Positive results of feminism ?

[edwest2]

I don’t know what you want by asking this question. The Women’s Movement was around in the 20’s, the 40’s, the 1830’s, the Middle Ages in a more modest way when everyone’s expectations were lower, and earlier in some civilizations. If all you want to talk about is whether two or three recent feminist authors have directly improved any observable social injustice, then that is hard to measure. I don’t know.
But I want to ask you to let me explain something.
Imagine being a woman in Gloria Steinem’s childhood days. I’ve heard women tell of it. They say they sat, as children, and watched their mothers go through the day with tears streaming down their faces. Mothers joined for “a cup of coffee” and huddled whispering about a nameless problem. Women who were beaten by their husbands until they had nervous breakdowns were taken to “therapists” who accused them of bizarre things, said they were “playing games” and pushed them to pretend to be happy with the treatment they were living with. Women with chronic debilitating medical conditions were refused medical help, called “neurotic”, virtually a guarantee that no other doctor would want to help them.
Yes, some women need men. Some men need women. I don’t want to be enemies at all. But try to understand where the frustration was coming from, please.

Please try to understand my question.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Julianna]

I saw the question and went from there. I have read the Feminine Mystique. I am not in line with National Orgainization of I-don’t-know-what-kind-of-women…however…feminism in postive way has brought about

• the right to vote
• to serve on jury
• to buy and own a home, land a car without a husband’s/father’s signature or permission
• to get credit, have a bank account in your own name
• getting coffee is no longer in a secretary’s job description
• the right to run for political office and be respected for doing so

My great grandmother only dreamed of these things.

Women speak up and state that they have an opinion, a thought, and are able to disagree and still have respect in the workplace. On a lighter note, this quote from an old movie, speaks volumes:

The scene is a woman addressing her boss…

“Ron, my name is Dorothy! It’s not tootsie, or toots, or sweety, or honey, or doll. No, just Dorothy. Now Alan’s always Alan. Tom is always Tom. And, John is always John. I have a name, too! It’s Dorothy, capital D-o-r-o-t-h-y, Dorothy!”

“It’s Dorothy, capital D-o-r-o-t-h-y, Dorothy!”

 

[edwest2]

The dodging and weaving is tremendous. I have to conclude that there are a few apologists for the type of feminism I’ve been asking about here. No one wants to meet this head on. Too bad.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Steve40]

Ah, the Church of Mom. I thought we were talking about Catholicism.

Actually, no, the point has been raised that we Catholics reject that as heresy. It is how we seperated ourselves from pagan religions.

I see you skipped my point. You are criticising your wife for not being submissive, but you, yourself, have trouble submitting to the gift of authority of the Church (‘I don’t agree…’) The best leaders lead by example.

More directly, it sounds like your wife understands service. Rather it is principle bread winner, primary care giver for children, or whatever, she is apparently putting her family first. Giving up a job, income, external validation, and self respect sounds pretty much like submission to the service of others to me.

If there is a breakdown, perhaps it is in your leadership. We’ve already touched on setting an example of submission. But are you sure that your leadership is just? In other words, are you exercising your perceived right of leadership solely for service and common good of your family as a whole, or do you exercise it for yourself?

I’ve been managing lots of people for quite a few years and, in my experience, problems are seldom one sided. When I hear a manager below me complain about an employee I often find that the manager is treating his/her position as an inalianable right, when they should be viewing it as a serious responsibility not just to me, but to the people they oversee.

No, my mom only thinks she has the church of mom but nobody is perfect. She does say she is addicted to the Eucharist and recieves every day so I’m pretty sure the Lord is doing something there.

My stinky leadership has nothing to do with my wife’s inability to be submissive. Hey, if you were a bad manager does that mean the employees stop doing their part and stop listening to you? I like the manager analogy, by the way. I happen to have both a male manage and over him a female manager. They are both very good at what they do including managing people. As for myself I niether have the talent nor the desire for management, except at home where it doesn’t seem to be happening.

