Feminism, can any good come from it?

[blessedtoo]

You know, you may be right! I may have misinterpreted the question! Like I said way back in my initial post,

I have to preface my response with a disclaimer that this topic makes me a tad nutty .:whacky:

 

[Hastrman]

Anyone want to say that women having the right to vote was BAD? Women not being treated as Property was BAD?

1. Women have never been treated as property in the West (or in East Asia), unless they were slaves in eras/places where that existed. Simple proof: they could own property, even in the 19th Century. Property can’t own property.

Still less were they treated as property in Ancient Rome (unless they were slaves, again) or Medieval Europe.

It’s a propaganda phrase, and completely meaningless. Purge it from your mind.

1. Women having the right to vote was probably overall a good thing, but it really was enacted for the reasons I said. That you think it was some heroic triumph is interesting (well, not to me), but that’s not what happened. What happened was the ruling parties saw a chance to dish the opposition.

 

[Rach620]

1. Women have never been treated as property in the West (or in East Asia), unless they were slaves in eras/places where that existed.

Your claim depends on what you mean by being ‘treated as property’. You seem to be saying that because women were at least considered citizens in the vast majority of Western civilizations throughout history, regardless of how they were actually treated by society, since they weren’t technically considered property, they “never have been treated as property”. You’ve taken a logical leap that really doesn’t make sense.

So women are considered ‘citizens,’ by Roman civilization, in Europe during the Middle Ages, or in America. If in reality women cannot exercise the rights granted to all citizens, and in many cases seem to be ‘bought and sold’ through marriage arrangements which don’t take into account the woman’s own discernment of her vocation, can’t we realistically say that she is being ‘treated like property’? When she is looked down upon as having little intellectual value, is not cherished as a wife and mother, and is not able to make her own vocational decisions, what kind of citizen is she? Certainly not one who is equal in dignity to her male counterpart.

Simple proof: they could own property, even in the 19th Century. Property can’t own property.

Women were not granted property rights in America until the very end of the 19th century. That leaves a few millennia in which women had NO property rights for you to consider…

Still less were they treated as property in Ancient Rome (unless they were slaves, again) or Medieval Europe.

Technically, but still–see above.

Roman women particularly could not choose who or when to marry, were not educated (and we’re talking of the classical age here–they’d be studying philosophy, not ‘brainwashing’) nearly to the degree that men were, and were seen as having no value outside of their families.

Medieval women, on the other hand, had undoubtedly many more rights than people are usually willing to admit. I myself am just learning a little bit about the actual situation of medieval women, so if you have any insights/resources to direct me to, that would be handy.

I guess what we can say, then, is that while women enjoyed many rights during the medieval period which they hadn’t really before, gradually through the Reformation, Enlightenment, and, ironically enough, democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, they were often once more subjugated to an inferior role to men. Case in point: colonial American women enjoyed property rights and suffrage for awhile, until those rights were rescinded around the time of the Revolution.

1. Women having the right to vote was probably overall a good thing, but it really was enacted for the reasons I said.
   That you think it was some heroic triumph is interesting (well, not to me), but that’s not what happened. What happened was the ruling parties saw a chance to dish the opposition.

Do the political motivations matter if something good was achieved? That’s like saying you’d be unhappy if abortion were ruled unconstitutional because a candidate wanted to secure a sizable pro-life base. I’m sure I wouldn’t hear any complaints then!

“Heroic triumph” is just a bit of an exaggeration…but still, whatever the motives, I see women’s suffrage as a good historical step in the right direction.

 

[Hastrman]

Please put your comments outside the quote, breaking it up with quote boxes. Otherwise nothing shows up when someone hits the “Quote” button.

Your claim depends on what you mean by being ‘treated as property’. You seem to be saying that because women were at least considered citizens in the vast majority of Western civilizations throughout history, regardless of how they were actually treated by society, since they weren’t technically considered property, they “never have been treated as property”. You’ve taken a logical leap that really doesn’t make sense.

