The Patriarchy Fights Back
The Wall Street Journal last week had a story about conservative churches ostracizing “sinners” in order to maintain “church discipline.” On Sunday, a host of obituaries celebrated the career of pioneering journalist Frances Lewine, 86. Also on Sunday, The New York Times Magazine ran a photo essay on female genital mutilation in Indonesia.
These three stories are related in subtle - and not so subtle - ways.
Take the story about churches and “shunning.” It begins with the tale of 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a member of a small church in southwestern Michigan for nearly 50 years. She had taught Sunday school there, and she regularly tithed 10 percent of her pension. Why, then, did her pastor call the police when she came to Sunday services? Why was she led from the church in handcuffs by one policeman, while another carried her Bible?
Her sin was questioning the pastor’s authority. He charged her with spreading “a spirit of cancer and discord” and expelled her. This was not an isolated event. A woman in Virginia was ousted for gossiping about her pastor’s plans to buy a bigger house. In Nashville, the pastor of a megachurch threatened to expel 74 members - men and women - for suing for access of the church’s financial records.
There have been many shunning incidents like this, according to the WSJ. The main reason is usually the “refusal to honor church elders.”
The Times story on genital mutilation comes from a different tradition, although one with identical roots - and I don’t mean religious ones.
Photographer Stephanie Sinclair was able to document a mass circumcision ceremony for 200 young girls, many under the age of five, in Bandung, Indonesia, in 2006. This was a Muslim ceremonial operation performed by women - not nurses - who had also undergone the surgery when young. They would hold down a girl and “swiftly yet with apparent affection cut off a small piece of her genitals.”
Elsewhere on the festival grounds, about 100 young men were also being ceremonially circumcised. But to equate male and female circumcision, you would have to have them remove the entire penis, not just the foreskin.
According to estimates from the World Health Organization, female genital mutilation worldwide affects up to 140 million women and girls in varying degrees of severity. In 80 percent, it involves the complete removal of the clitoris and labia minora.
The reasons given for this specific Indonesian genital mutilation celebration were threefold: To “stabilize her libido”; then to “make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband”; and third, because “it will balance her psychology.”
Stabilizing the female - but never the male - libido is an ancient concern. The Bible is full of restrictions on females intended to make them dependent on and subservient to men.
But this repression has very little to do with sexual activity or even religion. Instead, it has everything to do with power. In any society based on something as wrong-headed as the idea of a dominant patriarchy, you can expect to find the same thing. Burqas in Afghanistan, Saudi women who aren’t allowed to drive, clitorectomies in Africa and Southeast Asia, denial of abortions and birth control in America - it’s all based on the same premise: to restrain and repress one half of the population of a society in order to maintain the unlimited power of the other half.
Dare I say that any time a society is based - in part or in whole - on some kind of criminal falsehood, you get the same kind of rigid, repressive and doctrinaire support of the status quo. Slavery in America would be a good example, and I would suggest that the concept of private property might fall into this category, as well.
Questioning and challenging authority is an essential part of being human. Any society that fails to teach its young men and women to think for themselves is in great danger of calcification and decay. The Catholic Church made that costly mistake when it repressed for years the truth about pedophile priests. And any pastor in an evangelical church who ostracizes members because they want to question his use of church funds deserves nothing less than a full-scale audit.
Which brings me back to the remarkable career of Frances Lewine. In the 1950s, when most women were still at home and under the thumb of the American patriarchy, she was White House correspondent for the Associated Press for six administrations, then a member of the Carter administration, and then a CNN assignment editor and field producer until her death.
Her obituary in The Washington Post lauded her landmark participation with six other female journalists in a 1978 class-action suit against the AP that “resulted in a $2 million settlement and forced changes in the wire service’s policies on salaries, assignments, promotions, pensions and hiring” for women.
It took her and her competitor, Helen Thomas, to bust through the condescending attitudes of the time about women being too soft to cover politics, government and war. Instead of shutting up and covering the “social beat,” they stepped up and demanded the careers they clearly deserved. By doing so, they paved the way for their daughters and granddaughters to enjoy real careers in journalism.
