to renounce their religion or belief in God. It's just that I've evolved and moved on from Christian beliefs.
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Serenity - I LOVE your comment: I was born atheist into a devout Catholic household. Same issue - different religion - Mormon for me.
Alice - I too was in school in the 50's & 60s. When I was 19 and away at college, my room mates finally "forced" me to try using Tampax. Oh the freedom to get rid of those belts & pads. When I told my Mother, she dragged me to the doctor so I would fully comprehend the horror that I wouldn't be a virgin on my wedding night. Mother was very upset when the doctor (a elderly female pediatrician of some renowned who had started practicing medicine in 1926) told her she was wrong. Oops...
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I looked a bit into the Irish mother child home where about 800 babies/children died. Thanks to an 'amateur' historian the story came out.
In 2012, after years of research into the history of the Tuam mother and baby home, amateur historian Catherine Corless publishes an article entitled "The Home" in a local history journal.
Ms Corless completes a personal mission to collate the death certificates of 798 children who died at the Tuam home. In all but two cases, she cannot trace their burial records….Following weeks of speculation over the fate of the Tuam babies, the Irish government orders a nationwide commission of investigation into Ireland's mother and baby homes.
Announcing the move, the then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny says babies born to unmarried parents were treated as "an inferior sub-species" for decades in the Republic of Ireland.
It may not be religion per se, but the dominant patriarchal paradigm that all religions are built upon supports the suppression of women while men are praised and rewarded. I read elsewhere that the language needed is not about unmarried pregnant girls/women but about boys/men who impregnate them and abandon their own children. Even the prime minister's use of 'unmarried parents' says nothing about the males and how they were allowed to go on with their lives.
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Betrayal - I'm not a fan of most religions. Your brother is quite controlling, isn't he? I do like Christmas gifts and foods. But those are based on pagan traditions. I'd still like them either way. I don't like Christmas sweaters myself, but I don't care if people wear them.
Minus - During sermons did you look around to see if anyone else was thinking, "You've got to be kidding!"? The Eucharist: "That's to represent a body and you want me to eat it? Eww." Confession: "Wait. I sin. Tell the priest. Say words as penance. Free to sin more? That's my principal over there. He's not nice."
magiclight - My high school teacher pretty much said that religion started as a way to control the masses. And that would be the men in control.
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Oh wrenn, that is so sad. I hope things got better from there.
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wrenn - I'm sorry for you and your sister. Hope you both have healed.
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wrenn, I really don’t understand why your father would think being a virgin 8 months after being married was something to be praised for. Many people have such have such incredible hang ups over women having sex, enjoying sex, having orgasms. Yes, this rigid thinking was much worse decades ago, but women seeking sexual pleasure, experiencing sexual pleasure is still too often a big taboo.
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To put it another way, how many fathers are so invested in their sons virginity? What kind of a reaction would a father have back in the day if he learned his son was still a virgin 8 months after he was married? Would he give his son a big hug and say “I knew you were a good boy?” The truth is that a father would have wondered what was wrong with his son, why didn’t he take what was rightfully his? He would worry that his son did not have normal sexual urges. He’d worry that his son might be gay. He would think his son was not quite manly enough.
Yet society insisted the only acceptable role for females was to be a “good girls”, to the extent that married females would still be referred to as girls and not women. Some parents still want to infantalize their daughters even after they are married, work full time, bear children and take on large amounts of responsibilities. Keep ‘em in their place, minimize their accomplishments and insist they continue to submit even as they hold up half the sky.
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Irish Baby Scandal - Some survived! An older neighbor who emigrated from Ireland as young adult and was a retired travel agent, told me that he and his wife on their many trips to Ireland used to escort Irish babies to their presumably Irish-Catholic US adoptive families. I wonder if he ever considered the circumstances of the birth mothers and I wouldn't be surprised if many of these adoptees were never even told they were adopted.
Chastity - 1965 style - One summer I attended a "teen camp" run by Mormons. I recall little actual supervision - only an orientation warning lecture including "The Rose" about the beautiful rose that gets passed around, a bit bruised and then we were asked would you choose that one or a fresh one. Yikes!
Pregnancy - late 60's - sitting around with about 10 college friends and for whatever reason the question about our parents' sex history came up - and so everyone started counting from either their date of birth or that of their eldest sibling to their parents' wedding date and by golly the majority were less than 9 months.
