Ship of Fools: God's Really Big Mistake

Thread: God's Really Big Mistake Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

And How Men Have Tried to Put It Right, Often in His Name.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed a coming together of ideas, which go back a long way, which suggest, often by religious leaders, that in the creation of women there were a number of errors, possibly including making them at all.

1. Heads. There it is in the Bible, women need men to be their heads, thus suggesting that their own heads are not sufficient for the task. Not only that, but when it was moved that women should attend university, it was suggested that the mere use of their heads would wither their wombs. So, God has given us heads, but we really, really are not meant to use them. (See debates on bishops.)

2. Mouths. The Bible again, not suffering a woman to speak in religious gatherings. The invention of the Nag's Bridle to deal with women who did speak too much. The research which shows that in assessing who spoke most in meetings, men assessed contributions by women, which amounted to less than the men, as being too much. Mary Beard, in lecture last night at the London Review of Books spoke on this, citing Homer, showing Telemachus telling his mother to go upstairs as speech was for men as the first occurrence in literature of a man telling a woman to shut up. (Nasty piece of work that young man showed signs of becoming with regards to women.) She pointed out how women are often accused of being strident, or whining - we had the word shrill used on the women comedian thread - and drowned out in Parliament. (Incidentally, I wonder how much her surname arouses the ire of those who twit against her.) The sound of women's singing voices is in Jewish law considered inappropriate where men are engaged in prayer - or even anywhere else in some cases.

3. Hair. Not only the Muslims wanting women's hair to be covered because of its effect on men, but Orthodox Jews having wives be shaved. This one has confused interpretations, with some groups wanting the hair left long, even when it looks odd on the elderly. This actually imposes limitations on behaviour as long loose hair can inhibit movement. (See feet.)

4, Feet. The Chinese, notably, thought women's feets too big. What might they have been doing with real-sized feet? Running, specifically running away? Walking around to share ideas with their neighbours? And, before excusing this as long ago and far away, take a look at fashion shoes, and their effect on women's movement.

5. And worst, the excision of women's vital parts. Muslims and Christians in some cultures both believe that religion demands that these parts are surplus to requirements, and they should be removed, and, in the worst cases, the wound sewn to leave only a small aperture. And these believers are probably among those most likely to claim that my post title is blasphemous. Tertullian, and others, believed these parts to be the devil's gateway.

Lastly, it seems that down the ages, the opinion among Christians that God had somehow erred in creating women at all has been attributed to various Church Fathers, who may probably be excused from later misunderstandings. It looks as if Thomas Aquinas were responding to others' beliefs when discussing this subject, as he denies the error, stating that women were essential for childbearing. That the idea stuck, though, shows that there were many who could not get rid of it.

So, it seems as if for a very long time, there has been an idea that women should be anencephalic, voiceless, footless, and with limited sexual parts. Like this... An elderly European Lady

It is interesting that in lecturing on her, John H. Lienhard of Houston University, said this...

quote:
She really cuts a remarkable figure. Her fired clay body is 4½ inches tall, with exaggerated hips and breasts. She leaves no doubt about the artist's intent. This was to be the unmistakable image of woman

Source

I note that the missing feet have been broken off - there are plenty more where the image is entire, and footless. I picked one which had the features I wanted and was a good piece of art as well. There's a lot of them in this thesis... Thesis on figures where I nearly chose Fig 14, and a lot of discussion about the possibly mind sets of the artists.

What has been odd is that when I was looking at images and discussions on these Paleolithic images has been the way the male archeologists discuss the detailed carving of the vulva, and how when I look at them, I see a raised area with a simple slit. They are nothing like the celtic carvings of Sheila-na-gigs.

Why do men find it so hard to take on the way women actually are? With heads, minds, voices, and, as the Bible says, in the image of God. (Despite Augustine writing we are only in God's image when paired with a man, while a man can be God's image alone.)

[ 15. February 2014, 14:11: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

What a great OP - best thing Ive read for a very long time.

Posted by Vade Mecum (# 17688) on :

The OP ignores the effect of the Fall in the thinking of its hate figures. Most of these impositions on women are to correct, not an error on the part of God, but what the practitioners see as post-Lapsarian sinfulness. Naturally, they are often wrongheaded, but to accuse them of believing God to be wrong, or acting as though He was, is tacitly to claim that the Fall changed nothing in mankind's nature, and in no way marred the image. Which is problematic verging on Pelagian.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

I'm sorry, Vade Mecum, but regardless of intent or belief it is still rubbish. Men cannot keep their dicks in their trousers, bear other than the sound of their own voices and cannot manage to rationally defend their own ideas; so women must suffer for this? There is no logic beyond control.

[ 15. February 2014, 17:14: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Vade Mecum (# 17688) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'm sorry, Vade Mecum, but regardless of intent or belief it is still rubbish. Men cannot keep their dicks in their trousers, bear other than the sound of their own voices and cannot manage to rationally defend their own ideas so women must suffer for this? There is no logic beyond control.

Yes. Truly you show me a paradisaical post-sexist paradigm. [Roll Eyes]

But seriously: didn't say they were right, nor balanced, nor nuanced, nor justified. Just that the Oper was tilting at a slight straw man. As are you.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

If you are saying that not all men who believe in "traditional" roles for women are about control, I would agree. However, ISTM, it is still a large enough percentage to exclude proper use of the term straw man.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

You can see the inherent anti-woman bias in the above statements: nothing that a woman could say could possibly be acceptable, just because...

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Great OP, Penny. I noticed on Owen Strachan's blog the statement that home-making 'is built into the very physiology of a woman’s body. It is backed up by the way that Eve is cursed.'

(Incidentally, it's in this blog that Strachan appears to say that men who do laundry are a 'man fail' also).

Anyway, I'm still trying to sort out the above statement about women's physiology and Eve's curse - does this mean that women are biologically bound to give birth painfully?

