Women's Issues

[mabel1015j]

Women's Issues If Art imitates Life, what does Literature show about the place of women in our society? From the Red Tent to the new movie Anna Karenina,  to Malala Yousafzai in the news, has the state of women changed? What IS the state of women today, in your opinion? Let's talk about how women are portrayed in the press, and in literature, and how accurate it is.   How does advertising reflect, if it does, how women are portrayed?  (Remember heels and pearls to sell refrigerators?) How does it seem to you that women are portrayed today? Let's talk! National Women's History Project

CSPAN is pulling out the stops on women's history ths weekend. This is the anniversary of the big women's suffrage parade organized by Alice Paul on March 3, 1913 in Washington. There was a "march" this morning commemorating that event. Also, the Women's History Museum sponsored a panel, that CSPAN broadcast on CSPAN 3, about The Role of Media in the Suffrage Movement, facilitated by Eleanor Cliff. I saw it at 11:00 this morning, but they are repeating it a little before 5:30 this evening. It was an interesting discussion. I know Jill Zahnizer, who is on the panel and is writing a book about Alice Paul and my friend Roberta Francis, chair of the current push for ratifying the ERA, asks a question.

[mabel1015j]

I posted this in "fiction", but then thought some of you may be interested in both the Chiaverini fiction book and the free non-fiction ebooks about Elizabeth Eckley. She was an amazing woman, someone we should all know about, if you only read the wiki site about her, you can see that.

A friend just loaned me a Jennifer Chiaverini book, not a "quilt" book, titled Mary Lincoln's Dressmaker." Elizabeth Keckley was a real person, but, of course, this is fiction. EK bought her and her son's freedom from slavery and had become a dressmaker to many prominent women in Washington D. C. in 1860. Both of those actions tell us what an amazing woman she was. She was the designer and maker of dresses for Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis' wife before Mary Lincoln came to town. (I find it ironic that that the president of the seceding states was probably named for Thomas Jefferson.)

About 100 pages into the book, i find it is typical JC well-written prose. She uses many of the current events of the time in the story. EK's son was the son of a white man and is light enough in complexion to be able to pass as white and is therefore able to join the Union army. JC gives us a good accounting of the anxiety of any mother whose child is in combat.

At this point i would highly recommend it. Here is a Wikipedia article about EK and the Amazon page about the book.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Keckley

In following a link from the wiki article i see that EK's autobiography "Behind the Scenes", is available as an ebook for free from Goggle Books and from Amazon. Just scroll down the article to "references". Also, the second book on the "reference" list is available as an ebook for free, "Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly".

http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Lincolns-Dressmaker-Jennifer-Chiaverini/dp/0525953612

[CallieOK]

I have read both books about Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly - and second Mabel's recommendation.

[Steph]

I had no girls, but loved to watch the behaviors.. and her struggle as a single mom.. The man who played the janitor was a funny funny man as well.

[MaryPage]

I watched the 2nd of C-Span's series on the First Ladies last night.  Abigail Adams, of course.  I did not find it as fascinating as I did last week's Martha Washington show, but I believe that is because I have studied the Adamses in depth and they did not present a single fact I did not know.  That being said, I did find some of the experts opinions interesting, especially one who said she felt Abigail Adam's letters prove she was well aware of the subjugation of women in her day, and that many other women of the time were, as well, and they were beginning to push back against it.  Abigail certainly DID do so in her letters to John.  Good on her!

To think that a woman was not allowed to publish in her own name in those days!  They made much of that, repeating it several times.

[mabel1015j]

Abigail Adams was so brave so often, i find her amazing. One of the stories i can't forget from the McCullough book was her deciding to have her children vaccinated for small pox at a time when it was a relatvely new procedure. John was in Philadelphia, it was a decision she made on her own. Also, she was petrified of ocean travel and yet went to England to be w/John by herself, John was already there.

[CallieOK]

MaryPage, I agree with you re: the program on Abigail Adams.  I have read enough about the family - and her - not to have heard anything new.

I wasn't expecting a dramatization with actors but I'm not sure I really care for the scholastic interviews plus phone/text/etc. format.

However, I'll keep tuning in - at least, until they get to Mary Lincoln, about whom I've read as much as I care to know.

[MaryPage]

I strongly dislike the phone calls in.  Especially the fact that they obviously have not vetted them in advance.  That man from California who was so derisive about Abigail Adams and called her a bad mother (obviously he had one!) because Charles was an alcoholic!  Scheesch!  If every mother of every alcoholic were to be labeled a bad mother, what a set back for common sense and biology THAT would be!

But the Historian authors and the film clips and portraits and pictures are great.