Well, in all normal cultures, you have a duty to your clan before you can consider yourself. If you think men have ever had it any easier than women, I cordially invite you to do a little reading on the concept of the Filial Son in Confucian cultures. And Haneunim help you if you’re a second son in Korea!

So women are considered ‘citizens,’ by Roman civilization, in Europe during the Middle Ages, or in America. If in reality women cannot exercise the rights granted to all citizens, and in many cases seem to be ‘bought and sold’ through marriage arrangements which don’t take into account the woman’s own discernment of her vocation, can’t we realistically say that she is being ‘treated like property’? When she is looked down upon as having little intellectual value, is not cherished as a wife and mother, and is not able to make her own vocational decisions, what kind of citizen is she? Certainly not one who is equal in dignity to her male counterpart.

Roman children, male or female, were the absolute property of their parents, and sons had little more freedom than daughters. Sons were probably killed by their fathers even more often than daughters, for the sake of the clan’s honor. While daughters were frequently left for dead, so were any flawed sons.

There was no universal suffrage in Rome. Citizens were an elite, not the norm. The vast majority of men weren’t citizens.

You’re also ignoring the fact that sons, too, were forced into marriage arrangements they didn’t want–it isn’t like they had any more say than women did. And frankly, tough for both parties; arranged marriages are one of the most misunderstood good things in all human culture.

Women were not granted property rights in America until the very end of the 19th century. That leaves a few millennia in which women had NO property rights for you to consider…

America is not the norm, being a Protestant culture. Protestantism is an aberration. And for millennia, women on this continent owned all the property. Matrilocality is the norm in Native American cultures. Most native men are only there to work; their children are members of the wife’s clan, are raised by the wife’s brother, and will inherit the wife’s property.

All of medieval Europe except England, and France after the Hundred Years War, used a bilateral system of inheritance: daughters inherited titles equally with sons (usually; medieval inheritance laws changed from barony to barony, let alone country to country). A similarly bilateral system was used by all classes in Japan, until the ascendancy of the buke (soldier clans, the samurai) under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the 17th century. The samurai clans had a more male-based system (since men were soldiers), but even samurai women had the rights of samurai, including the right to wear two swords (although they usually wore a dagger instead).

China and Korea varied; when the Confucians were weak, women had rights, but when they were strong, they didn’t. But men had more obligations under Confucianism, since only men could worship the ancestors.

Roman women particularly could not choose who or when to marry, were not educated (and we’re talking of the classical age here–they’d be studying philosophy, not ‘brainwashing’) nearly to the degree that men were, and were seen as having no value outside of their families.

Men had no value outside their families, either. There was no such person as Julius Caesar: his personal name was Gaius. The reason he was known as Julius (household name) of the Caesar gens (clan) was that as the head of household he personified all of them. His sons essentially had no existence until he died and one of them became head of household.

The next Emperor after him, the first one to really be emperor, was his nephew, member of another branch of the clan, Octavianus (Eighth Son) of the Augustus household of the Caesar gens.

Medieval women, on the other hand, had undoubtedly many more rights than people are usually willing to admit. I myself am just learning a little bit about the actual situation of medieval women, so if you have any insights/resources to direct me to, that would be handy.

I apologize; I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

 

[MariaG]

1. Women have never been treated as property in the West (or in East Asia), unless they were slaves in eras/places where that existed. Simple proof: they could own property, even in the 19th Century. Property can’t own property.

Still less were they treated as property in Ancient Rome (unless they were slaves, again) or Medieval Europe.

It’s a propaganda phrase, and completely meaningless. Purge it from your mind.

1. Women having the right to vote was probably overall a good thing, but it really was enacted for the reasons I said. That you think it was some heroic triumph is interesting (well, not to me), but that’s not what happened. What happened was the ruling parties saw a chance to dish the opposition.