And then they are very bad if they get a job as a surgeon or a teacher, I suppose?

Wacky, weird and woeful, but apparently some conservatives go along with this!

http://owenstrachan.com/2011/11/02/the-dad-mom-and-the-man-fail/

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

Excellent OP, Penny S, beautifully put [Overused]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

So, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, complementarianism is simultaneously God's design for the home, and also a product of Eve's curse? I suppose the idea is that for men the necessity to provide, and for women, the necessity to maintain the home - are actually burdens, because of the fall?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Thank you quetzalcoatl and Pine Marten. (I've already thanked leo.) I posted with some trepidation, having been driven to rewrite after deleting the first draft. One learns silence.

My best friend was somewhat astonished by the noises from my chair when I read the Owen Strachan blog - thank goodness for the sensible comments below.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

I've just read some of Owen's blog. Good grief.

This is anecdotal, but: I grew up in the 1950s, and yes, my dad went out to work every day. However, my mum also went out to work every day, early morning and evenings, as an office cleaner, and also worked at times in the local Co-op. When she was out my dad looked after us and did the cooking and cleaning, and when he was out she did it. We were working class and I grew up without a distinct sense of something being 'women's work'. My dad was none the less a 'man' for what he did.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

Sorry, but I really feel that some of my fellow Christians are just a bunch of tossers.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Ooh, Strachan can fuck right off. Quite happy to take him out back and see how many rounds of Biblical Manhood he could stand up to.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

A great post, but one tiny nitpick - head shaving is done by a tiny group of Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic women, and I believe it's actually only the Satmar Hasids that do it. The vast vast majority of Orthodox Jewish women do not shave their heads and cover their (intact) hair with a wig or a headscarf.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

OK already - it's still a problem with hair as it is. Maybe I should have added nuns, in the past.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
OK already - it's still a problem with hair as it is. Maybe I should have added nuns, in the past.

Given the misconceptions about Orthodox Judaism that exist, I don't think it's unreasonable to want to correct that - and Orthodox Judaism has far more restrictions on men's hair/beards than it does women's. Re nuns, do you mean veiling or cropping the hair? Because both those things happen nowadays too. I don't think either is a bad/sexist thing. Cropped hair under a heavy nun's veil is just very practical. Veiling helps to create a distinctive look for a nun and to show the calling of the religious life - I don't see it as any different to a minister wearing a dog collar (and of course, not all nuns wear a habit anymore).

Religious requirements towards women's hair/dress/behaviour etc vary so much, and are part of Christianity as much as or even more than other religions (before we start blaming the Other). The patriarchy is at the real heart of it all - cultural patriarchy has become religious law, not the other way around.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Re nuns, do you mean veiling or cropping the hair? Because both those things happen nowadays too. I don't think either is a bad/sexist thing. Cropped hair under a heavy nun's veil is just very practical.

Veils and cropping hair hide/mask, a dog collar does not. Hard to see this as anything but sexist.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
I've just read some of Owen's blog. Good grief.

This is anecdotal, but: I grew up in the 1950s, and yes, my dad went out to work every day. However, my mum also went out to work every day, early morning and evenings, as an office cleaner, and also worked at times in the local Co-op. When she was out my dad looked after us and did the cooking and cleaning, and when he was out she did it. We were working class and I grew up without a distinct sense of something being 'women's work'. My dad was none the less a 'man' for what he did.

Yes, my mum always went to work, and would have gone crazy if she hadn't done; and of course, they needed the money.

I guess the Strachan type view is particular to some conservative US churches; I can't connect it to British society at all, although I suppose there are some similar people here.

What a boring life for the woman; what does she do when the kids have grown up? Iron sheets all day?

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Vade Mecum:
The OP ignores the effect of the Fall in the thinking of its hate figures.

The Fall is unlikely to have motivated the Chinese in their foot binding.

Posted by TomM (# 4618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Re nuns, do you mean veiling or cropping the hair? Because both those things happen nowadays too. I don't think either is a bad/sexist thing. Cropped hair under a heavy nun's veil is just very practical.
Veils and cropping hair hide/mask, a dog collar does not. Hard to see this as anything but sexist.

But it is not an exclusively female thing - it is still the case for some male orders that monks receive the tonsure (which used to be widespread). If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Orthodox still practice a limited form of it at baptism and admission to the minor orders.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Tom, I was obviously missing out and editing things quite a lot, and had havered a bit over hair. Especially as in the case of men, there is often a strong suggestion in some religious groups that men's hair is meant to be short. Clearly not in the case of Sikhs, or various sadhus in India. Hair is clearly a very peculiar matter indeed - and as for modern trends in depilation seriously questionable.

Maybe I should have left it out.

The reason I referred to the past with regard to nuns was because I had seen suggestions that the cropping went as far as shaving rather than short cuts, and what is generally seen nowadays is a normal short cut. (Except, of course, that in the last few decades, for any woman to have short hair has become much less the norm.) Also, I was cutting some slack because the veiling is a carrying forwards into the present of headwear which was general among all women at the times the various orders were established.
Yes, short hair is practical*. So why are women abandoning it? (I had a girl in my class who wanted short hair, but her mother wouldn't let her have it cut. Quite the opposite of children in my youth who wanted to grow their hair but their mothers wouldn't let them. Nowadays they won't even have it cut when there's an epidemic of nits.)
*Like trousers. A UKIP supporter claimed that women were wearing them as an act of hostility to men! See also flat shoes.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

On the subject of shoes, my father-in-law (normally not sexist at all) once remarked that a pair of flat shoes I was wearing looked very masculine.

My response - "Well, yes. Men and women both have foot-shaped feet."