But my point is that it’s not about one position or the other being more important it’s about being parts of a union, different parts of a body.

Oh yea, Jesus is Fully Human and Fully God we say it every week at Mass. I’ll give you that my leadership stinks though and it has a lot of room for improvement.

 

[catharina]

To this day, Gloria Steinem is identified as a “feminist icon.” Obviously, no one wishes to answer the question as I wrote it. Other feminists groups are off topic.

Also, God defining Himself as a man, and becoming flesh as a man are off topic as well, in so far as I am interested in the social justice achievements, if any, of feminism.

God bless,
Ed

Sorry, sir, you can’t claim I went off-topic when YOU attempted (and are still attempting) to define God the Father as a man, an entirely off-topic fantasy post. God the Father is NOT a man.

Certainly, you must know that.

I can’t imagine any RC defending the feminist agenda as it was lived out in the States since the 1960s; but then I can’t imagine anyone defining God the Father as a man. Yet you’ve done so.

 

[Pug]

What social justice problems were solved by feminism?. The feminism I’m referring to is as described in the book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

I’ve never read it. What characterizes this “feminism” you are talking about? I am only aware of “feminism” as I have seen it lived by people who profess to be “feminists”. Also, dictionary.com says:

1.the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

 

[strngrnrth]

The dodging and weaving is tremendous. I have to conclude that there are a few apologists for the type of feminism I’ve been asking about here. No one wants to meet this head on. Too bad.

God bless,
Ed

I have explained that it is hard to answer your question itself. We are trying to address the issue in the only possible ways. It is difficult or impossible to evaluate the effect on public policies of three or so books by different authors. I grew up with the fish/bicycle quote as a popular joke, not a political agenda, and I thought it was funny. I was a child. I don’t know what the author meant by it except that maybe she meant that she could live on her own. As for Ms. Steinem, I have read Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, in which she talks about life on the lecture circuit and about the abuse of women and girls worldwide. She is for abortion and I’m certainly not. She seems to see homosexuality as healthy and I definitely don’t. She doesn’t seem to see men as automatically the enemy, though. She just want it to be somewhat easier to be a woman or girl. I don’t recall all the rest of what she said because it was a long time ago. I’m neither dodging nor weaving. I just don’t understand what kind of answers you expect to a question like you asked.

 

[SoCalRC]

The dodging and weaving is tremendous. I have to conclude that there are a few apologists for the type of feminism I’ve been asking about here. No one wants to meet this head on. Too bad.

That’s the problem with battling straw men (or women). They are never around when you need them…

Of course, compassions and honest dialog would be more Christian anyway.

 

[Sarah245]

Sister In Christ:
Just some quick thoughts.
Christ Our Savior did not challenge traditional gender roles in the way you think. He ministered to the poor, to the disabled, the possessed, to women and to men, regardless and without an eye for gender, for He is the Lord God and ministers to all His children. I fail to see whereby He was crossing any gender rules, written or unwritten. Was it any more contemptuous to the pharisees that he allowed the Prostitute to bathe His Feet with her tears than it was for Him to dine with Zaccheus (sp?)? I think not. His intention was not so shallow and base as to merely begin a sexual revolution. He did not intend to disrupt the order of things at all, to the dismay of many Jews, for it was He Who said: “Do not think I am come to destroy the law” (St. Matt. 5:17). When you turn Christ into a sort of gender or economic or political crusader, you lose Christ Jesus, Who came so that we might be freed, not from the toils of this world, but from everlasting death.

Indeed, “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” (St. John 3:16). It would be base to make Christ into a mere rebel of sorts and detract from His true mission, that is to bring all into Him, and to save us from our damnation.

Christ did not admonish Martha by any means, neither was He drawing any attention to Mary choosing a non-womanly role of sorts. Where ever did you get this notion? Mary has chosen to sit at the Feet of Christ and listen whilst Martha bustles about, anxious for the things of this world. To me, and I should think to the Church Fathers, this demonstrates Christ’s praise of the contemplative life above the worldly life of a laywoman. Indeed, it is a higher path to be a religious and more intimately attached to Christ rather than attached to the cares of this world, but of course, not all are called to this radical form of life.

