Women's Issues

[MaryPage]

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

Yes, that is the article, and I think accusing the Curia of murder (not once, but many times), money laundering for the mafia, and using a member of the Swiss Guards as a prostitute handed around among themselves, among other things, is pretty strong stuff.

Funny, but I have always thought John XXIII was murdered, but it never occurred to me that John Paul I was.  Well, we cannot really know, can we.

[BarbStAubrey]

MaryPage there are many who cry out trying to pin that Pope's short time as murder - he served for 4 months not 3 weeks and he was ill when he was chosen - he was supposed to be there for a short time to give them time since there were a powerful group trying to circumvent what was being decided during Vatican II - it worked - it gave the conservatives time to regroup - as to the other yes, and in fact like most large organizations and nations (we forget the Vatican is an independent nation) if you follow the money you can learn a lot and find out where the power is located.

If you follow the money from each parish and how it is handled or mishandled and the percentage that goes to each Bishopric and then each Diocesan and Provincial house or Abby sends a percentage to the Vatican - who is in charge - how it is distributed - it tells you a lot about the government and politics of this organization. Just as Bush senior when he was the head of the CIA set up an off shore bank for the laundering of Drug Money that was tapped when he was President to fight the War on Drugs and just as for at least 300 years the English Monarchy is dependent on Proceeds for the Golden Triangle drug trade there are many institutions that have their hands in the Drug trade and the profits.

Many in Europe can separate the political side of the Church from the spiritual but we have a difficult time doing that and assume the morality and spirituality that we associate with a Church is the fabric of the Church - that was part of what Luther expected and was shocked to learn it is not so - you have to go back in history to see how this evolved and it is a fascinating story.  

Example the fight for power among tribes and groups in what is now France and Germany was held by one family with their followers believing the had a certain magical blood that made them the leaders - after several generations of poor leadership Clovis comes along and wants to lead but cannot get past the blood thing so he calls on the church to crown him - the church trumps blood - then because in the East Justin was an Emperor and Clovis was trying to negotiate with him he needed equal power - so the Church and Clovis do a deal where he becomes Emperor and that is one of the events that put the church into politics.

And then the Church always believed in education and for hundreds of years if you wanted your child educated they had to go to a priest or the monastery - The first universities were in the thirteenth century . many young men were even ordained but never acted in their role as priest  - few to no king could read - they were great soldiers and could win battles but they depended upon a church member to write all documents and read communications - this is why you see many paintings of royals with a Cardinal among the group. Henry the VIII could not only read but he even wrote poetry and was capable of running his government without the church therefore he could risk going head to head with the Pope.

All to say the Crowns of Europe were dependent on the Church and the Church was dependent on them since they supported no army - Like Iran and other Islamic nations today - the church and government are so entwined you cannot tell one from the other.

The Vatican only became the small size we know today when the areas of Italy united in the nineteenth century into the nation we know today  - up until then the Vatican included about a third of the land mass that is Italy - in prior years especially when you read the history of Germany you learn more about the relationship of the Holy Roman Empire and the crowned kings and Emperors - You can also read the make up of the Roman government and see the direct match today of how the Curia is a duplicate of the set up for the Roman Republic.  

It was only in the early part of the twentieth century that Cardinals had to be priests and I forget now what year it was established that the Pope had to be a priest. I think it may have been during the 1870 Vatican Council when the Pope, after a review by departments of the Curia, defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church. For over a thousand years Bishoprics were purchased by powerful families and again, the Bishop did not have to be a priest - I would have to look up when their ordination  became an expectation. And so much of this church is a political governing body. Spiritual growth was found in some Monasteries and Convents - but even there many a Monastery was built for the purpose of collecting taxes - again monks were educated.

[Steph]

MaryPage, read two of the four books.. There are surely a lot of strange stories running around about the new Pope.. I would assume that when people don't know, they make it up..Whew..If he does nothing else, he hopefully will try to cut down on the excess and money spent in the church on unnecessary garments,etc. Benedict wore more jewelry, etc than most woman and always had the strangest smile. I was always uncomfortable watching him.

