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“Sarah Moore Grimké (1792 – 1873) was born in South Carolina, to a slave holding family. As an adult she came to Pennsylvania to live. Later, describing the agonies of conscience she suffered on the account of slavery, Sarah Grimké referred to the South as a “wilderness” in which they saw nothing “but desolation and suffering”.
[…]
Sarah Grimké”s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women were originally designed to present her views on feminism but she used them as a means to answer the churchmen [her detractors] as well. The central theme is woman’s equal moral responsibility with man to act for the good of humanity. The author employs wit and acerbity as formidable weapons: all she asks of her brothers, says Grimké is that they “take their feet from off our necks”; when women rely on men for protection, she notes sarcastically, they are apt to find “that what they have leaned upon has proved a broken reed at best, and oft a spear.” She did not hesitate to declare that the word “husband” was “synonymous with tyrant.” She herself never married. “
The excerpt from her letters illustrates the lockstep that religion and patriarchy enforced upon women and her objects to said oppression.
“Haverhill, 7th Mo.17, 1837
“The New Testament has been referred to, and I am willing to abide by its decisions, but must enter my protest against the false translations of some passages by the MEN that did that work, and against the perverted interpretation by the MEN who undertook to write commentaries thereon. I am inclined to think, when we are admitted to the honor of studying Greek and Hebrew, we shall produce some various readings of the Bible a little different from those we know have.
The Lord Jesus defines the duties of his followers in his Sermon on the Mount. He lays down grand principles by which they should be governed, without any reference to sex or condition:- ‘Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. […]
I follow Him through all his precepts, and find him giving the same directions to women as to men, never even referring to the distinction now so strenuously insisted upon between masculine and feminine virtues: this is one of the anti-christian ‘traditions of men’ which are taught instead of the ‘commandments of God.’ Men and women were CREATED EQUAL; they are both moral and accountable beings, and whatever is right for he man to do, is right for a woman.
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How monstrous, how anti-christian, is the doctrine that woman is to be dependant on man! Where, in all the sacred Scriptures, is this taught? Alas! she has too well learned the lesson which MAN has laboured to teach her. She has surrendered her dearest RIGHTS, and been satisfied with the privileges which man has assumed to grant her; she has been amused with the show of power, whilst man has absorbed all the reality into himself. He has adorned the creature whom God gave him as a companion, with baubles and gewgaws, turned her attention to personal attractions, offered incense to her vanity, and made her the instrument of his selfish gratification, a plaything to please his eye and amuse his hours of leisure. ‘Rule by obedience and by submission sway’, or in other words, study to by a hypocrite, pretend to submit, but gain your point, has been the code of the household morality that women have been taught. The poet has sung, in sickly strains, the loveliness of woman’s dependence upon man, and now we find it reechoed by those who profess to teach the religion of the Bible.
[…]
This doctrine of dependence upon man is utterly at variance with the doctrine of the Bible. In that book I find nothing like the softness of a woman, nor the sternness of a man: both are equally commanded to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, love, meekness, gentleness, etc. “
Easy to win or be the winner when you design the system , no? Grimké addresses this point and of course, much more, in her analysis.
–Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. Miriam Schneir ed. p. 40-41
TL;DR – Religion even the olden tymes was all plum fracked up but was markedly worse if you happened to be female.
Dale Spender provides some sociological insight into the roles of women and men.
– Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them (1982)
Another concept is relevant here *thinks hard*now what could that be? Oh yes! Patriarchy. That ‘wispy-diaphonous’ notion that so many dudebros can’t seem to get a handle on. :/
Some food for thought regarding some of the assumptions of Social Darwinism.
Nope. No extra barriers, playing field even, no systemic problems to see here…
‘Of course she would have to avoid stereotypical female behavior, and so she could never cry. She would work long hours and hide her pregnancies and her preschooler’s art. One of my co-workers even hid being married. When confronted, she practically swore never to reproduce, and she never did.
I did not mention my first maternity leave, from which I returned to find a curly-haired stranger sitting at my desk, his feet propped on a cardboard box with my client account list packed inside. I had to re-earn the contents of that box, starting that morning. I also didn’t mention the “moo” sounds that traders made when I headed to the nurse’s office with a breast pump, or the colleague who on a dare drank a shot of the breast milk I had stored in the office fridge. I thought of the guy known for dropping Band-Aids on women’s desks when the trading floor was cold because he didn’t “want to be distracted,” and the many times I had heard a women share an idea at a meeting, only to see later that same idea credited to a man.
But I didn’t bring up any of that. Women like me were “team players,” and I was often complimented on my thick skin. Like members of a dysfunctional family, we kept our secrets to ourselves.
Instead, I kept the conversation light. I shared a funny story about my first day on Wall Street, when I opened up a pizza box to find condoms instead of pepperoni slices. Unwrapped. I was “the new girl,” and the guys just wanted to see me blush. I did blush, and I lived.
“It’s not that bad anymore,” I said with a laugh.