Over the past six decades, American women have fought hard - and won much - in the fight for equal status. And no matter what you think of her politics or ethics, there is something stirring about Hillary Clinton standing at the apex of this struggle today.
But the fight is far from over. The patriarchy is still fighting to maintain its status here, and the battle hasn’t even begun in places like Indonesia.
A collection of Joyce Marcel’s columns, “A Thousand Words or Less,” is available through joycemarcel.com. Write her at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.
Didn’t you just know that they were going to seemingly casually toss in the Hillary reference at the end?
Maybe the author should consider what Helen Thomas or Molly Ivins has said about Ms Billary.
this tells it like it is:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15
Too bad Hillary is such a poor example and not worthy of the honour or the importance ofthe moment, but we have to be careful not to demand/expect/delude ourselves that female politicians are more virtuous than male politicians. That would be sexist. Evil is an equal-opportunity force.
To me, Hillary is an emetic.
Marcel is far too blinded by her hatred of men to ever see Hillary’s flaws. Such one-dimensional thinking, particularly when motivated by hate, virtually always leads to poor choices.
I vigorously oppose Hillary Clinton and will not vote for her in November if she receives the nomination.
The problem with her is not that she is a woman. The problem is the woman that she is.
Agreed, medusa, but Ms. Marcel does raise a valid point nonetheless. Female repression has been an ongoing strategy in the West since at least the fall of Rome (probably further back, but I lack specific historic examples at present). Reading my history on how such patriarchial societies play out is essentially the literary equivalent of watching a train wreck in slow motion. The unnoticed cracks in the foundation become too wide to ignore, too deep to repair, “and darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
Of course, were the pendulum to swing the other way, we would have essentially the same problem, imbalance. Too much of anything and rot sets in. The greatest challenge of this century (assuming the human race survives) may be balancing male and female influences without giving into a patriarchy or matriarchy that will disenfranchise the opposite side or even (and ultimately) both sides.
Notice the cultural relativity of dismissing male circumcision while condemning female circumcision.
This is because male circumcision is widespread in this country. Newborn baby boys routinely have their genitals mutilated shortly after birth. And it was originally pushed in this country (not counting ancient Jewish custom) as a way to stop young male sexuality. Then it turned to “make it look better”, then to a health issue (4% UTIs in uncircumcised males as compared to 3% in circumcised - wow! that’s a reason for routinely mutilating every boy!) Now, they’ve announced that it prevents AIDS. So now you’ll hear that a centuries old custom is valuable to prevent a 27 year old disease.
These rationales are no more rational that the ones given for female circumcision in Africa. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
“ventriloquist for the patriarchy”, I believe they are referred to.
No threat there.
So a vote for Hillary is a vote against female genital mutilation? Or a vote against Hillary is a vote for female genital mutilation?
Come on…what has Hillary or Bill ever done to promote stopping these actions while they (according to Hillary) were in their Joint Presidency (35 years experience and counting)?
I’m with you McDee. And I think Molly and Helen would be horrified to have Hillary’s name linked with theirs.
Thanks, Vern, for the link to Greiders’ story. That was excellent.
As a nursing student I observed three infant male circumcisions. It was horrifying. The worst was a little Asian baby boy who couldn’t stop bleeding - or screaming - and the torture they put him through to stop the bleeding was hideous. I grieved for him and every baby boy who had to go through the torture as one of their first life experiences. I grieved for my two oldest sons who had a young ignorant mother who was still doing what she was told. I was grateful that my youngest son didn’t have to go through that.
I pray that we will become a world of peace and harmony, and that people like Bush will stop smiling when other people are being hurt or killed.
kathyodat
as a male, i agree that circumcision is not necessary in boys….
HOWEVER, i am increasingly agitated by ‘Female Circumcision’, more like Genital Mutilation, because it actually affects sexuality and hormones….
