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Andrea Dworkin writes: Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination. |
The Rise of Christianity
Hillary Rodham Clinton has become identified in the public mind as a symbol or icon of radical feminism to a degree that few other women of this decade have. She has become some kind of archetypal femdom "bitch" symbol on the political scene, and an icon either admired (by some), or reviled (by others) as much for image as for substance. For example, Michelle Cottle says of her, "a lot of people would point to [her] as a poster child for female ambition run amok." And in 2008, having come within a hair's breadth of winning the Democratic nomination, let's give credit where credit is due. There can hardly be any doubt that it was Hillary, in a real sense, who paved the way for Sarah Palin. (see here)
An argument can certainly be made that the image of Hillary as "fem-bitch" far exceeds reality, just based on her positions and public statements over time. But Hillary is certainly not the first. Far from it.
Marabel Morgan, a once reviled (in the seventies) feminine writer here in the states, may have been well ahead of the curve. Regarding her stature in our history, D. Keith Mano goes so far as to state that "Marabel has had a more profound effect on American family life than any woman of our time."
Marabel proposed that instead of overturning the family itself, there must be a strategic role for women performing the function of "outroofing" husbands, whether those husbands are deserving or not. Indeed, who can deny that once and a while `we husbands` could stand a little "outroofing" from our wives. But alas, there is apparently a male pride (or is it insecurity?) reluctant to admit the inadequacy such wifely OUTROOFING implies. It's almost a Freudian irony: men pick women who remind them of their mothers, but once married, if she reminds them too much of Mom, husbands' fragile male egos cannot take it. They either revolt .... or perhaps swagger.
Without meaning to wound the fragile egos of white men, it is well to remind them, while salving their guilty conscience, of their crimes and limitations. They are not the only starfish in the sea. The 13th amendment, intended to abolish American slavery, never set woman free. It has been the spirit of woman rising, let us proclaim, that started the ball a-rolling.
Among thinkers, the European intellectual climate has been far more productive of a theoretical rationale on which to base political feminism.
Simone de Beavoir, in her 1952 classic The Second Sex, wrote that women are different from other oppressed groups in that their relationship with the oppressing class is of an entirely different type. There is a kind of inevitable reciprocity, ordained by the fate of the physical creation that made us. But the reality of oppression, where it occurs, is no less real. It is just that the challenges of confronting it are different from those faced by other historically disadvantaged groups.
She wrote:
The bone that unites [woman] to her oppressor is not comparable to any other. The division of the sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history. Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mistsein [or fellowship, togetherness], and woman has not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity with its two halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible. Here is to be found the basic trait of woman: she is the Other in a totality of which the two components are necessary to one another.
Gwyneth Paltrow
walks the walk
Alone in a Crowd Women in the Trades Tell Their Stories is a study of women employed in non-traditional blue collar occupations. This research was a direct outgrowth of the experiences of author Jean R. Schroedel as a garment worker, bus driver and machinist prior to attending college.
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New scholarship is opening up for all of us some facts known only to classicists and antiquarians previously. Early Christianity had a high woman to man ratio. For various reasons, women in the Roman empire found the new Christian "cult" no less attractive than men found Greco-Roman paganism, or the new cult of Mithraism. Rodney Stark, a sociologist, turned the tools of modern social science loose on a field previously dominated by theologians and antiquarians. In his book, The Rise of Christianity, he digs into some fascinating details by and large overlooked by historical Christian religion. Subtitled "How the obscure, marginal Jesus Movement became the dominant religious force in the Western World in a few centuries," the book does just that, prying into the social milieu of the Roman world, and applying statistical analysis to known data, and often coming up with surprises.
Historians have long noted, he observes, that women enjoyed a higher social status in early Chritianity than they did in the Greco-Roman world at large. Stark thinks he has found out why, and it is related with the higher women to man sex ratio of the early Church. In Greco-Roman culture, female infants were harshly devalued, and the "exposure" of baby girls was a widespread and accepted practice. It was rare for a family during the time period Stark cited, even large families, to raise more than one female child.
An exception was the Greek polis of Sparta, where women were accorded a level of respect nearly as high as the Christians of the Roman era. Stark noted the harsh treatment generally doled out to women throughout the Greco-Roman world.
Then came this new cult of Jesus, with its strict prohibitions on infanticide and abortion. The "distinctive subculture" of the Christians began a steady, consitent rise in numbers, particularly in urban areas, particularly among women, with husbands often following, eventually.
And there were other factors.
Like pagans, early Christians prized female chastity, but unlike pagans they rejected the double standard that gave pagan men so much sexual license. Christian men were urged to remain virgins until marriage, and extramarital sex was condemned as adultery. Chadwick noted that Christianity ' regarded unchastity in a husband as no less serious a breach of loyalty and trust than unfaithfulness in a wife.' Even the great Greek physician Galen was prompted to remark on Christian 'restraint in cohabitation'
More proof of the pro-female tilt of early Christianity comes in the form of scriptural clues.
Romans 16:1
I Tim 3:11Lo and behold, the King James Bible translates the word 'diaconos' in this Romans passage as servant when it in fact should more accurately be rendered deaconess. And in Timothy, the word wives should be render women. (Also referring, apparently, to deaconesses). If you have access to a Strong's concordance, check for yourself.
You can find others stating that the religion (Islam) is evil, because it sanctions a limited polygamy. But you do not hear as a rule the criticism which I spoke out one day in a London hall where I knew that the audience was entirely uninstructed. I pointed out to them that monogamy with a blended mass of prostitution was a hypocrisy and more degrading than a limited polygamy.
Naturally a statement like that gives offence, but it has to be made, because it must be remembered that the law of Islam in relation to women was until lately, when parts of it have been imitated in England, the most just law, as far as women are concerned, to be found in the world. Dealing with property, dealing with rights of succession and so on, dealing with cases of divorce, it was far beyond the law of the West, in the respect that was paid to the rights of women. Those things are forgotten while people are hypnotized by the words monogamy and polygamy and do not look at what lies behind it in the West-the frightful degradation of women who are thrown into the streets when their first protectors, weary of them, no longer give them any assistance…
I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the faith which preaches Monogamy. In Al-Quran the law about woman is more just and liberal. It is only in the last twenty years that Christian England, has recognized the right of woman to property, while Islam has allowed this right from all times… It is a slander to say that Islam preaches that women have no souls.
Few westerners realize that in the 7th Century, Islam liberated attitudes towards women and granted them specific social, political and economic rights long before Western societies did, such as the equal right to education, to conduct business, to own and inherit property, and not to be coerced into a marriage, instead introducing a marriage contract, a kind of early pre-nuptial agreement, to assure the rights of the woman in particular.
According to the Quran, God or Allah said, "I waste not the labor of any that labors among you, be you male or female--the one of you is as the other." And, the Prophet Mohammad said, "All people are equal. They are as equal as the teeth on a comb."