#1 and #2 have both been addressed quite well already although I will say, it does show quite well your opinion of women and their role.

You tell me it is propoganda, therefore I should purge it from my mind.

Thanks:thumbsup:

But it also show the fruitless nature of this thread. You are convinced that nothing good came of historical feminism, and I am convinced otherwise.

However, I also realize that good DID come from the feminism of the 1960’s and 70’s, and I am no longer willing to blanketly bash that all is wrong with that either.

Things like my mother being able to go back to school in her 30’s and become a nurse in the 1970’s. She was actually an experimental class because until that time, they did not accept women that old into nursing school because they did not think women could go to school and raise a family.

And the true feminist voice, that many women failed to see, but is there nonetheless, is that I feel secure in my decision to stay home and raise my family.

I COULD do or be anything I want to be. No educational doors are barred to me, unlike times past. I can choose any career path. And I choose to fulfill what I believe to be my God-given vocation, motherhood. But this true freedom, to feel as if I can truly have chosen any path I wished to take, is something I owe to the women of the 60’s and 70’s. Thanks mom

 

[Hastrman]

#1 and #2 have both been addressed quite well already although I will say, it does show quite well your opinion of women and their role.

You tell me it is propoganda, therefore I should purge it from my mind.

Thanks:thumbsup:

But it also show the fruitless nature of this thread. You are convinced that nothing good came of historical feminism, and I am convinced otherwise.

However, I also realize that good DID come from the feminism of the 1960’s and 70’s, and I am no longer willing to blanketly bash that all is wrong with that either.

Things like my mother being able to go back to school in her 30’s and become a nurse in the 1970’s. She was actually an experimental class because until that time, they did not accept women that old into nursing school because they did not think women could go to school and raise a family.

And the true feminist voice, that many women failed to see, but is there nonetheless, is that I feel secure in my decision to stay home and raise my family.

I COULD do or be anything I want to be. No educational doors are barred to me, unlike times past. I can choose any career path. And I choose to fulfill what I believe to be my God-given vocation, motherhood. But this true freedom, to feel as if I can truly have chosen any path I wished to take, is something I owe to the women of the 60’s and 70’s. Thanks mom

Do not presume to tell me how I feel; you could not begin to comprehend that abyss of despair. You feel kind of chipper about the world the way it’s going. Well bully for you–it must be nice to live in a veil of delusion. How naive Buddhists are, to think illusion causes suffering!

All I see is the blood soaked manual vacuum aspirators, the tiny hands opening and closing spasmodically, the tiny, shredded spinal columns being rinsed in hospital sinks.

Thank your mom’s generation for that, and then put them to the sword and burn the whole of this society down. I’m sick to death of looking at the filthy thing.

You sold out all mankind’s traditions just so you’d have wider career options. That’s feminism. You turned the left hand of mankind against the right, just so you could feel “free”. I hope someone makes you drink all the blood spilled in the name of feminism, and you choke on it.

And if you ever tell me how I feel again, I may actually tell you.

 

[Hastrman]

You want to know my opinion of women and their role? You presume you know it; you are wrong.

Women are priests.

All of them. Every last woman born is a priest, a natural priest, as some men are supernatural priests.

And it is beneath their dignity to slave and toil for the capitalists.

It is a violation of their purity that they should ever have to raise a hand to slay. It is outright satanic blasphemy to give them the “right” to slay the lives within their wombs–like granting the other kind of priest the “right” to grind the Eucharist into a dungheap with his heel.

It is beneath their dignity that they should define themselves by the standards of a feeble, decadent society, hastily cobbled together from the dregs of dead Protestantism.

It is even more beneath them to treat them as anything but what they are, priests–to conflate them with mere profane men, for instance. Or worse, to set them against men.

That is what feminism is. It is turning one whole half of humanity against the other, because of a bad parallel with nationalism or a worse parallel with Marxist ideas of class-warfare. It is turning the left hand of mankind against the right.

