The Church and Women

[floresco]

Floresco,

You are wrong! The desire for the right to vote was present from the earliest days of the Women’s Movement. In fact, it was Frederick Douglas at The Seneca Falls Convention (1848) who encouraged women to stand firm in this cause.

Yes, the movement that supported women voting did support women voting. That is a tautology. What is in question is whether this movement was representative of women in general. I have been claiming it did not and there was nothing in your quote that countered this.

Today there is a “women’s movement” that claims to speak for all women when it demands abortion as a right and yet there are plenty of women who strongly disagree with them. Is it that hard to believe that the “women’s movement” of the past was just as inaccurate in its claims?

 

[floresco]

:There is a saying when some CAF members call me a feminist:

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

This saying does not become more clever or compelling with repetition and it did not start our well-endowed with those qualities.

In general, people get called feminists when they express sentiments that are abundant and accepted in our society. It requires no strength of character or critical thought to trot out typical feminist positions. The women who oppose feminism are the ones most clearly differentiated from doormats.

 

[floresco]

Women were oppressed by men in history.

Why is this treated as unquestioned dogma? Were women oppressed any more than men were? Do most people know enough about history to have any idea of how men suffered too? Most people have lives filled with sorrow and oppression. As the prayer says, this world is a “valley of tears.” Taking the oppression of women as one’s starting assumption will not lead to good conclusions.

It is unhealthy and inaccurate to view women as an oppressed class and men as an oppressor class. Both sexes have ways in which we hurt each other. We are all called to treat the other with compassion and kindness and to work toward cooperation between the sexes.

 

[Julianna]

This saying does not become more clever or compelling with repetition and it did not start our well-endowed with those qualities.

In general, people get called feminists when they express sentiments that are abundant and accepted in our society. It requires no strength of character or critical thought to trot out typical feminist positions. The women who oppose feminism are the ones most clearly differentiated from doormats.

I will only agree that the “orginal” feminist movement is not what it is today. As today’s NOW has lost it’s way and is not inclusive of all women and their pov.

With that said, what is abundant and accepted is:

I have the right to an individual vote
I have the right to serve my country in the military and/or through political office
I have the right to have my own money
I have the right to purchase with my own money anything I choose, a home, land, a car without “permission” from my husband
I have the right to work outside the home or be a stay at home mother without fear of reprisal from my husband
I have the right to equal salary for the same job performed by a man (this still needs work)
I have the right to remove myself from an abusive, adulterous, addictive spouse and seek legal consequences for the abuse including divorce and incarceration.

As a woman floresco, which one of these rights are you willing to give up?

I am anti-abortion and though women have the right to have one, I remain pro-active in reducing this horrific action.

With each of these rights, there comes respsonibility. The Church has it’s “letter of the law” women and “spirit of the law” women. I am the latter, because I know that my “human condition” makes it impossible to attain total perfection. I do know my God is all knowing and all forgiving of the human condition.

 

[floresco]

As a woman floresco, which one of these rights are you willing to give up?

I am anti-abortion and though women have the right to have one, I remain pro-active in reducing this horrific action.

With each of these rights, there comes respsonibility. The Church has it’s “letter of the law” women and “spirit of the law” women. I am the latter, because I know that my “human condition” makes it impossible to attain total perfection. I do know my God is all knowing and all forgiving of the human condition.

I am not sure what you mean by the word “right” if you can say that women have a right to abortion. Abortion may be legal but there is no right to have an abortion.I also do not know what you are trying to say with your distinction between letter and spirit. It does not seem relevant to anything in the discussion. For that matter, I do not understand why you are addressing me as a woman. Your posts continue to bemuse me.

 

[white_sheep]

Something being legal does not make it a right.

 

[glencora]

"Yes, the movement that supported women voting did support women voting. That is a tautology. What is in question is whether this movement was representative of women in general. I have been claiming it did not and there was nothing in your quote that countered this.

Today there is a “women’s movement” that claims to speak for all women when it demands abortion as a right and yet there are plenty of women who strongly disagree with them. Is it that hard to believe that the “women’s movement” of the past was just as inaccurate in its claims"?

**Floresco,

You can’t determine whether women wanted suffrage by statistics of the 19th century. You must remember that millions of women were uneducated; ignorant. The extent of education for most women was French, sewing, drawing, and dancing! The education was geared toward making them charming wives and mothers. The had no knowledge of history, theology, philosophy, economics, etc. Yes, some women opposed suffrage with full knowledge, but MOST women were too ignorant to comprehend their own oppression! Asking a woman in the 19th century about the merits of suffrage is akin to asking a slave on a southern plantation about the composition of the US government! This is why educated women took the lead in opposing discrimination in higher education, fields of employment, like medicine, ridiculous and dangerous garments, like corsets(women wore them without any comprehension of their physical danger), etc. Frederick Douglas and other educated men and women advocated abolition; not the enslaved!**

 

[MichaelR]

Do most people know enough about history to have any idea of how men suffered too?

I studied history. That’s why I wrote what I wrote, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have made the claim.