Male circumcision is purely based on ‘looks’ and has no effect on Sex Drive, hormones, etc…
Using female circumcision to essentially neuter the Female population HAS TO STOP….
hillary wont stop it just because she is female; she is the wrong PERSON…..she had her chance with Bill at the helm….and did nothing….
“There is something stirring about Hillary Clinton standing at the apex of this struggle today.” Stomach turning is more like it. A woman president? Absolutely, just not THAT woman. Having lived under Margaret Thatcher’s regime, I can promise you that two X chromosomes don’t make the woman.
Well I am flabbergasted! Here I was being dutifully informed of the evils of religious fanatics etc. Just to get to the end and find propaganda for Billary. The idea that Hillary Clinton is the culmination of the Womans rights movement is as absurd as the idea that Barack Obama is the result of the legacy of Martin Luther King. Rather these are both example of how the power elite go out of their way to disenfranchise such movements by finding sellouts like these two to fool the people into believing the lie of false change. Why don’t we jsut get it over with and elect Condi Rice as president. then we can declare both the struggle for racial equality and gender equality officially won!
It is certainly too bad that Hillary did not have the intelligence to stay in the kitchen baking cookies and mending sox so that she could please most of you people. Women should know their place, the way Laura does and let their husbands do their own big things while the wife is staying home where she belongs. Nixons wife was a great example also of a woman who knew her place and kept her head down. FDR`s wife , Eleanor, was one of the bad ones that had some ideas for helping people and doing something besides cooking. Maybe some of you should move to a regressive blog site where it is popular to drag Hillary through the mud and has been for 16 years.
“Stabilizing the female - but never the male - libido is an ancient concern. ”
Never the male? I agree that female circumcision is more traumatic than male circumcision. However, there are millions of baby boys subjected to sexual mutilation every year. I think the author wants to believe that the “Patriarchy” has no women members.
Poor widdle Hillary! All you mean people stop picking on her just because she is a gurl!!!!
What a racket–she is either trying to outswagger the bulliest of boys–but when she is called on it–it’s back to poor widdle Hillary–nobody likes her. She even spins that to make it appear that instead of being the most polarizing–the most despised–it is framed as survival and strength.
Hillary is not a woman, she’s an ex-lawyer (liar) politician imitating a woman. Same with Barack, he’s just another image, a shell of a human being.
Lol@ vote for Condi..
Anyone got any better ideas?
I’d be all for voting for a woman for Commander in Chief, but as was mentioned above, just look at Thatcher. If we had our own Benazir Bhutto to vote for it might be a different story. Oh wait we do! Cynthia McKinney is also running for President.
www.runcynthiarun.org
A for enlightenment (which includes a necessary dose of empathy, as in HUMANITY) for GUNGNEIR and MICAH.
KIVALS? Que pasa, buddy? This is not about Joyce hating men, sweet heart… you’re setting yourself up for a life in a Muslim nation where you get to be on the receiving edge of that cutting edge!
This article is about the ways WOMEN are silenced. Fuck Hillary. That’s a side note. It is NOT the essence of what Joyce is writing about.
BOOTES: We are so immersed in centuries of patriarchal programming that we don’t realize the degree to which ITS values shape our perceptions and self-deluded notions that we THINK for ourselves. The same mechanism–fear of being shunned–causes an awful lot of people (what many in this forum refer to as “sheeple”) to conform to norms that DAMAGE fellow citizens. The females who continue the legacy of performing clitorectomy are as conditioned to this barbaric practice, as those that see circumsizing the male as basic. As has been noted, the level of wounding goes far deeper in women. It is not so much the matter of being male or female, it’s the consciousness of patriarchy and how it denigrates, denies and degrades the EQUAL contribution of the DIVINE feminine. The word NUN is a very apt example. (as in NONE. As in patriarchal religions see god as a guy. Please…)
“She who rocks the cradle rules the world”
One could argue that in the mating game women have the upper hand. Of course status and competitive nest building play into the bankers hands! (mostly male right)
Apparently females have a genetic advantage since the X chromosome appears to be losing links lately.
