Joanna Moorehead writes in the Guardian today “The crimes of the Catholic church: not in our names”
Oh bullshit, Joanna. This shit is all over the hands of the faithful women who have, as you go to great lengths to say, been the bedrock and the mainstay of the Church, its real power base, for decades and decades and decades.…
HISTORY – Gloria Steinem’s sense of humor revisited
We began looking at the development of 2nd Wave feminism in these two posts here and here, not only from printed “official” materials but also from the perspective of inter-personal rivalries and alignments; and statements and treatment in the popular press.…
HISTORY – Kathleen Parker on Betty Friedan – ‘The Feminine Mystique’ at 50
Kathleen Parker writes a lot of good stuff when it comes to gender, and here’s some more from her. This time she is marking the 50 year anniversary of Betty Friedan’s seminal work in feminism, The Feminine Mystique, and offering comment on it. “Friedan did, indeed, identify and give shape to “the problem that has no name” — female angst born of privilege — but she also helped launch a flotilla of...
GENERAL – [St.] Valentine’s Day and the Holy Bridegroom
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, EVERYBODY!
One of the pleasant chores in planning our wedding – and thank you everyone for you good wishes, I really appreciated that – was choosing scripture for the ceremony.
Naturally I was drawn to Jesus’ references to himself as “the Bridegroom.”…
IT’S SHIT LIKE THIS, FEMINISTS – This Is Why Male Rape Survivors Don’t Come Forward (or Gendered Victim-Blaming)
Background: James Landrith was a 22-year-old active duty Marine 25 years ago when he showed mercy to the pregnant wife of a friend and sheltered her for the night, and then awoke to find her straddling him, with his penis in her, raping him. She threatened him with rape charges if he ever reported her rape of him.…
LADIES’ AUXILIARY OF THE PATRIARCHY – Demonizing Male Sexuality
Male sexuality has traditionally been seen as aggressive in the West, but traditionally that was lauded and validated, sometimes to the point of glorifying behavior we would call stalking nowadays. But it was always also considered dangerous – even when it was also considered vivifying as in ancient Rome where phalluses were scratched into walls as good luck symbols – and a man...
MISOGYNY – Magdalene laundries: Ireland accepts state guilt in scandal
Get ready for some rage.
For decades in Ireland, beginning in 1922, women were detained, sometimes for most of their lives, for having babies out of wedlock or sometimes just for being “morally wayward”. These women were not free to go, worked for no wages in unfit conditions as laundry workers and often were denied any contact with the outside world, including their families.…
DOUBLE STANDARDS – Women in Combat and the Constitutionality of Male-Only Draft Registration
Here’s an interesting development, one that other people predicted. Now that women have been admitted to the maneuver arms the issue of the male-only draft has come up again. The Volokh Conspiracy is a respected center-right law blog. Here’s an article that discusses the constitutionality of the draft in view of this change in policy and also of a court case in 1981 that the exemption of women...
DOUBLE STANDARDS – Disproportionate violence and false equivalence
There is a clear gendered double standard in society when it comes to interpersonal violence, whether it is physical or emotional.
This is the script:
1. If a woman initiates violence on a man, the most he can do is restrain her to prevent further harm, and he may very well be blamed for doing even that.…
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