It is heresy and anathema to introduce divisions into the body of Christ. Surely it is some kind of a sin to introduce so deep and jagged a division into the body of Man?

So thank your mother’s generation for that, and then pray very hard that God, and Man, will forgive them for their idiotic hubris, in casting aside all human tradition so they would feel “comfortable” in a wide range of career options.

 

[MariaG]

You want to know my opinion of women and their role? You presume you know it; you are wrong.

Nope, while your post held a few surprises, it was pretty much what I expected.

There were/are men who held women under and denied them rights because they were nasty human beings and there were those who did not give women the right to choose their career paths and decided what was appropriate for women because women should not have to sully themselves in those ways. You obviously are the kind who believes women should be protected, which can seem like a noble thing except, it does not recognize that women are capable of deciding these things for themselves.

Both, however, are wrong and do not allow for the God given right of self determination.

However, this last post of yours, will hopefully show those who thought that we are “all on the same page” but talking past each other, that in fact, we are not all on the same page as you are in a different book entirely.

But I truly pray for peace for you. I doubt that you have much if you rail so thouroughly against everything in our modern world as you do and are unable to see any good in the historical feminist movement or society in general since so many are based on a capitalistic base.

May God Bless you and grant you peace.

 

[Rach620]

I’m sorry, I see no point in responding to all the historical info you posted. It’s apparent that you’ve done massive amounts of historical research here, and I’ve not done much. Oh well.

Besides, you avoided several of my very pointed questions by departing on a rather irrelevant historical discussion. So what if *both *men and women in Roman culture had no value outside their families and were not considered citizens? So what if America was founded by Protestants?

My point in being a Catholic feminist is not purely focused on fighting for the equal rights of women–since all people were created, male and female, in the image and likeness of God, we all have inherent dignity in our humanity. Whatever historical excuses you make, that inherent dignity has not been recognized throughout history, and we still have a long way to go.

You obviously take issue with every single economic and political system that has ever existed. And it’s not just that–because these systems aren’t perfect in your eyes, you declare that no good can come from them.

Look, on Earth we will NEVER have a perfect social or political system. We can do pretty well though, and treat one another justly. Apparently this happened at least to a larger extent than a lot of people will admit in the medieval era; I’m saying that we could try to make it happen today.

I am in NO WAY saying that women should apply society’s standards of success to measure their own fulfillment. Those standards are largely flawed. But realistically, we cannot completely separate ourselves from them. While we shouldn’t value material things over our own vocations and call to develop in virtue, we can seek goodness within whatever flawed system we live in. As Catholics we are called to preach the Gospel in our actions–don’t you see that this means participating in whatever political system we are living in, and bringing the message of the truth to those who misunderstand so much?

To be a Catholic feminist is to recognize that God made women with the capacity for their own discernment, able to discover His will for them in their lives in this world. With that understanding, we recognize that a faithful wife and mother is just as valuable a person as a woman who is CEO, the President, or a physician. By the same token, a woman who feels called by God to a secular career should not be dismissed as ‘trying to be like a man’ or forgetting her ‘natural priesthood’. We all are called in different ways, and as long as we are following God’s will, who are you to say that we are wrong?

I think it would be helpful to get out of your head the notion that feminism–at least the ‘new feminism’ that JPII spoke of and that I believe in–introduced division. It’s trying to heal that division.

And I agree with Maria that to deny ANY benefits of historical feminism is ludicrous. The educational rights which women gained through even that second wave feminist movement which I largely abhor are the very reason I’m able to be at my university. While I wish I could have gotten here a different way, I am nevertheless thankful for the opportunities I have been granted.

 

[Hastrman]

Besides, you avoided several of my very pointed questions by departing on a rather irrelevant historical discussion. So what if *both *men and women in Roman culture had no value outside their families and were not considered citizens? So what if America was founded by Protestants?

Becaue they rendered your questions invalid–they did not address reality. I cannot meaningfully ask you a question about the habits of unicorns, can I?

