The Church and Women

[Julianna]

The early suffragettes were divided over the issue of votes for blacks. Many only supported votes for white women (and men). So it is not true to say that they were there for all women.

By the way, perhaps you should clarify that you do not include abortion among the rights you would not give up.

(While I don’t mind you thinking of me as woman, since I don’t have anything against them, could you please stop writing as if I were one. This is something you have made up, not something I ever said.)

Post 184. I made that clear.

 

[LilyM]

Men too have been beaten and killed and raped and sold as slaves. They have been forced into military service, taken by press gangs, and crushed and suffocated in mine cave-ins. History is filled with men suffering just as it is filled with women suffering. Why are so many people so ready to assume that women suffered more or suffered worse?

And I’ll have you know that I am an insufferable know-it-all which includes history and history of the Church.

And? Women have been forced into sex-slavery and prostitution at a level incomparably greater than that of men. They’ve been MUCH more comprehensively denied the right to own property, the right to vote, the right to enter almost all professions.

They are still, in some countries, barbarically genitally mutilated and frequently killed on suspicion of being unchaste, unlike their male counterparts. They are denied adequate medical care during pregnancy and childbirth because their health and lives are of less value, and so die in appalling numbers.

Other women in India are subject to ‘dowry killings’ because their families can’t afford excessive dowries that are demanded by potential marriage partners. Yet others are forced to commit ‘suicide’ (sati) because their husband dies and the inlaws wish to rid themselves of the burden of supporting the widow. None of the above happens to males.

In India and China some babies are killed, either by abortion or infanticide, simply because they are female. and, given a law, or financial circumstances, that permits people only one child, or only few children, males will inevitably get the preference.

I have yet to hear a case of a single baby being aborted or killed in this way purely and solely because they were male.

In any event, let’s stop the ‘my holocaust is worse than your holocaust’ arguments.

In any event

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Genesis 3:16

To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.

Far from justifying a dominion over women, this passage indicates the condition of humanity without the grace that was lost by Original Sin. The struggles for power to dominate or to keep from being dominated nor an “equality” distinct from our nature is of God’s Grace. The acceptance of God’s Will in whatever distinction this has for the individual, whether in obedience to legitimate authority or in challenging the oppression inherent in sinful humanity, is paramount, and getting it wrong has consequences far beyond not getting one’s due down here on earth. Giving up what is due or enduring an injustice is often a chastisement sent by God for our future blessing. It is in union with God through His Grace that we can and must determine which is correct for us at each time and in each particular circumstance.

 

[MarieaGrace]

Lily M, i have been reading these posts and i do agree with you and all you have said about the sex slavery and how much more woman and children have suffered in this world. I am a woman and children advocate on facebook and i have heard and seen things that even you wouln’t believe, that is happening right now in the world in every country, in fact the Catholic church has set up places for these woman and children to take refuge in because it is so very bad expecialy in Africa, very bad Kenya etc. and California! Look at Haiti now and where is there help? All the money sent there and nothing done to help or even get them out of the elements. What a shame! Mostly woman and children and there is alot of abuse there of woman and children" from where comes their help?" Lord have mercy!

 

[IntegraCatholic]

If these problems exist in every country, don’t we have an obligation to take care of it first in our own countries rather than in Haiti or Africa?