[MaryPage]

I watched 60 Minutes tonight and they had a 20 minute segment on the Sister who heads up the organization that has 80% of the nuns and sisters of these United States in it, and it was a hoot and a half.  Oh, the boys in black are SO SCARED they are all but calling them witches and they have sent a member of the Congregation of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition, and same office of the Church) to investigate them and try to bring them "back into the fold."  They are trying to tell these women they must be "obedient" to the Curia, and the nuns are saying no, they must be obedient to God.  The nuns speak right up and say they think women should have more say and recognition in the church, clear up to women priests.  And they are being fought against fiercely FOR THEIR OPINIONS!  Great resources being put forth to quell them.  Would the Church had reacted even nearly as strongly to the pedophile priests within the fold!  Ha!
These nuns say almost nothing about abortion, same sex marriage, contraceptives, etc.  They say these are social issues, and what they are doing is trying to get a way to have the voices of the women of this Faith heard.  Just heard.
There is a group going around the country called NUNS ON THE BUS.  You may have seen the nun in charge of this group when she spoke at the Democratic Convention last year.
Oh, I am so thrilled with these women.  So are the sisters at the Catholic High School here that one of my daughters teaches at.  So would have been my Aunt Margaret, who was of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.  She has been dead for years now;  was 95 when she died.  And so would some, not all, but some of the Sisters of the Visitation who taught me for two years.
Life is good;  or at least, thanks to these great women, it seems to be getting BETTER!

[BarbStAubrey]

Ya the guys in red keep saying it is Dogma that says that women cannot be priests - I am knee deep in reading the entire cannon and cannot find anything but then I am not half through yet. The best I come up iwth is an encyclical by Pope Paul which is not meeting the standards required for him to speak in an infallible decree. I think you are right they are running scared. These women are good at how they present themselves and their argument.

[Steph]

Taking the course on early Christianity, women were equal in many ways, but Paul was anti woman.. I really believe that the intent was there for everyone in their letters, but males at that point were convinced that women are inferior.. sigh.. and so are many many priests and politicians to this day.

[MaryPage]

The book Noble Savages by Napoleon Chagnon shows that the male instinct that the female is only a vessel for bearing their children and is actually a lesser being whom they can beat up and even kill with impunity goes right back to the beginning of mankind.
With that sort of innate attitude of the male toward the female, even now women cannot always make their very young sons go off with a different mindset.  The moment they begin to be initiated into the male scratch and grunt club, especially the world of sports and the idolization of football "heroes," etc., they ape their fathers attitudes.  The courting instinct is only for the purpose of capturing a real live working woman of their own;  it rarely contains any depth of feeling.
BUT, and this is the good part of the story:  but many men of today do own real feelings and understand love and companionship and equality of aspirations.  My third husband was one of these.  There is hope for the future, if indeed our happily ever afterward ending can lie in the hands of only a few.  The rape is okay and is only a boys will be boys phase of life and a given right, in which actually the female is the one in the wrong and not the wronged, mantra still seems to be the cadence the majority of men hear and respond to.

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, Paul was anti women - with further reading we learn that Paul was about converting the Greeks and true to the earliest Jewish Christ followers - a practice that continues to this day was to take the myths and culture of those groups being converted and adapt their story, myths, legends and culture into the Christian view of incarnation and redemption - The Greeks had a view of women that Paul continued because they rebelled when Paul attempted to teach not exactly equality but a more elevated role as some of the widows were given with special permission to enter what we call the sanctuary today. Rather than loosing these Greek converts Paul continued their cultural view of women that we can trace back to Homer - not that he started it only that the acceptable place of women in the Greek Society was included in his storytelling.

[marjifay]

Per MaryPage, " There is hope for the future, if indeed our happily ever afterward ending can lie in the hands of only a few.  The rape is okay and is only a boys will be boys phase of life and a given right, in which actually the female is the one in the wrong and not the wronged, mantra still seems to be the cadence the majority of men hear and respond to."