Posted by TomM (# 4618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Tom, I was obviously missing out and editing things quite a lot, and had havered a bit over hair. Especially as in the case of men, there is often a strong suggestion in some religious groups that men's hair is meant to be short. Clearly not in the case of Sikhs, or various sadhus in India. Hair is clearly a very peculiar matter indeed - and as for modern trends in depilation seriously questionable.

Maybe I should have left it out.

The reason I referred to the past with regard to nuns was because I had seen suggestions that the cropping went as far as shaving rather than short cuts, and what is generally seen nowadays is a normal short cut. (Except, of course, that in the last few decades, for any woman to have short hair has become much less the norm.) Also, I was cutting some slack because the veiling is a carrying forwards into the present of headwear which was general among all women at the times the various orders were established.
Yes, short hair is practical*. So why are women abandoning it? (I had a girl in my class who wanted short hair, but her mother wouldn't let her have it cut. Quite the opposite of children in my youth who wanted to grow their hair but their mothers wouldn't let them. Nowadays they won't even have it cut when there's an epidemic of nits.)
*Like trousers. A UKIP supporter claimed that women were wearing them as an act of hostility to men! See also flat shoes.

I'm certainly with you on hair (and veiling for that matter) being complicated questions. I'd also suggest that monks and nuns doing something (or not) is very different to calls for the general laity to do it, because of the explicit and absolute giving of self that vocation involves.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

<snip>
*Like trousers. A UKIP supporter claimed that women were wearing them as an act of hostility to men! See also flat shoes.

Are people *still* banging on about trousers?!? As Dorothy L. Sayers said in her most excellent essay 'Are Women Human?' (from 1938!): '...as you men have discovered...they are comfortable, they do not get in the way like skirts and they protect the wearer from draughts around the ankles. As a human being, I like comfort and dislike draughts.'

Although somewhat dated in some of her examples, her essays are well worth reading, are witty and full of common sense - and obviously (and unfortunately) are still relevant today!

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

TomM, I would agree about the particular sacrifices being made under the discipline of religious orders but for one thing. Why those particular sacrifices, which weigh much more on the women than the men? (Except for Buddhist monks and nuns who both shave. And if Japanese, and dressed identically, are very hard to tell apart, in my experience. So their religious life minimises the differences, rather than seeking to maximise them.)

[ 17. February 2014, 19:05: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Tom, I was obviously missing out and editing things quite a lot, and had havered a bit over hair. Especially as in the case of men, there is often a strong suggestion in some religious groups that men's hair is meant to be short. Clearly not in the case of Sikhs, or various sadhus in India. Hair is clearly a very peculiar matter indeed - and as for modern trends in depilation seriously questionable.

Maybe I should have left it out.

The reason I referred to the past with regard to nuns was because I had seen suggestions that the cropping went as far as shaving rather than short cuts, and what is generally seen nowadays is a normal short cut. (Except, of course, that in the last few decades, for any woman to have short hair has become much less the norm.) Also, I was cutting some slack because the veiling is a carrying forwards into the present of headwear which was general among all women at the times the various orders were established.
Yes, short hair is practical*. So why are women abandoning it? (I had a girl in my class who wanted short hair, but her mother wouldn't let her have it cut. Quite the opposite of children in my youth who wanted to grow their hair but their mothers wouldn't let them. Nowadays they won't even have it cut when there's an epidemic of nits.)
*Like trousers. A UKIP supporter claimed that women were wearing them as an act of hostility to men! See also flat shoes.

Short hair (especially in little girls) is seen as deeply unfeminine now - and it's interesting that in the mid-20th Century that wasn't the case at all. I do think that the culture for little girls has shifted and is much more about being feminine and less about just being a child.

Speaking as a long-haired woman, short hair is more practical but I enjoy having long hair and doing things with it and having fun hairstyles. I just keep it tied back when I need to do something which my hair could get in the way of. Also my hair grows quickly so keeping it short takes a lot of upkeep and expense for me.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

RC monks used to have their hair tonsured, so it wasn't just nuns would had to endure shaving.

Regarding the conversation in general, I'm ambivalent. How are we meant to understand God's designs in creating our world? He made childbirth, the biggest 'miracle', the exclusive preserve of women, so it's not hard to see how humans living in difficult circumstances throughout history saw this as a godly starting point for ordering their societies. No reliable contraception, no sure fire way to establish paternity, no welfare state to protect poor families, little career flexibility, fear of marauding criminals and enemy tribes in an age of ineffective crime prevention and resolution, etc..... If God created that world then he didn't create one that was going to be amenable to women's self-realisation as entirely autonomous beings.

The transition from that world to this one has been difficult, and the process isn't over yet. While women are still the ones who give birth - and where women rather than men are paid to look after richer women's babies - can we say that the old gender-based stereotypes can entirely fizzle away?

In a novel I read recently one of the characters, who was a gay Christian, reflected that while children are born to women as a result of sex with men, the sex war will never truly end. It's a shocking thing to say. But it occurs to me that should such ideas spread more widely in our culture then one day we may need a new theology to deal with them, as they do have pretty huge implications, for Christianity as for everything else!

[ 17. February 2014, 21:47: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
RC monks used to have their hair tonsured, so it wasn't just nuns would had to endure shaving.

Regarding the conversation in general, I'm ambivalent. How are we meant to understand God's designs in creating our world? He made childbirth, the biggest 'miracle', the exclusive preserve of women, so it's not hard to see how humans living in difficult circumstances throughout history saw this as a godly starting point for ordering their societies. No reliable contraception, no sure fire way to establish paternity, no welfare state to protect poor families, little career flexibility, fear of marauding criminals and enemy tribes in an age of ineffective crime prevention and resolution, etc..... If God created that world then he didn't create one that was going to be amenable to women's self-realisation as entirely autonomous beings.