Another cock-eyed interpretation seems to have resulted from your view of the story of Christ referring to His Mother’s motherhood in a slighting way. By no means. He was not distinguishing between “traditional” and “non-traditional” roles, whereas He was distinguishing between the things of this world, and those of Heaven.

I challenge you to show me where in the history of Christianity, and I mean orthodox Christianity and not the Manichees or other heretics, where there were ever in any period “women priests”. The whole idea is a theological fiction as a prerequisite to priesthood is that sharing in the masculinity of our High Priest Jesus Christ. You have fabricated this out of nothing. It is so that at one point there were female deaconesses, but this ceased to be after naked baptism went out of fashion, quite early on. Besides this, deacons and priests are very, very different. Priests share in the person of Christ directly.

If you think it is wrong to call Christ’s Father “Father”, though He called Him such, than it is easy to see where the idea of “priestess” could even come from. It is true that God is not confined to gender, for He is God, however, God’s relationship with us is truly that of masculinity. Think how many times Christ calls Himself the “Bridegroom” in the Gospels. This is not without reason. The Church is the bride, and He is the Bridegroom, offering Himself for His bride, hanging on the cross for us. God has initiated the relationship with us- all of creation- We are His beloved, He is our Divine Lover, Who willed us purely out of love. Indeed, the Holy Mass is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, at which we are united with our Bridegroom. The priest is sanctified to share in Christ’s Personhood, and thereby he too becomes the Bridegroom of the Church, and so it would be a complete theological fiction to have a “priestess” seek this relationship. I believe that the Catechism would refer to it as “intrinsically disordered”.

I am not a cleric of any sorts so if I have said anything not in line with the Church’s official teachings on Scripture or theology I hear by totally disown and disavow those opinions. I am answering to the best of my knowledge, God help me. By the way, this isn’t Sarah, but her friend. She has allowed me to attach my thoughts. God be with her and bless her. God be with you, and all of us, Amen.

 

[Amolibri]

Something I find a little disturbing is that you insist on putting your disagreemeint with your wife in the context of heresy. You don’t appear to say, ‘this is how I want you to behave’. You insist on putting your position as an issue of faith. But, as you have already acknowledged here, that argument itself is based on you rejecting the Church’s Gift of Authority and inserting your own opinion in place of the magisterium. If you cannot, yourself, submit to the teachings of the Church, why would you expect her to submit to you?

Steve, I think you’re in over your head here. You are fortunate to have a tolerant wife.

 

[fix]

I thought you would prefer to read the subject from materials approved by the Church (via its local authority in the US). You appear to sometimes disagree with the Magesterium, but it is a superior source on Church teachings and history.

When have I ever disagreed with the extraordinary or universal and ordinary magisterium? BTW, if a lower authority contradicts a higher authority the lower authority is wrong.

This is for another thread as is the rest of your post.

 

[SoCalRC]

When have I ever disagreed with the extraordinary or universal and ordinary magisterium? BTW, if a lower authority contradicts a higher authority the lower authority is wrong.

This is for another thread as is the rest of your post.

You are making a distinction between prudential and infallible teachings, which is legitimate. However, you seem to believe that prudential teachings are wholly optional. This is false, as has been explained by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

When you reject prudential teachings you are still rejecting the Magesterium. The pope’s unassailable position as absolute moral leader of the Church was clearly established by the First Vatican Council. To reject that authority is “anathema”, outside the Body of Christ.

 

[fix]

You are making a distinction between prudential and infallible teachings, which is legitimate. However, you seem to believe that prudential teachings are wholly optional. This is false, as has been explained by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

This is a new thread. You need to be very specific here. A prudential judgment on a concrete matter, like the Pope on capital punishment, does not bind Catholic conscience. If you do not believe that please see then Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement on the topic.