You obviously take issue with every single economic and political system that has ever existed. And it’s not just that–because these systems aren’t perfect in your eyes, you declare that no good can come from them.

I am in NO WAY saying that women should apply society’s standards of success to measure their own fulfillment. Those standards are largely flawed. But realistically, we cannot completely separate ourselves from them. While we shouldn’t value material things over our own vocations and call to develop in virtue, we can seek goodness within whatever flawed system we live in. As Catholics we are called to preach the Gospel in our actions–don’t you see that this means participating in whatever political system we are living in, and bringing the message of the truth to those who misunderstand so much?

I do not take issue with hard syndicalism or landed peasantry or limited monarchy or properly-functioning republics.

Did I say no good would come of them? I don’t recall saying that. I said no good could come from capitalism, and none can. Fortunately our current economic system is not pure capitalism–the number of investors increases every year, for instance.

Our political systems are something akin to barely functional, so I will concede that some good can come of them too. Not a lot, them being nothing more than variants on the Oligarchic or “social club” form of government, but even a clique can do some good work.

But by immediately assuming I am talking about “materialism” you are applying society’s standards. There is nothing so marked in our society as a knee-jerk hatred of the material, ingrained in it by Puritanism and by the 1960s counter-culture.

To be a Catholic feminist is to recognize that God made women with the capacity for their own discernment, able to discover His will for them in their lives in this world. With that understanding, we recognize that a faithful wife and mother is just as valuable a person as a woman who is CEO, the President, or a physician. By the same token, a woman who feels called by God to a secular career should not be dismissed as ‘trying to be like a man’ or forgetting her ‘natural priesthood’. We all are called in different ways, and as long as we are following God’s will, who are you to say that we are wrong?

A woman can obviously have a secular career, just as priests can be teachers or doctors or lawyers, but I still maintain that their dignity forbids them being employees. I do admit, however, that that is only my opinion and doesn’t even constitute private revelation.

What makes me mad is that nobody seems to have conceived any economic arrangement except capitalism, socialism, and hunter-gatherers.

I think it would be helpful to get out of your head the notion that feminism–at least the ‘new feminism’ that JPII spoke of and that I believe in–introduced division. It’s trying to heal that division.

Yes, well, it’s doing a bang-up job healing that division. No movement introduced by a man who came to power a few decades ago can be considered to have introduced anything. I don’t blame or dislike “New Feminists;” I dislike their association with a vile name and a muddleheaded philosophy. I wish them every luck and success in the universe, but wish they would examine their own first principles (as everyone should).

And I agree with Maria that to deny ANY benefits of historical feminism is ludicrous. The educational rights which women gained through even that second wave feminist movement which I largely abhor are the very reason I’m able to be at my university. While I wish I could have gotten here a different way, I am nevertheless thankful for the opportunities I have been granted.

I would concede the essentials of your point–but Hitler had some good economic policies, and Mussolini’s writings were the basis of the New Deal. Neither ideological Feminism nor Nazism can make their massive blood-guilt go away by their other, minor achievements.

 

[Hastrman]

Nope, while your post held a few surprises, it was pretty much what I expected.

There were/are men who held women under and denied them rights because they were nasty human beings and there were those who did not give women the right to choose their career paths and decided what was appropriate for women because women should not have to sully themselves in those ways. You obviously are the kind who believes women should be protected, which can seem like a noble thing except, it does not recognize that women are capable of deciding these things for themselves.

And by this logic the other priests should marry. I didn’t expect you to understand my essentially mystical and partly allegorical interpretation.

Women should be protected not because they can’t protect themselves, but because they shouldn’t have to protect themselves. What are men for, if not that? We need something to protect; why do you try to break our being, just so you can feel strong?

Both, however, are wrong and do not allow for the God given right of self determination.

