Happy Patriarchymas!

[thunderboltsandlightning]

I know, I know - but this is the feminist section and christmas is about celebrating the birth of the son of god, with women's spirituality and power completely written out of the story. It's the classic patriarchal mindfuck for women. Even Santa's a man, but who does most of the present-buying and wrapping?

Then there's the fact that christmas is all about women doing most of the work, with men enjoying the benefits.

Each year I find it a little more difficult to have to go through it all. Once you've seen what it's about, it gets harder to ignore the brainwashing.

Hope everybody has a happy peaceful time, whatever you are celebrating.

"I get the feeling from your posts that because my feminism does not look like your feminism, you feel it is not valid and you do not want me to post. "

I get the feeling you just aren't listening to me Abird. Your posts haven't been anything to do with the topic of this thread. Coming on here and saying that jesus was a feminist and that you have "faith" that the misogyny of the bible and the church isn't really what christianity is about, despite all the evidence ignores what I posted about which is the exploitation of women at christmas in the service of demonstrably patriarchal celebration.

I'm happy for you to post, it's not up to me whether you do or not. I'm not happy when you derail this thread and refuse to engage with anything I actually posted.

I engaged with you, I actually addressed your claim that jesus was a feminist. I haven't seen you even responding to that.

"I almost feel like this thread needs to be split into two - 1. The social pressures to conform to a role of womanhood. 2. how religion perpetuates misogyny."

Those things are deeply connected though. Religion is one of the main mediums that patriarchy has used to disseminate its misogynistic ideas of what womanhood should be. It tells us how to act, it tells us what a good woman is - clearly it doesn't have such strong power as it used to, but it still has influence.

As Daly says, patriarchal religious traditions and ceremonies have a detrimental psychological effect on women. They force us into damaging behaviours and undermine our view of ourselves.

I do not know a single religion that isn't patriarchal, that is because they were founded in patriarchal times. There are none still in existence from before the agricultural revolution, when men became dominant.

Sardine, your comments on the attitude of the Catholic Church with regard to sex before marriage, contraception and the threat of excommunication of women who have abortions, only apply in the developing world. When did you last hear of someone in the Uk being threatened with excommunication? Or even being refused communion for having sex or taking contraception?

Yes the catholic hierarchy can't get away with that level of bullying the west. They might lose the rest of their congregants.

Picking up on Chibi's post, it seems obvious to me why women should identify with the message of redemption through suffering that the Catholic church presents.

It's not such a big surprise either, that some of the most beautful, moving hymns are negro spirituals which came out of slavery.

What I find really, really baffling about the Catholic church is that it has rules and doctrines and all the rest, and some of them are astonishingly misogynist. But I'd you challenge q Catholic about them they always say "oh, we don't pay attention to the rules we don't like"

So people in sub-Saharan Africa are supposed to not use condoms to protect themselves from AIDs because a consequence of their use would be to prevent conception, but catholic women in the Home Counties can take the pill because "It's a matter of conscience"

Yes Seeker, that is the case. The reason for this is that the church is the people. The hierarchy seldom lead, instead they tend to follow. I think this is true of most established religions where the congregation are mostly born into the religion, as opposed to converts. Scientology for example does not behave in such a way.

BTW, I think the teaching on condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS has changed recently.

The teaching on condom use has changed to enable male prostitutes to use them to prevent disease. So far so liberal.

That was given as an example. Actually am pmsl though. Surely it is really liberal (if not entirely feminist) for the head of an established religion to be so concerned about the welfare of male prostitutes.

It's not the welfare of the male prostitutes he's worried aobut, it's that of their clients.

All measures to avoid sexually transmitted disease in prostitution, have always been about protecting the clients, not the prostituted men and women they are abusing.

Dione you can't pretend that the RC church in the developing world is an entirely different organisation from the RC church in the UK/ West. They have are exactly the same faith, with the same head. I'm not sure what your point in making that separation is?

Seeker seriously?

So male condoms are now allowed to use condoms with their clients but not anyone else? what about female prostitutes? Or women with partners who they know are HIV?

Dione what is your line here. It is hard to argue that the RC religion hasn't caused a huge amount of pain worldwide with it's teachings and policies. Why don't you lay your cards on the table rather than making little digs at people's posts?

here about condom use

So after all those years of teaching that people even in areas with high levels of HIV must not use condoms, they have finally said that people can if the sole reason for the condom is preventing infection. And use a male prostitute as an example.