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Jelson,your tale of counting months from marriage until birth brought back an old memory. My ex was in his teens when he figured out that he was born 6 months after his parents married and he wasn’t premature. When he finally asked his mother about it she said that her mother would not give her blessing for them to marry. So she explained that she got pregnant on purpose so her mother would have to allow them to marry. Now I don’t know if this was true or not. I strongly suspect it wasn’t as she got very defensive and upset when it was brought up (so it rarely was). It makes me sad to think that this is still a source of shame and embarrassment for her.
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Been lurking here. The talking about counting back brought back a couple of memories. I was having to do paperwork for my mom to get Medicaid. Came across her birth certificate that had to be amended to have her first name put on it. Going through supporting documents I came across her parents’ marriage certificate. Umm, my grandmother was three months pregnant when she got married. Which coincided with my grandfather and grandmother moving to Baltimore for my grandfather’s work and where my mother was born. Then after her death and going through the last of her papers, I came across my father’s parents’ marriage certificate. Yup, he was born six months after their marriage. I must say I had a good chuckle over those finds.
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Years ago, my Mom asked my Dad why we never celebrated his parents' anniversary. He said it was because they were married in March and he was born in August. That happened in 1910. The rest of the story came out more gradually. After the shotgun wedding, Grandpa disappeared, and didn't come back to town for I think a couple years. But instead of going back to Grandma, he was living with another woman. Eventually, either one of his sisters or Grandma's mother confronted him about his responsibilities to his little son, and the young couple got back together, and had a daughter and later on, another daughter. This much was known to some degree by the whole family. Then one day in the late 60s, when my first aunt was in her mid-fifties, an old man came into the greenhouse where she worked and told her he was her father. He said he wanted her to have some money. She told him to get lost. So he went to see my grandparents - and Grandma's secret that she'd kept for over half a century came out. She'd assumed Grandpa had left for good, so after a while, she took up with someone else, and got pregnant. She told her mother, who I think she was living with (along with her young son), and it was her mother who basically dragged Grandpa back to his wife, and quick reconciliations happened, enough that he never knew daughter #1 was not his. Jump forward to that day in the late 60s, and Grandma calling my parents to please come over because all hell was breaking loose. Somehow everything got sorted out, my aunt assured Grandpa he was the only father that mattered to her, biological father was told to go away (probably not too far, because his brother was married to Grandpa's older sister!), Grandpa moved upstairs to a different bedroom, and life went on. Grandma and Grandpa were married about 73 years when she died, and he died the next year, both in their 90s. I didn't even find out about any of it until about 15 years ago when my Mom told me, because OMG, my Dad's family scandal!!! Sheesh.
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As an addendum, when I got pregnant in my early 30s and wasn't married, my Mom's first reaction was "What will the neighbors think?!" Mom, I rent, I don't know my neighbors. "What will MY neighbors think!?" Mom, you live in a town I've never lived in, I have no idea who your neighbors are and certainly don't care what they think, and why are you planning to tell them?!
That was her knee-jerk response to EVERYTHING! When I worked evenings, she was appalled that I didn't get home at midnight and fall straight into bed, but I'd stay up and watch movies or read. "What will the neighbors think if they see your light on?!" Durr, that they're not the only ones up at that hour. 🙄
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My mother's tearful response when I told her I was living with my husband before we married: "What will I tell my friends?" It was by phone. She hung up on me. Ever since then I never voluntarily told her news. Tried to minimize her gloating.
On the other side of unintended pregnancies, I always wondered if my mother's hysterectomy when she was in her mid-30s was medically necessary or her method of birth control. She was a doctor with other doctor friends. Never asked her. Truth's not her strong suit.
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Oh I can add a good one. I was married to my first husband for 7 years. Although my parents didn't ever really approve of him, they did give us a big wedding with all their "friends" & church members in attendance. We then moved 4 states away & rarely saw those people again. After I put 1st DH through law school, we got divorced. Oh NO - that horrible "D" word. I got re-married a year or two later. Anyway, after I had been married to my second DH for over a year, we were at my parents for a "meet & greet" for my brother's new wife. All of my Mother's friends came up to my then husband and said they remembered him being taller and did he finish law school. Oops - wrong husband. Husband #2 was an engineer. Mother had been too embarrassed to ever tell anyone I got divorced.
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