I am not aware of “self-determination” in terms of career being a god-given right. The vast majority of men don’t have it–they get some work that will feed their families, they work their hands to the bone, and then they die, usually with nothing but a lot of debt. And don’t think I mean just menial labor; do you think white collar work is any more rewarding?

I do apologize; I didn’t realize I was addressing some manner of aristocrat to whom the rules don’t apply.

But I truly pray for peace for you. I doubt that you have much if you rail so thouroughly against everything in our modern world as you do and are unable to see any good in the historical feminist movement or society in general since so many are based on a capitalistic base.

May God Bless you and grant you peace.

Thank you for the condescending kindness, but I refuse your blessing.

The peace you speak of is a consolation for when you have nothing worth fighting for. I happen to love the modern world, because it is still the world. And I intend to fight to make it better until I have no breath in my body.

And how will I do that? By doing as my father before me did, and his father before him: breaking my back in some thoroughly unrewarding job, just to support my family, with no thought in the world for the hilarious farce called self-determination. I will let my ideas be known, and other than that I will simply walk my rut and eat my pound of dirt. Surely that sacrifice will buy at least a little improvement in this miserable world that I love and you don’t even know.

 

[MariaG]

And by this logic the other priests should marry. I didn’t expect you to understand my essentially mystical and partly allegorical interpretation.

Women should be protected not because they can’t protect themselves, but because they shouldn’t have to protect themselves. What are men for, if not that? We need something to protect; why do you try to break our being, just so you can feel strong?

I am not aware of “self-determination” in terms of career being a god-given right. The vast majority of men don’t have it–they get some work that will feed their families, they work their hands to the bone, and then they die, usually with nothing but a lot of debt. And don’t think I mean just menial labor; do you think white collar work is any more rewarding?

I do apologize; I didn’t realize I was addressing some manner of aristocrat to whom the rules don’t apply.

Thank you for the condescending kindness, but I refuse your blessing.

The peace you speak of is a consolation for when you have nothing worth fighting for. I happen to love the modern world, because it is still the world. And I intend to fight to make it better until I have no breath in my body.

And how will I do that? By doing as my father before me did, and his father before him: breaking my back in some thoroughly unrewarding job, just to support my family, with no thought in the world for the hilarious farce called self-determination. I will let my ideas be known, and other than that I will simply walk my rut and eat my pound of dirt. Surely that sacrifice will buy at least a little improvement in this miserable world that I love and you don’t even know.

Your post goes in so many tangents, I really have no idea what to address. Your condescending attitude towards my intelligence, the other priests should marry, the idea that if women are allowed to determine thier own choices in life it somehow takes away from men…

So I will stick with what made me laugh because it was so far off the mark. My husband is a blue collar worker, my dad was a blue-collar worker, as were both sets of grandparents. I am truly sorry you find no reward in blue collar jobs. It is sad that you can find no reward in something you spend much of your time doing. One doesn’t have to have a job that saves lives or any other such thing to find reward in a job well done. I *would *pray that someday you would find reward in your job too, but since you refused my last heartfelt blessing, and choose to believe uncharitable things about me, I know that this one too, would be unwelcome and misconstrued.

I will tell you however, there are people in this world, those who do “menial” labor and find reward in what they do. One can never be part of building anything that was huge or anyone would find great worth in today, but one can find satisfaction in a job well done in jobs that are seen by the world as “unrewarding”.

You might wish to try reading “St. Francis De Sales, Introduction to a Devout life” In it it discusses how one can serve Him and make their life a prayer to Him. It teaches one how one can “pray unceasingly” while going about one’s everyday life and job. Not all are called to “great vocations”. In such a manner, one will never say that their job is “unrewarding” for one’s very life is devoted to prayer in Him while picking up trash, washing cars, digging ditches, etc.

But I think this must be my last post to you. You clearly have no desire to see anything positive in the historical feminist movement nor in me either it would appear, even though I am doing exactly as JPII as asked us to do in relations to “new feminism”.