[mabel1015j]

This is the same format that CSPAN used for the Presidents' series, except that Brian Lamb went to the birth site/home place of each president and they spent more time with each subject. I like the fact that the public can comment and ask questions, that's the forte of CSPAN programming. Of course, they are sometimes going to get someone w/ an agenda, but it shows me what the country is thinking. I don't think it's possible for them to know what each person will say completely, or how they will say it and screen them out.

I thought the one about AA's fault that her son was an alcoholic gave the woman respondent a good opportunity to say that's very Freudian and Freud is very sexist. I did wish she had said more about how alcoholism runs in the family and is a genetic disease which they knew litte about and i wish that she would have emphasized more that the son did have TWO birth parents, altho John was not around much in their growing up years.

McCullough has said that Abigail keep the family afloat financially and did a very good job of it. John was away for almost 12 of the first 20 yrs of their marriage. I think she did a remarkable job, even educating one of the most intelligent/knowledgable presidents we've had.

[Steph]

I have read several of the biographies of her and was so impressed with her having the children vaccinated, when it was very new and not very popular.. and with John gone.. A bright articulate woman who did literally everything in her marriage, since he like so many others at that time was totally engrossed in the forming of the nation.

[mabel1015j]

Just by chance i happened on a piece of history when Cotton Mather in the first half of the 18th century was supporting the small pox vaccinations. AA was a very good Congregationalist, so I'm sure that's where she got her opinion and her gumption to have them for the whole family.

I see there are two strong women candidates running for mayor in Los Angeles and NYC - about time! Break that glass ceiling!

[Steph]

Yes, we need more women to run for office.. The odds are getting better and we are getting more and more politicians nationally.. Locally in Florida,, no.. but then not many run here, except on a local level. I must say the few in Lake county who got elected are all heavily into more and more growth.. Realtors and I cannot agree that this is a good idea.. Unlimited growth is not a good thing, but the state of Florida does not grip that.

[MaryPage]

Growth puts money in the wallets of those promoting it.  The environmental and societal endangerment for future populations is just not a consideration.  Wealth trumps consideration for mere people, and always has done.  One of the less pleasant facts about human civilization.  Civilization!  Bah humbug!  Let the people be damned!

I get a queasy feeling whenever I hear "Florida" anymore.  It used to mean warm sun, sandy beaches, live oak trees hung with Spanish Moss, the St. John's River and lots of other good memories.  Now I think half the state is going to sink into deep holes and the other half is to be covered with the rising waters of the seas.

[Steph]

MaryPage,,no no no.. Some parts of Florida are still beautiful and remote..I live on a lake and it is different every single day of life.. Florida is an odd place, no doubt about it, but the weather is still a joy in the winter.
Just think of the eastern shore, where you live and I grew up.. When I was young, it was teeny towns, lots of fishermen, etc, Now it is more and more crowded with people.. and think of the bridge. I used to take a boat over..when I was young.

[MaryPage]

Steph, I live in Annapolis on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  My home is right on the bay, so I know what you mean about the water.  It changes by the hour, and never fails to delight.  My daughter Anne lives in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore.  Also, my granddaughters Tracy and Melissa live in Easton on the Eastern Shore.  When I was a teenager and attending the Hannah More Academy in Reisterstown, just north of Baltimore, quite a few of my fellow students were from the Eastern Shore (or "The Show" as it used to sound like natives called it) and that was before they put across the first span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and they all used to go over on the Love Point Ferry.  One span of the bridge was completed in 1952 and the other in 1972.
I go across every Monday to Anne's.  Her husband Greg picks me up.  I work in his construction business office and he brings me home a day or two later;  however long it takes.  I stay over with them, but I do not live there.

[Steph]

All those towns I knew and loved. I grew up in a teeny little town in Delaware.. south of the canal as we say.. Wyoming, not the state, but the name of the town. Easton used to have the most marvelous hotel and restaurant.. in the 60's, it was the place to go, that and another restaurant called The Granery somewhat north of Easton. Both were delights.. I was in the Delmarva chicken cooking contest years ago several times and at least once in Easton and spent the night in the hotel. which was old and historic, but somewhat creaky.

[MaryPage]

Probably the Tidewater Inn.

[Steph]

Yes, it was the Tidewater Inn and we went back and stayed there in the mid 80's when we had come down from New England for the boat show in Annapolis. We used to go to the Sailboat one every other fall and then either go the D.C. or over to the eastern shore for a further vacation. The Inn in the 80's was in bad shape and the restaurant was a joke. Oh well in the 60's we all went over, very dressed up for dinner and loved it.

[MaryPage]

The inn is all spruced up and posh again.  And our Annapolis sailboat show still takes place the first week in October.  Every year.  Year in and year out.  Followed by the week of the power boat show.  Then we close down for the winter.  Everything opens up again in May.