When you reject prudential teachings you are still rejecting the Magesterium.

Give us an example.

The pope’s unassailable position as absolute moral leader of the Church was clearly established by the First Vatican Council. To reject that authority is “anathema”, outside the Body of Christ.

I agree, so why do you reject him?

 

[SoCalRC]

I fail to see whereby He was crossing any gender rules, written or unwritten.

You might do well to read a bit about the society Jesus lived in. See a Jewish philosophy like Philo of Alexandria to get a glimpse into the status and expected mores regarding women.

Without understanding what conduct was ‘normal’, it is hard to appreciate how daring simple acts like bringing a woman into temple, or referring to her as Daughter of Abraham would be.

His intention was not so shallow and base as to merely begin a sexual revolution. He did not intend to disrupt the order of things at all, to the dismay of many Jews, for it was He Who said: “Do not think I am come to destroy the law” (St. Matt. 5:17).

If he did not expect to upset the “order”, why did he report to John that he was spreading the good news to the poor? From his conception we begin to here how he brings a new order, a path to the kingdom of God. He was crucified because he represented a threat to the current “order”. He came to fullfill the law, to connect us to a loving God who did not approve of the domination systems we had created for ourselves.

When you turn Christ into a sort of gender or economic or political crusader, you lose Christ Jesus, Who came so that we might be freed, not from the toils of this world, but from everlasting death.

If you remove social justice, you remove Christ’s earthly ministry. If you exempt gender you lose the core of our faith. We are all equal children of God.

It would be base to make Christ into a mere rebel of sorts and detract from His true mission, that is to bring all into Him, and to save us from our damnation.

This is circular reasoning. Christ was undoubtedly a rebel, by simply rejecting evil with every fiber of his being and refusing to give in to our baser instincts. We largely failed to to recognize him as the Son of Man during his lifetime and he was crucified like just another trouble maker.

The problem is assuming that his message having meaning makes it “mere”. Christ was directly asked about the path to Salvation several times. Look closely at the Gospels, rather it was an individual (like in Luke) or a reference to Nations (like Matthew) the answer is always the same.

If you abandon his message with the argument that listening to it somehow demeans his status as a sacrificial creature, you are rejecting his true status. Jesus was not an agent of God, Jesus was God, our savior, through whom all things were made.

Christ did not admonish Martha by any means, neither was He drawing any attention to Mary choosing a non-womanly role of sorts.

The whole point of the passage was priorities. You are the one who is worried about some context of feminism. They were two children of God, one was doing earthly matters involving status, the other was turning attention to God.

The lesson is applicable here. Your immediate reaction to my post was to start going after a feminist straw man. I am not a sister, I am male (you don’t have to take my word for it, I served two tours in Vietnam and Uncle Sam used to check).

I also asked the question WHY? The answer is clear, and reflected in our faith. There is a reason we value the live of a zygote as much as the mother who carries it. The number of differences between the zygote and mother are huge, but we consider them meaningless. On the flip side, the differences between any two adults are relatively minor. But in obsessing over maintaining them, we try to involve God. Just as the original poster, and just as you.

Consider, the Gospel tells us directly that the world will be turned, quite literally, upside down, but you need Jesus to not be here to effect what you beleive is the ‘natural order’.

 

[Sarah245]

SoCal,
It sounds like you’re the one rejecting the Magesterium on something major: male priesthood.

 

[Newbie2]

You did? How would you react? I am not, and have never mentioned, what you call moderate feminism. It seems too many here imply that NOW did something good. I have yet to find out what that is.

God bless,
Ed

Ed, I agree that the radical feminism that you describe has been a bad thing. I can’t see anything good that NOW has done either. Sorry to hijack your post to include moderate feminism.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I think a major problem with addressing the implications of ‘feminism’ is the very different DEFINITION that many people have of it. Until you have a consensus of what ‘feminism’ IS, then you can just be arguing PAST each other. One person’s ‘feminist’ is a ‘feminist for life’, another may be ‘hesitant’ about abortion and indeed willing to listen to opposing points of view; another may try not even to THINK about the ‘abortion’ question personally and be all for the ‘equal pay’, and finally, yes, there are indeed the most radical extremists who want to abolish all marriage, refer to pregnancy as a woman with a ‘parasite’, and who do blame ‘men’ for every evil that exists today.