This certainly seemed to be the case where just this week two young high school football players were convicted of the rape of a teenage girl and of video taping the rape and showing it to others (on the internet, I think).  The small town in Ohio where this happened is apparently so wrapped up in football, that the players are heroes who can get away with just about anything.  While their jail sentences were fairly short (one to two years), their future careers in football will never be realized and they will always have to register as sex offenders.  Hopefully, the publicity of this case will make some parents think about teaching their sons how to treat women.  (Can the church teach this responsibility, when so many of their priests were found guilty of molesting children?)

Also, as I posted elsewhere, the U.S. Congress is finally addressing rape in the military.  I don't think this would ever have come up were there not now more women in Congress who have demanded it.

Marj

[Steph]

I find the rape and sexual repression in the military academies extremely unpleasant.. There is simply no excuse for it.. I think that they should immediately be expelled, but I gather they are not.

[MaryPage]

Women are still not joining together in large enough numbers.  Each is so busy keeping their world going they seldom add their voices to protest groups unless they have been raped or passed over for promotion or felt some other form of discrimination.  We need to tell our daughters and granddaughters and great granddaughters that the movement needs THEM, or women will continue to be treated as second class beings.  Women need to feel it is their DUTY to add their names and their voices and their, if need be, at least ten dollars a year;  after all, it is for their goals to be met that they would make at least this little effort.
The very poor among us need to be able to add their names to NOW and/or PLANNED PARENTHOOD or any other group promoting a good life for women without having to contribute funds.  Each group should have an "I can't give, as I'm desperate here, but I am WITH YOU, so jot down my name and address and list it as being one of you.  Of us."

[MaryPage]

There are things that need to be told on the radio and television and, somehow, inserted into movies and popular television programming.  So many, many untold things.  You and I may know them, but the vast majority of women do not, and these women vastly underestimate the amount of prejudice out there, while they hold down their underpaid jobs at McDonalds and Walmart.  So many truths:

Sandra Day O'Connor graduated top of her law school class at Stanford.  She called every single one of the notices on the bulletin board put there by law firms anxious to hire graduates.  Not ONE SINGLE ONE was interested in interviewing her.  No females!  1952.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated #1 in her law class at Columbia.  Actually, she had done her first two years at Harvard, but Harvard then told her they would not give a woman a Harvard law degree, so she switched over to Columbia.  Did you just take in that she was NUMBER ONE?  Well, this was 1959.  She could not get a job.  Could NOT get a job.  Anywhere.  Finally, one of her teachers told a federal judge he would never again send him ANY recommendations unless he gave this woman a chance.  Blackmail got Bader Ginsburg her first job!  Oh, by the way, Harvard gave her an honorary degree in 2011.  Scheesch!  I would have enjoyed turning it down!

[marjifay]

Steph wrote, "I find the rape and sexual repression in the military academies extremely unpleasant.. There is simply no excuse for it.. I think that they should immediately be expelled, but I gather they are not."

You're correct there, Steph.  The victims have been the ones most likely to be punished.
Women are finally crying out for that to change.

Marj

[CallieOK]

Perhaps it would help if the men who respect, appreciate and encourage the women in their lives would speak out (other than to that beloved woman) in favor of all women's rights to function as intelligent individuals.

OTOH and IMHO,  as long as women submerge their lives into that of a man - no matter how wonderful he might be - this will always be held up as an example of what a woman "ought to be".

[BarbStAubrey]

and as long as we have ministers preaching that "women submerge their lives into that of a man" ... this will always be held up as an example of what a woman "ought to be"

[Steph]

Yes, there is the fact that many women submerge their lives into their families.. I really note that I felt much freeer as I got older to speak and do as I liked. I think the nurturing gene is strong in us.

[marjifay]

Per Steph, "I think the nurturing gene is strong in us."