She was horrified. “How could you stand that?”
“Stand what?” I thought to myself. I remembered one guy telling me that we should hire only “women who have brothers.” I asked if she had any brothers. The pizza incident was nothing compared with everything else she was about to experience. I truly thought we were offering her the job of a lifetime if only she could let the bad stuff slide.
At that time, women on Wall Street were earning 55 to 62 cents to every dollar a man in the same position earned. Afterward, Bear Stearns imploded in the mortgage market, and while I stayed close to the markets and the people who worked for them, I left. Children gave me perspective about the price of money. The women labeled stellar successes were giving up more than I was willing to part with. With the benefit of some perspective, I began to think more deeply about what I and my female colleagues had experienced.”
Casting a wide net on the internet is fraught with peril. I’m going to leave the links in long form because really,the embedded info is introduction enough for this post.
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How a husband can enjoy sex that is grudgingly given by his wife
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This would be ROPJ material (see the RPOJ on Christian Patriarchy), but someone has already beaten me to the punch. I was almost out of time and just saved the post to a wordpress draft. The author pretty much nails all the lowlights.
“Everything from their website seems like it’s The Onion (I saw another one called “How To Discipline Your Wife”) but I’m pretty sure it’s the real deal. Nauseating stuff.
Oh. it’s all the real deal. Never doubt religious shits to do their worst. Some choice quotes from the article:
“You also need to realize that whether your wife knows it or not she needs to have sex too,” he opined. “If you don’t have sex with your wife at regular intervals, even sometimes when she is not in the mood but consents anyway, you will open yourself to temptation.”
“Focus your eyes on her body, not her face. Focus on the visual pleasure you receive from looking at her body and physical pleasure you receive from being inside your wife,” Solomon recommended. “You want to connect with her physically AND emotionally during sex. But your wife is the one refusing to connect with you emotionally, so you have to concentrate 100% on the physical side.”
“I know you love your wife, most men love their wives. But sin is ugly,” the writer remarked. “Your beautiful bride’s face becomes ugly during this sinful time that she is grudgingly giving you sex as she grimaces wanting you to ‘just hurry up and get it over with’.”
“So like the men who could not look at Medusa’s face otherwise they would be killed, realize that if you look on your wife’s face when she is displaying a sinful attitude toward sex it will kill your sexual pleasure and may actually make it much more difficult for you to achieve the physical connection and release that you need,” he concluded. “Sometimes we have to work around the sinful behavior of our wives and this will be one of those times.”
In a column earlier this year, Solomon insisted that there was “no such thing as marital rape.” A wife, he said, could ask her husband to delay sex for a short period of time but the request “must be done humbly and respectfully, and always with the attitude in mind that her body does belong to her husband.”
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Rank, hideous victim-blaming, all of it.
If you find yourself giving men the benefit of the doubt, just remember this article! It’ll cure what ails ya!
It makes me so sad that people don’t realize the beauty and pleasure of consensual sex where you are attentive to your partner and listen to their needs… get to know each other’s bodies and really learn how to please each other. Sex can be a very unifying act and you don’t need all this disgusting kinky stuff to orgasm… it’s all so simple, really. And, as far as PIV sex goes, men are going to have a much better time if their partner is wet. @men Basically, what I am getting at, if you wanna enjoy sex, please your partner. Oddly enough this benefits you the most as well. Sex is wonderful and I hate that so many people corrupt it. Sex is in no way a feminist act, but you can certainly make it less feminist by applying biblical logic… by muddying it up with weird BDSM power “women are shit and deserve to be abused” shit. I’m rambling but this shit is so upsetting and counterintuitive.
This isn’t even christian, please don’t mistake it for that. this is men who are acting how they want to and using religion (falsely, might i add) to justify it.
The confluence of religion and patriarchy always ends in rotten deal for women. Consider this case #2389473 of proof positive of that.
JSTOR Daily – News with a scholarly slant. Damn Son, I’m going to be all over that site. :)
From the article on Gender and Family Farms:
“Scott writes that all 23 women interviewed for the paper described doing both male and female chores. Men, on the other hand, talked mostly about male labor. Unless specifically asked, only a third of the men interviewed mentioned any work traditionally done by women. One apple grower described his orchard as a one-man business that his son would eventually inherit, with his wife and daughter only minimally involved. But, in a separate interview, his wife said that while her husband and son took care of the trees, she handled seedlings in the nursery, coordinated sales, hired seasonal labor, kept the books, and helped make decisions. She also mentioned that their daughter ran the farm’s fruit stand.
The men were also more likely to emphasize male ownership of family enterprises—“my grandfather’s farm” or “my tractor.” In contrast, the women usually referred to “my grandmother and grandfather’s farm” or “our tractor.”
Yet more evidence that male socialization is has a strong overlay of patriarchal bullshit. The best part is that until you take the time to read and think about it, patriarchy remains invisible, the monster in the tall reeds and bushes who influences everything and everyone yet, cannot be named or described to the uninitiated.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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