Add to that that even an organization which is radically ‘wrong’ on many topics can still be ‘right’ on other topics, and you have such an entanglement of ‘who did what, when, where, why and how’ that it is virtually impossible to separate the ‘feminists’ of today or yesteryear into categories where, for example, “All NOW members are totally in favor of abortion”, “All Planned parenthood supporters are totally in favor of abortion”, etc. . .particularly when one tries to go ‘back’ and discuss what a woman in 1950 who supported ‘the movement’ was in favor of, or one in 1930, 1910, 1890, 1860, 1848, etc.

 

[edwest2]

More dodging. I started by clearly identifying the subjects involved. Now I’m getting the what is your definition of is? Please, no more dodging.

The National Organization of Women was evil, demonstrably evil. It helped destabilize marriage and poison male-female relationships in general. To this day, women think they were somehow “liberated.” They weren’t, they fell for the lies of a cult. A Cult of Feminism that took them away from rational Church teaching (this place is called Catholic Answers) and into the hands of those who still want to destroy marriage.

A new movie is coming out about a guy who marries a woman he barely knows. After a short time, he realizes she’s not for him and finds someone else. Feminism in action. Marriage is meaningless to them.

God bless,
Ed

 

[SoCalRC]

SoCal,
It sounds like you’re the one rejecting the Magesterium on something major: male priesthood.

Not in the least. I am simply passing on what you would learn in a Catholic High School, that the role of woman has changed.

We have an apostolic Church with the gift of authority, this allows us to see our faith in the proper context for every age and continue to grow in our understanding of our Lord’s teachings.

Consider abortion to save the life of the mother. It was not formally prohibitted until the very end of the 19th century. We still struggle with the teaching, justifying many abortions under double effect even in Catholic hospitals, but that does nto make the teaching wrong. It is the next logical extension in our understanding of our obligation to the human person.

 

[SoCalRC]

This is a new thread. You need to be very specific here. A prudential judgment on a concrete matter, like the Pope on capital punishment, does not bind Catholic conscience. If you do not believe that please see then Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement on the topic.
/QUOTE]

You mean the letter to Bishops taken out of context… We’ve discussed that.
fix;2837010:

Give us an example.

I’ve given you several in the past, but you argued that they were not the same, since they were doctrinal. So let’s use another. From Cardinal Ratzinger, approved by Pope John Paul II, and directed to the laity:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

Look at #4, particularly after the words: “[M]oral principles that do not admit of exception”

These have not all be declared infallible, but they are principles for which Catholics are instructed that they cannot make exception.

I agree, so why do you reject him?

Ah, the ‘I know you are but what am I’ tactic! I haven’t seen that since my kids were small and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was on TV. Somehow I bet you don’t make the same laugh…

What, exactly, have I rejected? I am not trying to invent a Church teaching about proper wifely conduct. I am noting such shocking things as ‘Christ was not evil’ and ‘the Catholic concept of the human person (per the Second Vatican Council) is gender blind…’

Or, the big one - ‘Christ was God, so his teachings are important and respecting them does not diminish him.’

On the other hand, look at what you’ve just said about the Pope, speaking as the Pope (in Encyclical and in our Catechism). How, exactly, does questioning his moral authority on an issue involving the taking of human life not fall under this:

“If anyone should say that the Roman Pontiff has merely the function of inspection or direction but not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters pertaining to faith and morals, but also in matters pertaining to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the entire world, or that he has only the principal share, but not the full plenitutde of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate over all Churches and over each individual Church, over all shepherds and all the faithful, and over each individual one of these: let him be anathema” -Vatican Council I, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, #3

?