I'm not so sure. At least not in all females. I did not have a nurturing gene.  I did not want to have children, and would not have done so had there been better birth control when I was first married.

On the other hand, I have known men with a strong "nurturing gene."  (Not my ex, however. LOL)

Marj

[CallieOK]

I wasn't writing about the Nuturing part of our lives. 
 I meant the women whose attitude is "My husband thinks, my husband says, my husband wants - therefore I think, I say, I want." 

I  remember a conversation with a friend about making decisions.  She said she and her husband always discussed things.  I said, "At some point, someone has to say "this is what will be done'.  In your discussions, who says that?"
She replied, "Oh, I always do what ____says."
I don't think she had ever independently thought a subject through, formed an opinion and taken action without his "instruction".

OTOH, my parents came from families who were political polar opposites and my Dad was in office when they married.  I remember my Mother saying, "Charlie may have insisted I change how I was registered - but he never knew how I voted."  I strongly suspect that,  quite often, her vote cancelled his .




 

[MaryPage]

My third marriage was the perfect one.  Wish so much he could have lived longer.
We never had a fight or a fuss or a disagreement.  We would DEBATE things about books we had read or what we thought people meant by things they said;  stuff like that.  But it was always most agreeable debating.  I was extremely interested in hearing his reasons for feeling as he did, and he was just as interested in hearing mine.  We each valued the other's mind intensely.
We fully recognized the differences in our sexes.  He loved watching sports on TV;  so he watched and never insisted upon my watching.  I was happy to know where he was and what he was doing.  All of the ways in which Nature made us different, we honored or relished or bowed to or tolerated or whatever it took.
In making decisions, we shared.  He told me his preferences and why.  I most often had the same preference.  But anytime our preferences were different, each of us went with the one to whom it mattered most.  We just never, ever had a problem with this.  It made me happy to make him happy, and it likewise made him happy to make me happy.
If either of us felt quite strongly that we just COULD NOT do something, then WE did not do that.  Or the one did it and the other did not.  Whatever fit best.
It can be done.  You just have to hook up with a man with a really good, reasoning intelligence and very little or no brute animal anger or coarseness.  A man who feels he has nothing to prove and likewise feels you are his equal in every sense of the word.  Oh, except I do believe he thought I was sexier than he was, and I thought just the opposite.  Hey, that worked for US!

[CallieOK]

I stand by my original statement  "Perhaps it would help if the men who respect, appreciate and encourage the women in their lives would speak out... in favor of all women's rights to function as intelligent individuals..

Thats it from this corner.   

[MaryPage]

To which I say "Amen" from this corner!

[MaryPage]

But Callie, there just are not enough of them.

[CallieOK]

I know, MaryPage.  Sad, isn't it?

[Steph]

The thing is.. why are there so few men who feel like that.. and for me, why are there so few politicians who realize this.. Part is that in my part of the south, the evangelicals rule and many of the congregations seem to feel that men must be the leaders..
The nurturing gene has little to do with your own children and everything to do with how you think and feel.. I was not particularly good at small children, but did much better as my sons became teens. My husband was an absolute miracle with the small children... not so much with the teens.
I have a good friend who is incredible with nurturing. Now as an old person, she has turned this into feeding the hungry and her passion and joy is contagious.

[MaryPage]

One of my huge surprises is that the women who are doctors, and over half of all doctors graduated from medical school today ARE women, do not press the men in their ranks to present a united front and put out medically correct statements whenever lies are told and retold and printed about women's health issues.
No matter which political party you favor or which economic school you believe to be correct, FACTS ARE FACTS, and facts are NOT opinions.  They just flat out ARE NOT opinions!
So people should not get away with spouting "facts" that are lies.
And our medical community should say:  "Hogwash!  Of course women get pregnant from rape!"
And our medical community should say, as that courageous young law student from that esteemed Jesuit school of higher learning:  Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. said, that of course contraceptives are an important prescription for women's health because they are used by millions of women just to regulate their cycles and improve their overall health in that way, and they are the best known treatment for ovarian cancer, and go on to list their many other uses and virtues that have nothing to do with preventing conception, or even, for that matter, having anything to do with having sex.
But the medical community does not speak up.  At least, I have not been aware that they have.
Two of my thirteen granddaughters had to be put on the pill in their very early teens, not because they were having sex, which they most certainly were not, but because they were suffering from erratically timed periods that were extremely painful and profuse.  The pill was the best fix.  I mean, they were CRIPPLED by their periods, and had to miss school.  The pill fixed them up.