Yes how liberal

Women as incubators.

Gee, I wonder where they could have got that idea from. Maybe there's something in their giant rule book.

Quote from the Telegraph article -
"acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to ?reduce the risk of infection?"

How does someone prove that the sole reason for their condom use is the secondary reason (infection risk reduction), while ignoring the primary reason (conception reduction)?

Well it's not all 'constructed on women's backs' chibi.I like to credit the men who produce the electricity for the big day.And the men at the waterworks and the sewage plants.And the men who built the roads so we could go to the shopping centre.Oh and the men who built the shopping centre.And the men who work on the freighters who transport goods around the world.And the men who built the house that I live in and the hospital I sometimes visit.Actually if I look out my window everything that I see was built by men!

Oh, the men who went to work in respected jobs, got lunch breaks, sick leave, holiday pay, toilet breaks, and a pay cheque at the end of the week?

Which is completely unlike women who do, what is it now? 90% of the world's UNPAID, UNRECOGNISED labour and are expected to console themselves with meaningless platitudes like "Oh, but you're the heart of the family".

You've just neatly pointed out the very difference between men's work and wifework. Congratulations :)

Yes,the main difference being that if the men stopped work the lights would go out but if the women stopped work we'd have more dust about.

If I stopped work our bills wouldn't be paid. Then the lights in our house would go out.

Do you really think that's all women bring to a household, lolly, or are you on a wind up?

we'd go homeless

since when did women work for pin money?

since never in history

If women stopped our reproductive labour, there wouldn't be a human race.

Which is why the religious boys want to control it, and us by extension.

Yes,the main difference being that if the men stopped work the lights would go out but if the women stopped work we'd have more dust about.

Perhaps this is where the difficulty lies - perhaps you're actually in a rare privileged position where you're not actually doing a whole lot of unpaid, unrecognised labour. If so - lucky, lucky you. But you do realise that's just not the case for the majority of the world's women, right? If not, perhaps get out and talk to some people and open your eyes a bit.

It's actually not that hard to see that if the unpaid labour force in the world stopped their labours then the workers of the world wouldn't be able to work. Unpaid work supports paid work. Thus men who work outside of their homes don't have to look after children whilst they're at work - because women are at home doing it (unpaid and unrecognised). Rearing children is a societal issue, but only women are expected to do it.

Likewise, (assuming that the worker in the family is male and the unpaid worker female), if the woman doesn't wash the bloke's sock, jocks and workwear - how is he going to go to work and not be fired because of disgusting personal hygiene? How is he going to work if he is starving or his blood sugar levels so variable that he passes out regularly? He needs food regularly, and reasonably healthy food at that. How is he going to get enough down time to relax from the stress he's experienced during the week if his wife or partner doesn't look after the children on the weekends so that he can recover in order to work another week?

And you know what? This isn't even about me feeling resentful about how much 'wifework' I do. In my house, I'm the worker and my husband the SAHP. He does an awful lot of the unpaid labour - and there's a lot of it around here, we live on 10 acres. He's just been out for the last 2 days fixing the tractor and then slashing the paddocks to ensure that we're not at risk of any bushfires that might threaten over the next couple of months (we're not in the UK). But if he stopped doing the unpaid labour he does - I just could.not do the paid labour that I do. I wouldn't have the time, the energy or the resources to do it all. It plays an absolutely integral role in my ability to be professional - so I value it, very much. So many men (and women, evidently) don't even see the unpaid labour as labour let alone value it. I'm lucky. Many (most) women are not.

Same Church, same head, different people, different ways of working. As has been said before, the church on the UK and the West adopts a much different approach to such things as pre marital sex, contraception etc.

I never claimed that the catholic church did not cause suffering. And I don't understand what you mean when you talk about "digs".

Merry Patriarchymas, one and all

I am lying in bed eating pastry which was super-cheap last night. I will go on a walk with my daughter a bit later if the good weather holds.

Dinner is going to be the things that were reduced to clear in Tesco express last night.

Merry Patriarchymas! I'm drinking pink champagne & eating chocolate croissants while DD is forcing DH to teach her how to use her inline skates.

Turkey has been on since 7...........

NB This is the first Christmas I haven't been to church since I was born. I'm not even guilty. I think I'm finally becoming a lapsed Catholic - cheers!