I could go through history and give specific examples where women were oppressed in ways that men were not if you truly wish, but I didn’t because I figured that would get long and laborious, get pretty depressing, and that’s not the point I was making. When you say men were oppressed in some ways, yes, they were, but in those cases it tended to be men and women who were oppressed by those who cast it upon them. The difference with women is that there were many things that women suffered that men did not, specifically because of gender.

As I said, the point I was making is that I find it interesting trying to determine whether society affected the teachings given via the Church, of if the Church affected the way society acted.

 

[floresco]

I studied history. That’s why I wrote what I wrote, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have made the claim.

I could go through history and give specific examples where women were oppressed in ways that men were not if you truly wish, but I didn’t because I figured that would get long and laborious, get pretty depressing, and that’s not the point I was making. When you say men were oppressed in some ways, yes, they were, but in those cases it tended to be men and women who were oppressed by those who cast it upon them. The difference with women is that there were many things that women suffered that men did not, specifically because of gender.

As I said, the point I was making is that I find it interesting trying to determine whether society affected the teachings given via the Church, of if the Church affected the way society acted.

There are also examples of ways in which men were oppressed that women were not, specifically because of their gender. I realize that this is not the point you are making. However, you assume that women were oppressed and this assumption underlies your question about the relationship of Church and society. I believe it is necessary to question this assumption.

 

[floresco]

Floresco,

You can’t determine whether women wanted suffrage by statistics of the 19th century. You must remember that millions of women were uneducated; ignorant. The extent of education for most women was French, sewing, drawing, and dancing! The education was geared toward making them charming wives and mothers. The had no knowledge of history, theology, philosophy, economics, etc. Yes, some women opposed suffrage with full knowledge, but MOST women were too ignorant to comprehend their own oppression! Asking a woman in the 19th century about the merits of suffrage is akin to asking a slave on a southern plantation about the composition of the US government! This is why educated women took the lead in opposing discrimination in higher education, fields of employment, like medicine, ridiculous and dangerous garments, like corsets(women wore them without any comprehension of their physical danger), etc. Frederick Douglas and other educated men and women advocated abolition; not the enslaved!

I doubt very much that slaves need to be educated to know that they are oppressed. One does not need to know history or theology to recognize one’s own suffering. I question just how real oppression is that people require education to recognize. How oppressive can something be that does not bother people nor cause them suffering? Yes, people can be indoctrinated to consider something a denial of rights, just like some women today truly believe that lack of abortion is oppressive of women.

Women have been taught to see themselves as oppressed. They have been taught to see that short period when most men could vote and most women could not as evidence of oppression. But there is no reason to think it bothered the majority of women at the time (and if you read my earlier posts, this is not just based on statistics).

Higher education was available to a small minority of people and was considered a luxury. Men also wore “ridiculous and dangerous” garments, including corsets. When you only look at the problems of women without considering the historical context, it gives a distorted view.

 

[MichaelR]

As I said, it’s not an assumption.

I have studied history, meaning I’ve had to study and analyse both primary and secondary source texts. So it is an unbiased conclusion reached via evidence that I have analysed.

Your assumption that I made an assumption is…well…an assumption LOL

 

[floresco]

As I said, it’s not an assumption.

I have studied history, meaning I’ve had to study and analyse both primary and secondary source texts. So it is an unbiased conclusion reached via evidence that I have analysed.

Your assumption that I made an assumption is…well…an assumption LOL

It is not possible for one person to have studied history so broadly that he can state categorically that there was more oppression of women than of men. Do you claim to know about all the oppression of men and all the oppression of women that has ever been? I am assuming that you are not omniscient.

I also question anyone’s ability to reach an unbiased conclusion when the entire system of Western education has adopted the tenets of feminism. How can people who have been taught all their lives to see women as oppressed approach even primary sources with unbiased eyes?

 

[glencora]

Floresco:

I didn’t say that slaves were ignorant of their servitude. They wanted freedom, but WHAT is freedom; how do you use it? These are questions that educated free blacks and sympathetic whites addressed. They showed the slaves that a world existed beyond the plantation. They needed to be healed spiritually, physically, and mentally to fully appreciate freedom. Compare the ex-slaves of Haiti with the US. Haiti still suffers because the slaves wanted freedom, but had no understanding of how to form a nation. I have studied this period extensively. The situation of women in the 19th century was one of few opportunities. Poor women(and children) were physically exploited, while wealthy women were treated as mere ornaments. You should read novels from the time period by Jane Austen, The Bronte Sisters, George Elliot, etc. The Brontes’ published under male pseudonyms. It was considered “unfeminine” for women to write! Even the clothing, as pretty as it appears represented the status of women!

“Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government”.

Mary Wollstonecraft

“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves”.

Mary Wollstonecraft

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags”
**
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre**

“The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it”.