 

[dessert]

1. Women have never been treated as property in the West (or in East Asia), unless they were slaves in eras/places where that existed. Simple proof: they could own property, even in the 19th Century. Property can’t own property.

Still less were they treated as property in Ancient Rome (unless they were slaves, again) or Medieval Europe.

It’s a propaganda phrase, and completely meaningless. Purge it from your mind.

1. Women having the right to vote was probably overall a good thing, but it really was enacted for the reasons I said. That you think it was some heroic triumph is interesting (well, not to me), but that’s not what happened. What happened was the ruling parties saw a chance to dish the opposition.

I think you are mistaken or under the idea that the wife went into the election booth and did vote exactly like her hubby said to do. Did she? How will you know for sure? She was capable of making a good decision on her own. My aunt was a member of the origanal camp girls, before girl scouts and bless her soul she is passed on but she left a legacy to all. dessert

 

[dessert]

To the OP my aunt was a straight up Catholic all the way very stout and till her death. I believe the Church supported her all the way. dessert

 

[dessert]

You want to know my opinion of women and their role? You presume you know it; you are wrong.

Women are priests.

All of them. Every last woman born is a priest, a natural priest, as some men are supernatural priests.

And it is beneath their dignity to slave and toil for the capitalists.

It is a violation of their purity that they should ever have to raise a hand to slay. It is outright satanic blasphemy to give them the “right” to slay the lives within their wombs–like granting the other kind of priest the “right” to grind the Eucharist into a dungheap with his heel.

It is beneath their dignity that they should define themselves by the standards of a feeble, decadent society, hastily cobbled together from the dregs of dead Protestantism.

It is even more beneath them to treat them as anything but what they are, priests–to conflate them with mere profane men, for instance. Or worse, to set them against men.

That is what feminism is. It is turning one whole half of humanity against the other, because of a bad parallel with nationalism or a worse parallel with Marxist ideas of class-warfare. It is turning the left hand of mankind against the right.

It is heresy and anathema to introduce divisions into the body of Christ. Surely it is some kind of a sin to introduce so deep and jagged a division into the body of Man?

So thank your mother’s generation for that, and then pray very hard that God, and Man, will forgive them for their idiotic hubris, in casting aside all human tradition so they would feel “comfortable” in a wide range of career options.

There were women who were queens and are today by birth and designated the role and do a good job and have men at their side as some men have women at theirs. This is God’s partnership as the way I see it including priests.
Do you suppose Henry the VII could have made one of his daughters a queen instead of killing so many people?
I think we are talking about dignity not idiotic hubris. what do you think? dessert

 

[dessert]

No one is condoning abortion here and especially not priests Feminism is a schism so it will depend on what your exact definition is but dignity is rewarded with respect and I think you better give a little more for the dignity of that office(priests) as you are talking about structure and tradition. You are treading on dangerous ground near a sink hole. dessert

 

[Black_Jaque]

Anyone want to say that women having the right to vote was BAD?

I don’t know. What are the fruits? Has America become a better country since allowing women to vote? Do they indeed have a God-given right to vote?

Rights come from God, not the legislator’s pen. If women indeed have a right to vote, then it is a good thing that our government finally recognized it. And if God really wanted women to have voting rights there will be some clear good that resulted from it.

God gives people rights so that they can execute their duties that He assigns them.

Let’s talk about the duties of women. From there we can establish what rights should be afforded them to accomplish those duties.

Women not being treated as Property was BAD?

I don’t know if this can really be solely credited with the feminist movement. I suspect this malady could have evaporated without feminism. Particularly since the history of Christianity seems to evidence a gradual departure from this line of thinking.

 

[Rach620]

I think I’m just about finished with this thread as well. We’ve lost sight of the OP completely and have departed upon multiple and almost irrelevant tangents.

I want to put this whole discussion in perspective here. I’m a sophomore at a Catholic university, and last night–completely unintentionally–I got into a debate with a self-proclaimed ‘radical feminist’ over dinner in the dining hall.