The transition from that world to this one has been difficult, and the process isn't over yet. While women are still the ones who give birth - and where women rather than men are paid to look after richer women's babies - can we say that the old gender-based stereotypes can entirely fizzle away?

In a novel I read recently one of the characters, who was a gay Christian, reflected that while children are born to women as a result of sex with men, the sex war will never truly end. It's a shocking thing to say. But it occurs to me that should such ideas spread more widely in our culture then one day we may need a new theology to deal with them, as they do have pretty huge implications, for Christianity as for everything else!

Well, that rather ignores those who fall outside the gender binary, or flout gender norms in other ways - especially transgender men who don't have hysterectomies and bear children.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Indeed. The gay Christians in that novel I mentioned flout gender norms in some ways, e.g. by having children. But is the Bible at all helpful in that respect, especially regarding women? Can it help women in general to flout such norms or is it a hindrance, as the OP suggests?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Indeed. The gay Christians in that novel I mentioned flout gender norms in some ways, e.g. by having children. But is the Bible at all helpful in that respect, especially regarding women? Can it help women in general to flout such norms or is it a hindrance, as the OP suggests?

I don't think the OP is talking about genderqueer people or queer people flouting gender norms as an expression of their queerness though, it's talking about norms that are enforced rather than chosen.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Jade Constable

My original post wasn't about gay people; as I said, the fictional gay person I mentioned in my post was referring to sexual relations between men and women, and the children that result, which is of course a normative process. My aim was to question whether this basic heterosexual occurrence and its outcome essentially compromise the search for total sexual equality. Moreover, I was asking to what extent our understanding of God could incorporate that search, even if it takes us to heterosexual extremes. (You don't have to be gay to conceive children without sexual intercourse.)

It also occurs to me that although most of the norms referred to in this thread were enforced in cultures which hardly recognised individual autonomy (gender-wise or not), we could argue that the Bible represents a long history of individuals constantly engaged in a struggle to pursue their own destiny against the normative restraints of their culture.

So, despite the misogynistic angle of some Bible stories the thrust of the text in the long term has perhaps been to encourage individual self-realisation (and hence feminism) leading to the much freer societies we have in the West today. After all, Christianity experiences tension with both group conformity and individualism. Maybe this challenging duality is God's intention rather than something he's made a 'really big mistake' about....

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Jade Constable

My original post wasn't about gay people; as I said, the fictional gay person I mentioned in my post was referring to sexual relations between men and women, and the children that result, which is of course a normative process. My aim was to question whether this basic heterosexual occurrence and its outcome essentially compromise the search for total sexual equality. Moreover, I was asking to what extent our understanding of God could incorporate that search, even if it takes us to heterosexual extremes. (You don't have to be gay to conceive children without sexual intercourse.)

It also occurs to me that although most of the norms referred to in this thread were enforced in cultures which hardly recognised individual autonomy (gender-wise or not), we could argue that the Bible represents a long history of individuals constantly engaged in a struggle to pursue their own destiny against the normative restraints of their culture.

So, despite the misogynistic angle of some Bible stories the thrust of the text in the long term has perhaps been to encourage individual self-realisation (and hence feminism) leading to the much freer societies we have in the West today. After all, Christianity experiences tension with both group conformity and individualism. Maybe this challenging duality is God's intention rather than something he's made a 'really big mistake' about....

I know your original post wasn't about queer people (not hetereosexual doesn't equal homosexual), the point I was (badly) trying to make was that it's not a case of strictly heterosexual and cisgender men and women participating in the struggle against the patriarchy/gender wars/whatever you want to call it, whilst the rest of us are just onlookers. Misogyny and the patriarchy affect us too, sometimes more, usually in different ways.

Cis women bearing children is certainly part of the reason why trans men who bear children are seen as 'reverting' to an undesirable state, and trans women are mocked for wanting to be like cis women. Femaleness having a low status does not just affect those women who were designated female at birth.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
RC monks used to have their hair tonsured, so it wasn't just nuns would had to endure shaving.

For the moment, let us put aside the hair thing. What of the veil? How can on justify the veil in a non-sexist way?
Most requirements of men have been to show their devotion full stop, most for women have been to hide their sex as well.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Most requirements of men have been to show their devotion full stop, most for women have been to hide their sex as well.

I've had a similar thought about this.

In the Abrahamic religions, throughout most of history leadership roles have been left to men. So as you say, men have had requirements related to devotion, while women seem to have had requirements related to their gender.

But I wonder if there's a direct relationship between these two things. That is, women are excluded from leadership and so they can best show their religious commitment by taking on these ostentatious dress and hairstyle requirements.

For example - in Islam it is not required for women to attend mosque to pray. Many Muslim women never attend mosque at all; and of course if they do it's at the back or in a different room, where they won't be seen by the men either. So they don't have a way to engage in public communal worship, in the same way men do. But how can they signal to their community and the outside world how committed they are, if they can't preach and pray? They can cover up.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I don't think it's exactly hiding their sex that's enforced on women, more like hiding themselves. After all, except for the Japanese Buddhist nuns I met, the hiding (in public, not the hiding which encloses women in the equivalent of the Ancient Greek women's quarters) consists of behaviours which draw attention to which sex they are, while obliterating any individual identity, and inhibiting certain freedoms. (Just seen some more pictures of Afghani women in burkhas.) (In Dover, there used to be a house of continental nuns who wore magnificent and large starched coifs - the film of The Handmaid's Tale drew on the design, I think. Designed to enforce custody of the eyes, possibly, as they couldn't see to the side. Some of them used to go down to the beach, in pairs, and paddle. In habits. So I'm told.)

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Most requirements of men have been to show their devotion full stop, most for women have been to hide their sex as well.
I've had a similar thought about this.

In the Abrahamic religions, throughout most of history leadership roles have been left to men. So as you say, men have had requirements related to devotion, while women seem to have had requirements related to their gender.