[mabel1015j]

In looking for some info on historian Mary Ritter Beard this morning i came across this paragraph which expresses a continuing theoretical dichotomy within and without the feminist movement. Should women strive to be the same as men, or do we have differences that give us uniqueness in society? Beard didn't like the "oppressive" centered history of women. She wrote that women have always had important places and unique skills throughout history. I think i hear in this day and age a blending of the dichotomy. What do you think?

With the successful passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution behind her, Beard began to concentrate more fully on her writing and to further develop her philosophy concerning women in history which frequently set her at odds with the feminist movement. Along with her husband Charles, she had been an active proponent of the “New History” movement which sought to include social, cultural and economic factors in written history—an important step towards including the contributions of women. Beard expanded on this concept, contending that the proper study of women’s “long history”, from primitive pre-history to the present would reveal that women have always played a central role in all civilizations. She emphasized that women were different from men but that did not make their contributions of any less value, their significance was simply not being recognized. Beard took issue with feminists of the era who she believed viewed their history as one of oppression and their goal as equality with men, which they worked toward through, among other things, their advocacy for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). To Beard, that history was not only inaccurate but unhelpful and that striving to be like men was not an adequate goal, she felt, because women can and should offer something different and more socially beneficial to society, that women should be providers of “culture and civilization”.[2] She attempted to educate women about their history through her writing and when she felt she wasn’t reaching her audience she changed tactics.

I liked two of her books, On Understanding Women,  and Woman as a Force in History, they are both good survey histories of women's contributions to civilization.

[MaryPage]

I think Beard's mindset is wrong headed.  I admire her brains, but her eyes are turned in the wrong direction.
As a Feminist, I have absolutely no desire to be like men.  Like a man or like any man.  They have accused us of having a penis envy.  Not me!  Not here!  Given the choice to be born again, I mean literally here and am not using religious terminology, I would come back as a woman.  Hey, I think we are MADE superior to men!  They only have their brute force to slap us down.  Most of them are two year olds who have grown bigger, but not smarter.  We are nicer and more caring.
And I care.  I care rather desperately about every child born on the face of this planet and what their chances are for a good life.
This is what it is to be a woman.  I had a long conversation this morning with my young, black gastroenterologist.  She is brilliant.  And she knows how things are.  This is her view of the pecking order here on planet Earth: White men, Black Men, White Women, Black Women.  She knows and understands that despite their deep ingrained racial prejudices, white men think of black men as superior to any woman, even those of their own race.  The basic and most indelible prejudice for men is the inferiority of women.
THAT is what I want to smack in the face.  I don't care if men become totally useless, I think women should run this world, as it would be a better place for babies to be born and grow up in.
This morning's Washington Post says most babies born in this country today are born to unmarried women.  I have no quarrel with a woman deciding to have a baby although she is unmarried, but I do feel a huge unknowing question about those children growing up without daddies in the home.  Will this be hard on them?  Or will their lives be better for it?  I don't know.  I just don't know.

[BarbStAubrey]

whow - and she is a historian - did she never look into the history of philosophy or theology - women philosophers are not included in the canon because all philosophy goes back to Plato and Socrates and women tend to listen and see things from a different perspective that if included would change the entire foundation and house constructed on this foundation of the history of philosophy and so to this day we have excluded the contributions of great women philosophers - today we cannot name 9 women philosophers off the top of our head that lived before the twentieth century. And so I ask where is reality when for thousands of years we exclude the philosophical work of half the population?

