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Source: (consider it) Thread: God's Really Big Mistake
Penny S
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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 ]

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

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Vade Mecum
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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.

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I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

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lilBuddha
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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 ]

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Vade Mecum
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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.

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I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

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lilBuddha
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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.

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

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quetzalcoatl
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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/

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Pine Marten
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Excellent OP, Penny S, beautifully put [Overused]

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quetzalcoatl
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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?

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Penny S
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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.

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Pine Marten
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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.

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

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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde

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Doc Tor
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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.

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Pomona
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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.

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

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lilBuddha
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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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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?

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seekingsister
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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.
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TomM
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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.
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Penny S
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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.

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Jane R
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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."

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TomM
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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.
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Pine Marten
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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!

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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde

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Penny S
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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 ]

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Pomona
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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.

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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SvitlanaV2
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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 ]

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Pomona
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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.

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SvitlanaV2
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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?
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Pomona
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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.

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SvitlanaV2
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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....

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Pomona
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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.

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lilBuddha
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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.

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seekingsister
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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.

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Penny S
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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.)
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Pomona
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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!

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Pomona
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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!

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lilBuddha
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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 ]

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Penny S
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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.
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seekingsister
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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.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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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.

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lilBuddha
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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.

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Pomona
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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.

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ElderCat
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Great thread!!! God made a mistake... [Ultra confused] [Ultra confused] [Ultra confused] [Razz] Guess He ain't God, then, right?? Hair today, gone tomorrow... [Big Grin] [Big Grin] [Big Grin]

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Horseman Bree
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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.

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

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quetzalcoatl
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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!

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

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Gramps49
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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?

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