I’ve had nagging thoughts about our conversation, but this is not because of what this girl said to me (although, she honestly was quite rude in some of her remarks, ie, “Why are you paying $40,000 a year if you’re just going to be a stay at home mom? What a waste…”), but because of the impression which I got from her.

She was so far from understanding what I was saying about the dignity of women, that I wasn’t sure what she was fighting for; I only knew she was fighting against ‘patriarchal society’. She seemed flabbergasted that I could see in myself some inherent value that was not dependent on what I can/will potentially do in the world, but rather on how well I follow God’s will in my life. She actually didn’t see any value in motherhood, but thought it wasted women’s potential. She was angry, almost bitter. She was so far from the happiness and joy I experience in my own life. She was a characteristic product of modern radical feminism.

THIS is what we’re up against, all of us, as Catholics. We’re called to show to the world that their standards of living are not the right ones–that there is an unsurpassable JOY–in Christ–to being human which they have not found. Such bickering amongst ourselves that really amounts to nothing more than your wishing we didn’t use the word ‘feminist’ to describes ourselves is silly and irresponsible in such a situation.

We need to find common ground–and part of that common ground is an appreciation of the first feminists, and even an appreciation of what may have been a byproduct of the modern feminist movement.

I couldn’t sit and tell my classmate at dinner last night that NOTHING good came of feminism; that’d make me an absolute hypocrite. Our university was all-male and became co-ed in 1972; I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those crazy bra-burning feminists! Nor would I probably be studying political science and theology (with an interest in religion, ethics & public policy) IF early feminists had not earned for women the right to vote.

What I’ve been trying to drive home again and again on this thread is that we have to be realistic about our expectations of change in our culture today. Honestly, you can throw out all the examples of medieval chivalry, recount the entire history of women’s property rights, and discuss the intellectual pastimes of ancient Chinese women all you want–but really, it DOESN’T MATTER.

We’re modern people. We–even you, Hastrman–can’t get rid of our modern assumptions completely. We can’t divorce ourselves from this system and only be satistfied with ‘hard syndicalism’ or pure republics or limited monarchies. Making blanket statements about how the capitalist system is evil ISN’T FRUITFUL. We need to build up in order to change this culture of death we live in. We need to show the beauty of life and dignity, rather than express things so opaquely that others can’t understand what we’re even getting at–and when they do, not even understand how those principles could be applied today.

Life is simple; the world makes it complex. Men and women were created equal in dignity by God, each with their own gifts, talents, abilities, and ways of viewing the world. Each deserves full human rights, but throughout history, in various ways, this has not been the case. Over 200 years ago, women began a movement to address this issue, and whatever has come of that movement in its various incarnations, one cannot deny that the God-given rights which were reclaimed in the political sphere for women at that time–and even more recently–are in themselves good, and have benefited myself along with billions of other women.

 

[Jay2]

I’m a pretty simple person, and only have a few shades of gray in my palette of mostly black & white.

Good:

The opportunity to vote
The opportunity of higher education of your choice
Equal pay for Equal work
Freedom from sexual harrassment

Bad:

Being hired to fill a quota (because you’re female), and not qualified/able to do the job
The degridation of Femininity & Masculinity into “Uni-linity”
The gradual loss of what a womans (or mans) true purpose is

Agree? Disagree?

 

[SeekerJen]

I’m a pretty simple person, and only have a few shades of gray in my palette of mostly black & white.

Good:

The opportunity to vote
The opportunity of higher education of your choice
Equal pay for Equal work
Freedom from sexual harrassment

Bad:

Being hired to fill a quota (because you’re female), and not qualified/able to do the job
The degridation of Femininity & Masculinity into “Uni-linity”
The gradual loss of what a womans (or mans) true purpose is

Agree? Disagree?

Agree, except I would add to “Good” the right to own property, and to “Bad” the pressure to subjugate one’s reproductive organs to societal norms.