But I wonder if there's a direct relationship between these two things. That is, women are excluded from leadership and so they can best show their religious commitment by taking on these ostentatious dress and hairstyle requirements.

For example - in Islam it is not required for women to attend mosque to pray. Many Muslim women never attend mosque at all; and of course if they do it's at the back or in a different room, where they won't be seen by the men either. So they don't have a way to engage in public communal worship, in the same way men do. But how can they signal to their community and the outside world how committed they are, if they can't preach and pray? They can cover up.

Women aren't required to attend mosque but they're not discouraged from doing so - it's just so that they don't have an obligation which could conflict with childcare. Not a sexism-free statement in itself mind! But female imams do exist (although are rare), and not all Muslim women wear a headcovering. Headcovering in Islam is cultural more than anything else - Jewish and early Christian women in the Middle East wore headcoverings extremely similar to the hijab!

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I don't think it's exactly hiding their sex that's enforced on women, more like hiding themselves. After all, except for the Japanese Buddhist nuns I met, the hiding (in public, not the hiding which encloses women in the equivalent of the Ancient Greek women's quarters) consists of behaviours which draw attention to which sex they are, while obliterating any individual identity, and inhibiting certain freedoms. (Just seen some more pictures of Afghani women in burkhas.) (In Dover, there used to be a house of continental nuns who wore magnificent and large starched coifs - the film of The Handmaid's Tale drew on the design, I think. Designed to enforce custody of the eyes, possibly, as they couldn't see to the side. Some of them used to go down to the beach, in pairs, and paddle. In habits. So I'm told.)

Gender, not sex. They are not the same thing!

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Different thread to discuss in depth, perhaps, but the clothings we are discussing on this thread are designed with the concepts of male and female. Gender as other than this is relatively new to most societies and not part of the clothing design.

PennyS, when the sexes wear exactly the same clothing, it is not necessarily sexist.

[ 18. February 2014, 18:03: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

lilBuddha, that was why I excepted the Japanese Buddhists - it is entirely the opposite of dressing people differently to emphasis the differences presumed to exist.

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Women aren't required to attend mosque but they're not discouraged from doing so - it's just so that they don't have an obligation which could conflict with childcare. Not a sexism-free statement in itself mind! But female imams do exist (although are rare), and not all Muslim women wear a headcovering. Headcovering in Islam is cultural more than anything else - Jewish and early Christian women in the Middle East wore headcoverings extremely similar to the hijab!

I realize the situation is nuanced (and have Muslims in my blood and in-law families) but was attempting to simplify for the sake of discussion.

I think the wider point about the relationship between women's role in religion, and them taking on clothing choices that designate their religious identification publicly, is still at least worth a thought.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Men cannot keep their dicks in their trousers, bear other than the sound of their own voices and cannot manage to rationally defend their own ideas; so women must suffer for this?

Some men or all men?

If you mean the latter, then don't lecture us about logic.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Men cannot keep their dicks in their trousers, bear other than the sound of their own voices and cannot manage to rationally defend their own ideas; so women must suffer for this?
Some men or all men?

If you mean the latter, then don't lecture us about logic.

Perhaps you missed my following post

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you are saying that not all men who believe in "traditional" roles for women are about control, I would agree. However, ISTM, it is still a large enough percentage to exclude proper use of the term straw man.

I would say, however, that those who do not contend are also culpable to an extent. But this is not a male trait so much as a human trait.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Different thread to discuss in depth, perhaps, but the clothings we are discussing on this thread are designed with the concepts of male and female. Gender as other than this is relatively new to most societies and not part of the clothing design.

PennyS, when the sexes wear exactly the same clothing, it is not necessarily sexist.

Not true at all. Many ancient cultures were well aware of those outside the gender binary. Eunuchs as mentioned in the Bible, for instance, occupied a role that would be seen as genderqueer nowadays. It is a false assumption that the separation and intersections between sex, gender and desire are new phenomenons.

Posted by ElderCat (# 18015) on :

Great thread!!! God made a mistake... [Ultra confused]

Guess He ain't God, then, right?? Hair today, gone tomorrow... [Big Grin]

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Different thread to discuss in depth, perhaps, but the clothings we are discussing on this thread are designed with the concepts of male and female. Gender as other than this is relatively new to most societies and not part of the clothing design.

Males cross-dressing were a normal part of the prostitute market in India for quite a long time, for instance, although the cross-dressing was probably deliberate in order to give the customers a nice surprise when they unwrapped the package.

And ISTR a news item about an airline operating from Indonesia in which the cabin crew were all transgender, which might imply that this "other" state has been accepted in their society well enough that it won't hurt the business.

Similarly, many of the native tribes of North America honoured the idea of a "two-spirited" person (Male with female attitudes or v.v.) long before the white men brought their closed-minded priests/proselytisers along.

Not everyone has as much difficulty with all this as our own mechanical society does.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Some societies have and some do have more fluid gender identification. This does not alter my statements here.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

And I noticed that 'two spirit' is one of the new gender categories on Facebook, which is good to see. Also similar perhaps are the fa'fafine of Samoa, often described as a third gender, but not as gay. Becoming more well known in the UK, since one of the England rugby stars - Manu Tuilagi - has a fa'fafine brother, who wears dresses - shock, horror.

Also very nice to see someone distinguish sex, gender and sexual orientation - yes!

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Facebook get the recognition and familiarisation and this is good. But that is not why they did it.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Bumping this back up.

I drive taxi in my retirement. Yesterday I picked up a Middle Eastern student to take her to Walmart and then back to her apartment. I have picked her up a number of times previously.

She wears a hajib when out in public.

On the way back she said she wanted to ask me a question. She said she was in love with a man but the man does not know it. She wondered how to express that love since, in her culture, it should come from the man.

Turns out they have never dated.

