by Ruth A. Sheets
I will state here that I have been a feminist since before I knew there was a word for what I was. That was true in school as well as my Catholic catechism classes when the teachers in both settings called on the boys far more often and let them act out while reprimanding girls for the same actions. And, I challenged those teachers more than once "How come you call on the boys all the time?" I never got a satisfactory answer, but I came to understand.
One Sunday in church, I looked at the nuns sitting together in their special spot and realized how incredibly talented they were and why it should be that only men could be "on the altar" during mass. Not even these deeply spiritual, well-educated women could ever hope to pass the sacred rail. Everyone who held any role of significance in the church was male. No women need apply, except when I looked around, it was women who filled the pews and kept the church going.
This revelation happened when I was in 8th or 9th grade. At the same time, I visited my mom's Protestant (Schwenkfelder) church and a woman minister came to preach. She was the pastor of a church in the denomination. I was shocked because I had not heard of a woman being pastor. I had just been hoping at the Catholic church girls could serve at mass, read from the scriptures, or sing in the choir. I wasn't at first thinking about women as priests, but the idea grew in my mind, why not! I asked one of our priests why a woman could not become a priest. His answer was textbook, "Jesus and his apostles were all men." When I asked about Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, the 3 women who planned to tend Jesus' tomb, he said they were not true apostles. "Are you sure," I asked. No answer.
My frustration with the church's anti-women stance took me and the other Catholic members of my family from the church at the end of my Sophomore year in high school. None of us returned.
It seems not much has changed in the Catholic Church related to women in the past more than 50 years since I left. Women can now read scripture and pass the sacred rail during mass, but women have no real authority, not even nuns who have given their lives to the church. They do have a female Supreme Court Justice now, though, one who mouths all the traditional Catholic positions along with the other four conservative Catholic males on the Court.
There was significant movement in the 1980s to inclusify the language of scriptures, hymns, and prayers in some denominations, sometimes successfully, but many people in the church pews do not want the inclusive language. It isn't familiar. The Christian understanding of God as fully male in all God's "persons." When I have asked women if it bothers them to see God as only male, most say they like the idea of a loving father in charge. One friend told me that her father was not great and she liked the "good father" image. They said, of course, Jesus was male and the Holy Spirit is just a spirit and they don't see it as male or female, or really, mostly male, but well . . ..
Just as our society is built on the proposition that white is superior to all other races, most societies in the world are built on the proposition that male is superior to female. For such propositions to be sustained, most people must either believe it or be forced to live it. And, often, women are enforcers along with the men.
Just as there have been strong, intelligent, resourceful people of color throughout our history who have been ignored since they were simply, not seen by white people, there have been strong, intelligent, resourceful women of all races who were mostly ignored because they didn't fit male expectations of what a woman should be and anyone who actually met the expectations was no one worthy of notice.
Part of that set of female expectations included indoctrinating the children into the status each family member has: Father at the top, ruler of all he surveys, boy children because they will inherit the father's world, the mother, then the female children. I suspect that kids living in a traditional family today, if asked, could accurately identify the pecking order. And, it's not enough that men are at the top of the human hierarchy, women need to be regularly put down, undermined, and kept in their place for the benefit of all. There are always reasons for this, of course, at least for those who are doing the diminishing.
In some Muslim countries today, women are not to be educated or to only receive the most rudimentary schooling, and nothing in that education particularly useful. It is strange since the Prophet's wives were well educated and his first wife was a business woman. Maybe the men are just plain scared of women and having to share power.
In many other parts of the world, girls are only educated if the boys have been taken care of first. Girls get what is left over. Maybe the thought is that if women are educated they will want more than just bearing and raising children and being the maid for their husband. Can't have that!
Here, women are gaining some political status. There are more than a hundred women in our House of Representatives and a few in the Senate which means we only need around a hundred sixty more to be at full representation since we are more than 50% of the population. That is going to be a struggle because even women are often unwilling to vote for a woman, and feminism has become a dirty word. It is popular for women to proclaim "I'm not a feminist!" When asked what they think a feminist is, women say something like "it means women should take over everything and I like men and . . . ."
In 2016, Hillary Clinton was by far the most qualified person to be president and she did win the popular vote by nearly three million votes. About 53% of the white women who voted, voted against her. They couldn't/wouldn't explain why they chose a man who lied frequently, cheated in his business dealings, thought it was OK to grab women's genitals, insulted anyone who didn't agree with him, and more. I believe it was a very simple choice for those women; he was a man and any man, even the worst man is better than the best woman. When you have been fed all your life with the gruel of "man good – woman bad," it is hard to get past it, and there is very little incentive to do it.
I was speaking recently with a woman I like and respect. We got on the topic of politics and she mentioned that she hates Nancy Pelosi. I asked what about her made her hate the Speaker of the House. She said she didn't like her positions on things. I asked if there were something in particular. She couldn't name one thing. I asked if it could be that Pelosi is a woman in power. She said she didn't think so and added she didn't care for Kamala Harris either, saying it was because she wasn't doing anything. I asked what she thought about her going to Hungary to work on issues related to the Ukrainian refugees. She wasn't aware of that. I asked what she thought VP Harris should be doing. She wasn't sure but "more than she is doing."
I know my friend is not unique. hating or dismissing women is standard operating procedure and nearly always has been. It can be pretty powerful and disheartening when it is a woman who is the misogynist.
I expect some, even many men hating and dismissing women but am still shocked at the level of it among women. Maybe the problem is there have been so few positions of authority for women, if a woman gets one, there is nothing for anyone else.
There are many positions these days created by men for female misogynists. They are the handmaidens of the sexist males. These women who stand against equality claiming "I am already equal, just in a different sphere." are employed by conservative media, churches, educational institutions, the courts, even politics to maintain the status quo.
Yes, Sexism and Misogyny are alive and well and many men and women are participating. We need a new "Age of Enlightenment" where women can be seen as standing for themselves in decision-making and men work to stop men's desperate need to be superior while fearing (knowing) they are not.
Men ushered in the last "Age of Enlightenment" where they continued to hold in place, using "reason" all the old male supremacy ideas of the past while they talked about "all men are created equal." I guess women, it's our turn this time. We need a new "Age of Enlightenment" in which women refuse to let men make decisions for us about our bodies, our education, our faith. Many men are on women's side in this but, alas, some men in power are afraid of losing that power, and to women? The "man good-woman bad" theology needs to be ejected in favor of something far more egalitarian. OK, women, and pro-woman men, we're on! Let's get this done!
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