By everything, I mostly mean the places where you can eat outside.

[Steph]

I have always loved Annapolis.. Was there again in 2008..Went to the Naval Academy, since I have a granddaughter who wanted something from there. Got her the watch cap, watched the noon parade, which I love.. Walked all over the waterfront,, then went over the bridge one day and had lunch in The Narrows, which is a favorite of ours. Met a lot of people from school there. We came from all over.
Yes, I remember the boat show was each year, but for some reason, we came every other year.. but then we were not retired and so vacations were  quicker.

[MaryPage]

THERE IS HOPE!  THERE IS HOPE!
I just cannot Believe it, but there is Hope!
The Argentine has given us a new Pope, who just may be a Great one.  God knows, he is not part of the Vatican Mafia!  He is Francis the 1st, and he is a JESUIT!  A Liberal!
While there is Life, there is Hope!  I am beyond amazed!
And Joyful!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, what interested me was reading that  he sold the diocesan residence...lived in an apt and took a bus to work. However, his views on woman's issues are not very liberal at all - so we shall see what we shall see - my take so far is he will fall in line with much of liberation theology that is still rampant in South and Central America regardless what John Paul did to strip away the movement.

[MaryPage]

Did he have the authority to sell church property?  I knew he refused to live in the palace, citing his strict vows of poverty as a Jesuit, but I find it difficult to believe he could sell it on behalf of the church and future archbishops or cardinals there in Buenos Aires.
Yes, I have heard he is very conservative.  And goodness knows, his lineage of Italian and Latin American would enhance that image.
But the Jesuits are the only conduit I can see for real modernization of church dogma.
The church makes the claim it has remained the same for 2,000 years.  But that is so untrue, and is like a falsehood they hope if they repeat long enough and enough times that people will believe it.  But for 1,000 of those 2,000 years, priests could marry.  And priests of the Eastern Sect of the Ukraine, who recognize the Pope in Rome and not the Patriarch in Constantinople, have ALWAYS been able to marry and have children.  There was no edict against abortion or birth control until the 20th century!  I could go on and on, but bottom line, I see hope for improvement even in this new Pope.  If nothing else, if there are no women priests or marriages between the same sex or birth control and so forth, I think he will crack down BIG TIME on molestation of children by the priesthood and the financial scandals within the church.  I think he will clean out the stables and make the Church clean and purified.

[maryz]

I've been hearing this evening that he has been very vocal in criticizing the Argentine government for its positions favoring contraception, abortion in some cases, and adoptions by same-sex couples.  Sounds like a lot of the same old stuff to me.  Time will tell.

[Steph]

I thinkhe may clean up the curia if that is possible, but I also think he sounds conservative to me.  I just finished reading a mystery recently that used the differences in the catholic bible and the protestant bible to clean up some poison pen letters. interesting.

[BarbStAubrey]

When O'Malley came up from Florida to replace Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston he sold from the Bishop's estate of  64-acre, 45 acres of the complex to Boston College that I believe included the Bishop's 'Palace'

[MaryPage]

But Boston College is a Jesuit institution.  Therefore, he was selling a PORTION of a Catholic property from the diocese to an Order within the Church.  None of the property, in other words, left the Church.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, however two separate institutions much like GM selling one of its plants to Ford both auto and both incorporated within the US or at least they were but two separate companies.  There was competition for the site Boston College won -  That aside I was just trying to show that the sale in Argentina was not something that required the permission of either the Pope or the Curia since the church is set up as an 'episcopal see' and is why the Pope functions as the Bishop of Rome.

[mabel1015j]

Some member of the Catholic hierarchy said today how appropriate it was to have a pope from South America, that people there had been in the Church in great numbers in the SIXTEENTH CENTURY to today!?!  I think the Europeans may have been killing and torturing the people of the Carribean and the peoples of the western hemisphere who were refusing to convert to Catholicism in the SIXTEENTH century. Sadly the majority of the people who heard that statement don't know how wrong he was.

Jean

[Steph]

I did  read that he would not live in the palace, but rented an apartment on his own.. He is a true Jesuit in his taste for poverty.. A good thing.. But in Rome, live might get complicated. I recently read about a cardinal in Rome, who lived in a 14 room condo.. worth millions.. has many servants.. etc. I cannot believe that this is good for the priesthood..

[jeriron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bourgeois#Maryknoll_expulsion


I have been a Catholic priest in the Maryknoll community for 40 years. As a young man I joined Maryknoll because of its work for justice and equality in the world. To be expelled from Maryknoll and the priesthood for believing that women are also called to be priests is very difficult and painful.