I told her the first step is to find out if the man is interested in her. I suggested three things she can do: 1) smile at him when he looks at her. 2) try to engage him in conversation show she is interested in him--and if all else fails, have a mutual friend share her interest in him.

I then said these days it is becoming more normal for American women to be more forward in expressing their interest. She just laughed and said it would not be allowed in her culture.

Question: how would you have answered her concern?

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

Penny S:

Did your OP mean that the Paleolithic sculpture mentioned is interpreted as men's concept at the time of how women should look? Do we even know that the sculpture was made by a man, or that society at that time was patriarchal? The covering or confinement to the home of women is something that people often argue emerged with agriculture - in farming and herding societies. Paleolithic societies may or may not have been relatively egalitarian or even matriarchal in some ways - anthropologists can debate all they want but we'll probably never know.

I know people see exaggerated breasts and hips and relative absence of definition of other body parts and they think all about male objectification of women, but there was a strain in anthropology arguing that the paleolithic venus figures were signs of a fertility/earth-goddess worshipping matriarchal culture. That strain was a bit influenced by feminist politics, and as the speaker says in your link, population was being limited at the time so it would have seemed odd to worship fertility. It just goes to show how art history, especially with prehistoric art, often tells us more about the biases of the modern interpreters than about the cultures that produced the art.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I've seen it suggested that it's a female self-portrait - what a woman sees when she looks down her body and how it would look to her. In fact that's so well known an idea that it's in the wikipedia entry for the Venus of Willendorf

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Stonespring, I don't think we can deduce anything about what the makers of those figures actually thought about women from the shapes, which vary quite a bit. It was where I got to by putting together the inhibitions which have been put on women physically, emotionally and intellectually over the centuries - and I was feeling quite angry about FGM. Those figures, oddly enough, do not have very obvious genitalia. (Which would be explained if that foreshortening idea is true - but a pregnant woman would have been more likely to be sitting down if she was that close to birth, I would have thought, so the legs would be more obvious. Not to mention that the bone structure of ancient female skeletons can show that they spent most time squatting, distorting the hips so that they would have become painful. Male skeletons show that they sat on things.)

So, having listed everything I could find to show how women have been diminished by the dominant society, I realised that I had arrived at one of those figures. Whether that means that their society saw women as mindless broodmares whose mobility should be limited or not there is no way to determine, but the shape fitted.

Interestingly, in a programme on the classics today, it was said that in a funeral oration, Pericles finished by saying that a good woman was one who no-one could say anything about because they knew nothing about her. It was suggested that his partner Aspasia might have had an opinion about that.

It is still obvious that over the millenia, ways of controlling women have been sought and justified with appeals to the divine of one sort or another, as if the way that women were made was and still is faulty, and it is down to society to rectify this. (At least the Greeks had the idea that she was designed faulty deliberately in order to punish men.)

Limit her education, silence her with nag's bridles and ducking stools, limit her movement with foot binding and persuading her she wants 4 inch heels, hobble skirts, and corsets (with surgery to make them fit, if necessary, shoes and corsets both), lock her inside women's quarters, forbid her to drive, dress her in a tent, and cut off her private parts. This to someone made in the image of God. Except, of course, that it has been possible for some to argue that she isn't.

I expect there are some modern images of women with anencephaly, tiny feet, and no mouths that I could have used. (Just seen Toy Story 2, but Barbie doesn't quite do.) I'm not going to criticise the palaeolithic artists as we don't know what they were intending to convey - but I am going to criticise all the men in between who have denied women's full humanity. And treated them as if they were just like those figures. And invoked God to justify what they did.

[ 14. April 2014, 19:46: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:

quote:
Originally posted by Vade Mecum:
The OP ignores the effect of the Fall in the thinking of its hate figures.
The Fall is unlikely to have motivated the Chinese in their foot binding.

Not motivated. But the fall led to sinfulness, and if the OP is correct, the Chinese foot-binding custom was sinful. I tend to agree.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Excuses, excuses.

An erudite version of it was the woman's fault, attributing it to the Fall, is it not?

Why on earth should some vehemence not be shown when vile things are done to women by some, not all men, and in the name of religion? (And women have been trained to believe that these things are right.)

Perhaps some deserve to be hate figures?

Funny, I was thinking of poor Kate, being tamed by the methods used to tame a falcon, earlier. Now I hear the song "I hate men, I can't abide them, even now and then". But I don't actually.

I do feel the need to say that there is something profoundly wrong in societies which seek ways, again and again, of denying women the right to be the way God made them. And in people like Tertullian with his woman as the gateway to Hell comment. (Not logical - that's where he came from...)

[ 14. April 2014, 20:09: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

I often thank God for making me gay so that I don't have to worry about being women in relationships like so many men do. Although I've wondered whether or not I might be a Kinsey 4 or 5 (gay-leaning bi)...I actually had a thought process as a teenager that being with men would involve a lot less guilt and fear of being an oppressor - and knowing me it still plays a role in the way I think. Of course I my attraction to men is completely real, not going anywhere, and much stronger than any attraction I may have to women.

Of course, gay men participate in the oppression of women outside of sexual relationships all the time (and I know a number of sexist and misogynistic gay guys).

As for the reasoning based on the verses after the First Sin where God told Eve "...(blah blah you will have painful childbirth)...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you," I am pretty doubtful that you can say anything based on that that makes modern discrimination against women less heinous or more understandable. God did not punish women with discrimination by men. (And He certainly did not make it ok for men to have dominance over women in or outside of marriage.)

If people referring to the Fall simply mean that humans, both male and female, live in a world broken by Sin and that humans will keep on hurting each other until the Second Coming - that makes more sense but that is almost like saying that we can't expect too much to be done about racism, poverty, etc., this side of the parousia. The Fall does not mean that people should not try to eradicate all forms of discrimination and injustice. We may not succeed, but we can never be satisfied with how far we have come - and looking at how things are now, we've got so far to go that bringing up the Fall to explain why we can't get much farther seems absurd.