On top of which the exclusion of women in philosophy is picked up in the exclusion of women doing Theology. So that now we have leaders of one of the largest religions in the world saying it is Dogma that women can not be priests - where is the Dogma - it is simply based on a house of cards.

[mabel1015j]

Don't misunderstand this small bit of what Beard was about. She was very much a feminist and had worked with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to pass the vote. She was not saying women have always been in history books, but that women have always been making contributions in culture and civilization, but had NOT been included in the scholarly studies of history. She was very much involved w/ working class women to get equal opprtunity. She thought that the focus of one group of feminists at the time, 1920's and 30's, were too focused on women as victims and not focused on their capabilities and ability to do and contribute.

This was a review i wrote on the book for Amazon


This review is from: On Understanding Women (Hardcover)
I read this book about three decades ago when I was first educating myself in women's history. Beard starts back in pre-historic times telling us that in hunter-gatherer communities the population was women and children. Men after about age twelve left the communities and were a part of roving bands of men who occaisionally visited the small communities keeping the population growing. Because the societies were women and children, women were responsible for the survival of the community; they knew where the foodstuffs were at which time of the year and how to get to them; they knew where the water sources were; they knew where the shelters were.

According to Beard it is very likely that women started the agricultural period of civilization. It is likely that coming back to a previously visited site women may have recognized that in a spot where children had spilled a basket of grains into the mud three months ago, grain was now growing in that mud. Could they do that deliberately? She also states that "women launched civilization." a woman would have made that basket that the grain was spilled from. A woman would have sung lullabies to comfort children, drawn pictures for them on cave walls - women's palm prints are visible in the famous cave paintings. Once they were controlling their agriculture, women may have begun a rythmic "work song" to make the work of planting more enjoyable. Women, who made whatever garments were being designed and made, woud have been the persons who embellished them, adding stones (beads), feathers, fringe, etc.

Beard moves on through history to the 20th century, adding information about women to the story. She writes in a clear, easily read, yet scholarly way. There was controversy that she does not footnote her writing. As of today, that doesn't matter much, her information can be readily checked for scources and corroboration with the use of the internet.

This is a great introduction to a survey of women's history. It should be followed up with the reading of more specific eras and people, but it's a good start. Her "Women As a Force in History" is a good second survey of women's history read.

I think you would both agree with her and enjoy her books.

[Steph]

I would guess that some feminists would argue that the men brought home the meat and therefore were the original feeders.. The western Indians put their precious seeds for the next year in a sealed up jar each fall, hid it in a place known to them and then wandered all winter.. coming back to their summer place and breaking out the seeds to plant to live.. I always wondered if a woman had thought of this plan.Strikes me as the kind of thought that a woman would have.

[marjifay]

I agree with MaryPage in that I don't think Feminists necessarily want to be like men.  They want to share power equally with men..

However I don't agree that women are superior to men.  Neither gender is superior to the other, IMO.

Marj

[MaryPage]

Guess that is one of the many places where the mind sets of we women diverge.  One of the most interesting and eye-opening experiences of my entire life was the Conscious Raising group I was pulled into back in 1977.  Did it, basically, because it was women promoting it and women doing it;  Really thought it, hey, confession time here, a bunch of marlarky.
Boy, was I ever wrong.  We ranged in age from 19 to my then 48.  We were all over the place in education, culture, life experience.  We came from totally different places and information, but we learned what we had in common and formed a sisterhood.
Must confess, and then go on from here, I DO think women are superior to men.  I do.  There you have it.
The Love of My Life was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.  Himself completed me.  Gave me consolation and value.  Gave me everything I needed and yearned for.  But even Himself knew I think women offer more hope for this world than do the men who have brought us to the brink of extinction.  He knew I adored him above all, but he also knew how my thoughts sort themselves.
And he agreed.  He thought women superior, too.  