The Vatican and Maryknoll can dismiss me, but they cannot dismiss the issue of gender equality in the Catholic Church. The demand for gender equality is rooted in justice and dignity and will not go away.

As Catholics, we profess that God created men and women of equal worth and dignity. As priests, we profess that the call to the priesthood comes from God, only God. Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God's call to women is not? The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, our Church and our loving God who calls both men and women to be priests.

When there is an injustice, silence is the voice of complicity. My conscience compelled me to break my silence and address the sin of sexism in my Church. My only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male power and domination in the Catholic Church.

I have explained my position on the ordination of women, and how I came to it, in my booklet: "My Journey from Silence to Solidarity."

In Solidarity,
Roy Bourgeois

[MaryPage]

They expell a priest ("thou art a priest forever") from the Church for BELIEVING in the equality of women, but

THEY DO NOT EXPELL A PRIEST FOR RAPING A CHILD!  THEY DO NOT EXPELL ANY PRIESTS FOR RAPING MANY CHILDREN.

Where oh where are their Priorities?

[BarbStAubrey]

Roy Bourgeois in the Catholic Reporter - http://ncronline.org/feature-series/roy-bourgeois

Various issues including sex crimes that have caused an outcry published in the Catholic Reporter
http://ncronline.org/channel/accountability

[BarbStAubrey]

As to the Churches self-protective reaction - right in line with every guy ever accused of a sex crime with a child - from family members to strangers. They deny - blame the victim - protect themselves from accepting responsibility and act in general as if they are the victim with as much concern for the real victim as if the child was the strong, mature one or they act as if the child does not exist other than as a law suite as if the child was nothing more than a paper trail.  As sad as it is 'What's new' - yes, we especially look for a different happening and reaction because of our expectation for a religious -

We do not like to accept they are nothing but men who went through a ritual that says they are more - we give them power when we do not research for ourselves what they preach. No, I am not saying we are at fault only that we are hurt and angry because we learned we cannot trust that they are what they have told us they are. Now that our trust is dead how do we go forward. As though nothing happened? That is what they would like to see happen - if we do not attend Mass we loose but more our strike does not matter since the church is shrinking in Europe and in the US but growing by leaps and bounds in Africa and South America. And so in affect we can rail all we want but it changes nothing. Like the current or past reality or not it is what it is - now how do we deal with it.

This being a Women's Issues page I wonder why we are not reading and sharing the work of women in history whose work is not accepted by those doing philosophy therefore, is not accepted among Theologians - there is a slight nod given to Hildegarde de Bingen but there are a host of others, like Mary Astell, Simone Weil, and currently Karen J. Warren.

If we want justice and equal opportunity with equal compensation for women than focusing on our US history may not be enough - what is the UN doing and why in this group have we not read privately then shared our reactions to the book Half the Sky  -

I just feel as though we should be rolling up our sleeves and doing more than grich that things are as they are - most of us can no longer march or start a movement or even be an active member of a movement - we can write letters but saying what and to whom - this being a reading site I keep thinking we could be sharing what we learn from books we are actively reading - I do not think we can take on another month long reading discussion - maybe every other month do a 2 week like Curious Minds where we can discuss our reaction to one women's issue or even to a book.

[Steph]

I am extremely fond of the Curious Minds discussions.. Just long enough...Barb, I am not sure that I want to take on too many causes books.. As to women,, you could probably say the same thing about blacks.. the third world..The only people who seem to be famous, etc as a philosopher would be white males.. Ugh, but true.

[MaryPage]

Two great articles of interest to women this week:

In NEWSWEEK March 15, 2013 (nun on the front), an article titled FRANCIS! by A.N. Wilson.  I promise you, it is an eye-opener.  I would give my eye teeth to quote some of it in here.

In THE NATION March 25, 2013 (half face of Muslim woman on front), an article titled The Women Who Won't Go Away by Ann Jones.  Again, bare boned facts that will set your brain on fire.

[mabel1015j]

I like that idea Barbara, talking about books of women's issues and history.

Jean

[MaryPage]

OK then, here is a list of books every woman on this planet should read or have read to her, if she is illiterate or it does not come in her language:

KABUL IN WINTER

WOMEN WHO KILL

NEXT TIME SHE’LL BE DEAD

WAR IS NOT OVER WHEN IT’S OVER

These are each and all by Ann Jones, who is a Norwegian.

[BarbStAubrey]

Is this the Newsweek article MaryPage - and if so what was so shocking
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/03/18/pope-francis-a-golden-opportunity-for-change.html

[BarbStAubrey]

Ok we have to watch it - received this from my sister who was a nun for 30 years and is most anxious for intelligent, as she puts it, women to realize what is happening - it appears false statements supposedly by Pope Francis has been tracked down

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/francis.asp