But maybe that's not what people mean when they bring up the Fall. Anyone care to explain?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I often thank God for making me gay so that I don't have to worry about being women in relationships like so many men do.

What does this mean?

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I often thank God for making me gay so that I don't have to worry about being women in relationships like so many men do.
What does this mean?

Replace the word "being" with "hurting" or "oppressing" and you have what I intended to type. Of course plenty of men don't hurt or oppress the women they are in a relationship with at all. And plenty of gay men aren't worried that if they were straight they would be bad to women. But I grew up with this fear. I think part of it came from watching Lifetime too much with my mother. (That did nothing to make me gay though! [Smile]

)

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I am sorry to hear that you have so feared being oppressive to women, stonespring. It really isn't so general as all that, but, horrendously, does have the power through evolution, of ensuring there are always some males who are like that. There are women responsible for domestic violence, as well. Power gradients are nuanced. And that bit about the sins of the fathers was never about a curse, but an observation of fact.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

I find it interesting that all the accommodations for the Fall which are allegedly the motivation for all this are (a) made up by men, and (b) shaft women.

Makes one a little suspicious of the real motivation, frankly. Sexism with a thin veneer of religiosity, perchance?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Sprayed on with an airbrush?

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Religiosity gives one the cover for being judgmental, since "God made me do it".

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Maybe God's 'Really Big Mistake' was just creating sexists!

Or, to put it another way, maybe the process of evolution went awry somewhere....

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Now that looks like a lead into the post I have written but not posted - evolution's really big mistake in the development of some human males. But I'm still not sure about it. It isn't the ones who have invented the religious excuses for why women are wrong, though. Much lower in the brain.

Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Sprayed on with an airbrush?

I was thinking about this last night as I sat through the Chrism Mass at the Catholic Cathedral (I had been hauled in to cover a soprano emergency in the choir).

The Archbishop was carefully removing as he went, all the references to the priests of the diocese as his "sons" and replacing them with "brothers." The liturgy very carefully included women in all the bits about laity, but the glaring omission of women in all the bits about priesthood stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a peculiar bit added on the spot about how the laity teach priests.

It all felt very patronising, specially after I noticed one of my favourite nuns in the congregation, a woman who has done tremendous work among the poor and sad in our city. Why isn't her contribution just as important?

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Penny S

But it's not just a question of 'some human males' is it? Individual men may be perfectly nice, but isn't this thread about the supposed structural bias against female equality in the religions of the Book, and all the cultures that have been influenced thereby?

Perhaps monotheism is just inherently tougher on women than polytheism. However, as I said before, I think the basic problem is that women are the ones who give birth to children. That reality made women very vulnerable in the past. Until God blessed us with all the benefits of modernity it's hard to see how women could have been 'equal' in a practical sense.

As for theological equality, I find it interesting how Paul expects wives to influence their husbands in religious matters, even though he also wants them to be submissive to their husbands. And he prefers women (as well as men) to remain single anyway, which surely undermines the potential for men to dominate them?

[ 15. April 2014, 22:33: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

It's not just the religions of the Book - I mentioned foot binding in the OP, and there are other physical restraints imposed in a variety of societies. I did not include sati, for example, which is the most extreme constraint on women's existence. FGM seems to be used across religions in a geographical distribution which suggests it is older than monotheism. Pericles, with an educated and intelligent partner, gave a speech in which he said that the best woman was one about whom no-one could say anything because they knew nothing of her.
It was about the way that societies have established patterns of treatment of women to make extreme the differences perceived to exist between men and women, and to reduce the part played in life by women to a minimum. And that these societies have engaged their gods as the support for their behaviour, while that behaviour implies that the creation of women was a profound error by the deities they call on. (The Greeks, in recording the creation of Pandora, cunningly decided that the faults in women were deliberately included to bring men down. Thus avoiding the logical conflicts found elsewhere.)
I think this has become so entrenched that many perfectly nice men don't even notice it. And it has provided cover for other, in no ways nice human males, to behave in ways not conducive for the evolution of a really good human society. which is another story.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

The course I took on Hinduism as practiced by the Tamils of Sri Lanka, where society is (or at least was) patriarchal but matrilineal, said that women in that vein of Hinduism are seen as having a spiritual heat (shakti) that is immensely powerful and dangerous if it is not controlled by her "chastity" - which means all kinds of modest and reserved behavior. It's still a sexist society, but they don't think that women were created wrong in any way.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Don't they think the gods will not act unless their partner's shakti moves them to do so? So Shiva needs Parvati/Durga/Kali, Vishnu needs Lakshmi, and Brahma needs Sarasvati.

But the humans still need to be controlled, which isn't entirely a celebration of womanhood - though if you think a woman might behave like Kali if left without restriction, that might seem sensible.

[ 16. April 2014, 13:21: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Penny S

I can't say much about the other religio-cultural practices you've mentioned because I don't know enough about them. However, you chose to blame those non-biblical practices on the Judeo-Christian God, even though the Bible doesn't sanction them. It seems rather unfair to blame those people's sins on God. On the other hand, I suppose you could argue that God's responsible for all of our mess since he's supposedly the Origin of everything.

One thing I'm not keen on is the depiction of women as the eternal losers and victims of the universe. Firstly, we'd have to establish that that's how women always saw themselves in the past, as it would be inappropriate to give them an identity that they wouldn't have recognised. Secondly, it ignores the many quiet victories in ordinary women's lives (as well as the victories that are well-known to history). Thirdly, if God is biased to the poor then he must also be biased towards women. Perhaps there's spiritual inspiration and wisdom to be gained from women's struggles throughout time.