Susan B. Anthony

“There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for any one who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it”.Susan B. Anthony

 

[Julianna]

Floresco:

I didn’t say that slaves were ignorant of their servitude. They wanted freedom, but WHAT is freedom; how do you use it? These are questions that educated free blacks and sympathetic whites addressed. They showed the slaves that a world existed beyond the plantation. They needed to be healed spiritually, physically, and mentally to fully appreciate freedom. Compare the ex-slaves of Haiti with the US. Haiti still suffers because the slaves wanted freedom, but had no understanding of how to form a nation. I have studied this period extensively. The situation of women in the 19th century was one of few opportunities. Poor women(and children) were physically exploited, while wealthy women were treated as mere ornaments. You should read novels from the time period by Jane Austen, The Bronte Sisters, George Elliot, etc. The Brontes’ published under male pseudonyms. It was considered “unfeminine” for women to write! Even the clothing, as pretty as it appears represented the status of women!

“Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government”.

Mary Wollstonecraft

“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves”.

Mary Wollstonecraft

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags”
**
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre**

“The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it”.

Susan B. Anthony

“There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for any one who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it”.Susan B. Anthony

Thank you for the quotes. So true.

Rebecca West is the one I quote most often. yes it was considered unfeminine to be a writer…or for that matter have a brain.

Although I am not happy with the NOW as it is…I am glad these early suffregettes were there for all women. I wouldn’t give a up single right that they paved the way for…floresco might…but I don’t.

 

[MichaelR]

So, is it being suggested that I’m not able to draw a conclusion of my opinion because history is too broad to study sufficiently…but you are allowed to draw the conclusion that women having been oppressed because of gender is exaggerated and a myth woven into education and society despite having to study just as broad a base of evidence as I do? Sounds a little unfair to me.

P.S. I’m not only speaking about votes, clothing and education, there was also the standing in law and acts that now would, frankly, be seen as brutal and a man would go to prison for it these days. You forget, once a woman was married she was considered her husband’s property. He was free to do as he wished. She had no property or money of her own, it became her husband’s. He could even have her committed to an insane asylum based on no real evidence.

 

[floresco]

Floresco:

I didn’t say that slaves were ignorant of their servitude. They wanted freedom, but WHAT is freedom; how do you use it? These are questions that educated free blacks and sympathetic whites addressed. They showed the slaves that a world existed beyond the plantation. They needed to be healed spiritually, physically, and mentally to fully appreciate freedom. Compare the ex-slaves of Haiti with the US. Haiti still suffers because the slaves wanted freedom, but had no understanding of how to form a nation. I have studied this period extensively. The situation of women in the 19th century was one of few opportunities. Poor women(and children) were physically exploited, while wealthy women were treated as mere ornaments. You should read novels from the time period by Jane Austen, The Bronte Sisters, George Elliot, etc. The Brontes’ published under male pseudonyms. It was considered “unfeminine” for women to write! Even the clothing, as pretty as it appears represented the status of women!

I have read novels by all those authors as well as others of that period.

I’m not sure what point you are making about clothing. The clothing of the upper class was impractical and unhealthy for both sexes. Wealthy men and women both followed extremes of fashion.

 

[floresco]

So, is it being suggested that I’m not able to draw a conclusion of my opinion because history is too broad to study sufficiently…but you are allowed to draw the conclusion that women having been oppressed because of gender is exaggerated and a myth woven into education and society despite having to study just as broad a base of evidence as I do? Sounds a little unfair to me.

I have already written a bunch of posts in this thread explaining my ideas and the evidence that I consider supports them. You had made no arguments at all (until this post) other than to say that you have studied history and come to unbiased conclusions.

I have studied (and personally experienced throughout my time in academia) the way that feminism exaggerates and creates myths so I am highly sceptical of conclusions that echo feminist tenets. I dare say that you can give examples of oppression of women. Have you ever been given any encouragement to notice the oppression of men? Is there any way to measure oppression? Is it even possible to compare the oppression of one group to that of another? You need to answer these sorts of questions to convince me that women were oppressed more than men.

 

[floresco]

Although I am not happy with the NOW as it is…I am glad these early suffregettes were there for all women. I wouldn’t give a up single right that they paved the way for…floresco might…but I don’t.

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.)

 

[MarieaGrace]

I have already written a bunch of posts in this thread explaining my ideas and the evidence that I consider supports them. You had made no arguments at all (until this post) other than to say that you have studied history and come to unbiased conclusions.

I have studied (and personally experienced throughout my time in academia) the way that feminism exaggerates and creates myths so I am highly sceptical of conclusions that echo feminist tenets. I dare say that you can give examples of oppression of women. Have you ever been given any encouragement to notice the oppression of men? Is there any way to measure oppression? Is it even possible to compare the oppression of one group to that of another? You need to answer these sorts of questions to convince me that women were oppressed more than men.

If you have any hair, you must be having a bad hair day? You know nothing about history or the history of the church for that matter if you did you would see how woman were very oppressed and beaten and torched and put to death. Woman are raped and sold into slavery and children also What is the matter with your reasoning do you really need to be right? Well you are far from it!

 

[floresco]

If you have any hair, you must be having a bad hair day? You know nothing about history or the history of the church for that matter if you did you would see how woman were very oppressed and beaten and torched and put to death. Woman are raped and sold into slavery and children also What is the matter with your reasoning do you really need to be right? Well you are far from it!

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.