[MaryPage]

When I say I find women superior to men,  am thinking most profoundly in the Biological sense.  Seriously, here, am not trying to exhibit a prejudice or bigotry.
Women are put together better for survival.  We live longer.  We can handle more stress and handle it better.  We are more caring and more altruistic.  Could go on and on, but no point in becoming completely boring.  Just wanting you to know am not saying:  Hey, there's us and them and we're better.
Nope;   think Mother Nature made us far superior, and what is more,  think you find this all throughout the animal world.  People, animals, insects, birds, fish.  The female is the superior creation.

[mabel1015j]

Some women getting their due.............

50 women who changed America's health

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/50-women-in-health_n_2879370.html

Click on the righthand arrow of the slideshow to get their names and description.

[BarbStAubrey]

I'm confused the first post expresses her disregard for women who point out the inadequacy of the system towards women and the second article that you wrote says she is the best thing since apple sauce. Is it showing the split among women and therefore we cannot make the kind of difference yet because we come from divergent viewpoints?

[mabel1015j]

I don't believe she was disregarding the women who were pointing out the inadequacies of the systems, i think she felt there was too much emphasis on women as victims because no one was writing the positives and the contributions of women throughout history. Historians had traditionally written only about leaders, aristocracy, politics, religion, economics and wars, all focusing on the men involved. Beard and her husband were a part of a group of historians who were focusing on the history of labor- men and women's involvement, the masses, societal issues, cultural issues, women's lives, etc. in other words, involving the stories of all of the people of history.

Mary Beard wrote several books focused only on women and co-wrote several with her husband on big issues where she assured women were included. The two books of hers that i have read are On Understanding Women, which starts w/ the info in the review about hunter-gatherer women and continues to WWI,  and Women as a Force in History. That title was her theory of writing women's history in the mid 20th century, to let women and men know that women had not always been in total oppressive/submissive situations and had had power, even if often indirect, and had been inventive and contributing. Women that most people had no knowledge of, or of the things that women had done, even if lacking equal opportunity. She was very pro woman and again i think you are agreeing with her theory - women should not be striving to be like men, but striving for equal opprtunity and equal power.

Many women, including " feminists" were not supportive of the ERA at the time, including Eleanor Roosevelt. Feminists are not a monolith, as is true of most movements and i don't percieve that as a bad thing, only if the factions become so extreme that they become unfunctional...........as our Congress.  There was a lot of fear of women losing what some considered benifits in the labor force, restricted hours, restricted weights to be lifted, etc.  Of course, ERA advocates wld say those "benefits" were keeping women from better paying jobs.  There are still disagreements about whether we should be expending energy working to pass an ERA, especially since a lot of those "benefits" have been taken care of with more progressive labor law.

Jean

[marjifay]

Just curious, Jean, why you are interested in what Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958) had to say about women except as a history of how feminists long ago thought about women. Thinking has evolved since her time.

Marj

[BarbStAubrey]

I think it is the two posts that are confusing to me - the first includes "Beard took issue with feminists of the era who she believed viewed their history as one of oppression and their goal as equality with men, which they worked toward through, among other things, their advocacy for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)." and then there is her support for women so that confuses how can you support women and not be an advocate for the ERA - unless we are talking in ideas that have nothing to do with reality - maybe Beard would have a better way of achieving equal rights and equal pay but it is what it is and not everyone comes to it from the same experience so I am not sure I understand supporting someone who picks at how women present themselves to get equal rights - I am just confused - somehow this is not sorted out so I understand.

[Steph]

I think humans are like the dog world.. Both sexes have a different view of the world.. but they are equal in many ways.. I do wonder about the current women incommand in the computer world.. They do not seem to like other women and are trying too hard to be stricter than a male.. and having a nursery built next to your office is truly rubbing it in to all of the women struggling with child care in the world.

[marjifay]

Steph wrote, " I do wonder about the current women in command in the computer world.. They do not seem to like other women and are trying too hard to be stricter than a male.."

What women are you talking about, Steph?

Marj