So, rather than blaming God (which seems not to have been the usual female response...) it might be more constructive to take these women's experiences and use them to help us become more humble, grateful workers for peace and justice in our own time.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I did not choose to blame anything on the Judeo-Christian God, the only one there is. There was an element of irony in the OP.

I was blaming the people who have, historically and currently, engaged in imposing controls on women, their education, their dress, their access to everyday life, and the integrity of their bodies, and then attribute their requirements to some sort of divine imperative. There is a sort of implication about this which implies that the way women are is not the way they should be, and, if they attribute the way they are to a creator, then there is some sort of criticism in that implication. Women are, in some cases, complicit in what is done - it isn't men who cut out little girls' clitorises and labia, though it is men who demand it.

And being humble is one of the things that is used to circumscribe women's behaviour, is it not? (Wringing hands ever so humbly...)

I gave the thread a title for effect - at no time did I expect anyone would really believe that I meant that God had made mistakes in the creation of women which needed to be corrected by us. I meant that down the millenia, again and again, societies, mostly run by men, have set up systems which could be read as if that is what they thought. In some cases, they have actually put that idea into words. And what women thought about those societies at the time is irrelevant. People are awfully good at thinking what they are told to think - just look at all those books about being surrendered wives that get published now.

And ... Current rerun of early Doonesbury StripFirst one
Next one

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

So God has nothing to do with this thread, then? That wasn't made terribly clear.

We could get into an argument about who has the right to speak for whom, but I don't really want to go there at the moment. I doubt you do either. Let's just agree that doing awful things to anyone is just awful.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:

It all felt very patronising, specially after I noticed one of my favourite nuns in the congregation, a woman who has done tremendous work among the poor and sad in our city. Why isn't her contribution just as important?

Because she's a woman, duh. Besides, it is the spiritual equivalent of mopping the kitchen and caring for the children so daddy can go to work.

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
So God has nothing to do with this thread, then? That wasn't made terribly clear.

Possibly not directly but the fact remains that a lot of rules or customs that discriminate against women are said to be in accordance with His will.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Hence my references to the religions of the Book. But I don't know which Hindu/Shinto/Buddhist/Animist etc. etc. misogynistic practices are sanctioned by reference to the God of Abraham (or indeed to any other gods). For example, it would be very interesting to hear foot-binding defended by Chinese theologians as a holy act, rather than simply assuming that this is the approach they would take.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

Foot-binding was purely cultural. It was done so that daughters would be marriageable. The ethnically-Manchu Qing dynasty, who married within the Manchu ethnicity although they ruled China up until the end of Imperial Rule, did not practice foot-binding since they were not ethnically Han Chinese. Foot-binding did not become a practice among the Han Chinese until the Song Dynasty, about 1000 years ago.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Penny S:

Did your OP mean that the Paleolithic sculpture mentioned is interpreted as men's concept at the time of how women should look? Do we even know that the sculpture was made by a man, or that society at that time was patriarchal? The covering or confinement to the home of women is something that people often argue emerged with agriculture - in farming and herding societies. Paleolithic societies may or may not have been relatively egalitarian or even matriarchal in some ways - anthropologists can debate all they want but we'll probably never know.

I know people see exaggerated breasts and hips and relative absence of definition of other body parts and they think all about male objectification of women, but there was a strain in anthropology arguing that the paleolithic venus figures were signs of a fertility/earth-goddess worshipping matriarchal culture. That strain was a bit influenced by feminist politics, and as the speaker says in your link, population was being limited at the time so it would have seemed odd to worship fertility. It just goes to show how art history, especially with prehistoric art, often tells us more about the biases of the modern interpreters than about the cultures that produced the art.

Interestingly, pre contact with European, Australian Aboriginal society was not agricultural, it was hunting and gathering and it was extremely patriarchal, with women viewed as possessions who were stolen and fought over as spoils of tribal conflict. Brutality was remarked upon even by 18th century European men who said the women bore a lot of scars from violence perpetrated by men. So no covering or restriction to home (there really isn't such a concept in nomadic communities anyway) but still being subject to men.

I agree that I"m not sure that you can draw a lot of conclusions about male objectification of women from prehistoric art. In a museum in Malta there is quite a lot of prehistoric art and there are a great many stone sculptures of male genitalia, no bodies at all. Not sure whether this is the equivalent of the "dick and balls" graffiti that is so commonly seen around contemporary schools or can be interpreted as having a greater significance.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

So footbinding, like the excision of the clitoris and labia, is to make women marriageable?

So women's bodies, as they are by nature, aren't fit for purpose.

Bonkers logic.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

So it seems. Admittedly the Euro-American culture hobbles women with fashions such as high heel shoes (admittedly not as permanently damaging) and less than practical clothes (we should be glad that corsets are gone).

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
So footbinding, like the excision of the clitoris and labia, is to make women marriageable?

So women's bodies, as they are by nature, aren't fit for purpose.

Bonkers logic.

That's why I don't like the fact that in our society women "have to" shave their armpits and legs, wear all kinds of uncomfortable clothes and complicated makeup and skin products, etc., if they want to be marriageable to a mainstream man.

My point was that many families had their daughter's' feet bound because every son's family looking for a wife expected candidates to have bound feet. It's not an excuse for the abusive practice but an explanation.

Female genital mutilation is also sustained by families wanting to make sure potential husbands and their families will want their daughter. Ending it is as much about convincing men and men's parents to stop expecting it as it is to convince women's families to stop doing it.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
So it seems. Admittedly the Euro-American culture hobbles women with fashions such as high heel shoes (admittedly not as permanently damaging) and less than practical clothes (we should be glad that corsets are gone).

I've just double checked that what I read about "cosmetic" foot surgery to enable the wearing of fashion shoes was true. (Rib removal for wasp waists was, thank God, not.) So permanent damage possible.

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