One could also argue that women have the upper hand in our court system when marriages break up…. which generally is good for the economy again playing into bankers hands.
But let’s not forget Hillory!
Hillory On the Hill
I’m proud to be the one
I’m proud to be the one
you know the pretty bling gal.. top gun one
I don’t need to shake my booty ;….just consult with Hal
who holds my naughts and leaves the ones to me
like a waving banner that’s false and free
I’m proud to be the one the pretty bling gal one
the new world Cleopatra one the new world Soprano one
don’t need to pimp for freedom cause there ain’t none
don’t need to build a gulag cause we are one
I’m the one naught gal, the pretty bling gal
bought and paid for by my friend named Hal.
naught one one naught naught one
As I understand it, in societies where it takes place, female circumcision is continued by and carried out by females. But of course if women do it- blame men.
Oh my empirePie, Barbara Bush was the hand that rocked W’s cradle.
But then B.B. seems above all problems that any woman might experience.
As a woman, I can say, it is true, most women gotta use their wiles to navigate this patriarchal planet. I know we are at least 50%, but you gotta be clever to hold your own in this place. Amen.
I just count my lucky stars I didnt live in the place where I get my privates whacked off, by nice ladies no less, I have other things like the author mentioned to deal with around here.
Good article.
Seriously? I thought this was a progressive website. Instead I read the same old bunch of people saying that female “circumcision” (which takes away ALL of a woman’s sexual pleasure and in some cases makes sex extremely painful) is the same thing as male circumcision, and that since women do it to other women, it’s not a tool of male control?
Social controls don’t always involve someone having a gun to your head. They’re a lot more insidious than that.
I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton either, but I’d hardly call this piece propaganda for Clinton.
Just want to quote kivals: “Such one-dimensional thinking, particularly when motivated by hate, virtually always leads to poor choices.” Apply that to yourselves, Common Dreamers, or perhaps I should say Common Whiners. The “dream” is gone, washed away by the negativity that just oozes off these pages, repetitively, response after response, article after article. And, as if this were an exercise in dramatic irony, no one here seems to be the least aware that what they are saying and the way they are saying it just drips with sexism of the ugliest sort.
I was undecided about Hillary, but after reading column after column of these ignorant diatribes, I am damn sure going to vote for her, and thanks to Gloria Steinem (in an earlier article) for standing up for what she represents. Those of you who have benefitted, both men and women, from what Gloria and her ilk accomplished decades ago, have developed selective cluelessness about an issue that is central to the American culture. (And, as the article above so eloquently displays, an issue that is played out throughout the world in the most frightening and damaging of ways.) As Kernel pointed out in a much nicer way, women are fine, but not if they’re too uppity, not if they have ideas that may actually take us beyond the rigid status quo, not if they have garnered support from people with(gasp!)money. Then they’re just ‘whores’–an epithet I have seen repeatedly here. Anyone need a little lesson on that divisive patriarchal dichotomy Madonna vs. Whore?
Both Clinton and Obama have become lightning rods for our deepest prejudices, blasting it all out there where we might be forced to look at it ourselves. I just never thought I would see all of those prejudices bubbling up so noxiously from a site like this one, ostensibly devoted to “progressive” thought. I always thought “progressives” were the smart ones, the ones with perspective, the ones who knew how to make a difference. Well, silly me; the web has allowed us all to expose ourselves as frauds.
Oh, and, by the way, do send hate mail. I would expect nothing less.
LEMON — Your post is insubstantial, ill informed, and superfluous, per SIOUX ROSE at 4:23 pm (above).
She accurately states
MICAH — You are misinformed, when you state “purely based on ‘looks’ and has no effect on Sex Drive, hormones, etc…”. The only accurate telling of the truth of male genital mutilation, must come from the adult who chooses such, and has a vantage point to compare.
The parents who agree to this child abuse, should FIRST have their own genitals mutilated, to see how well it goes over for them.
At least male circumcision doesn’t leave a guy without any ability to experience pleasure or have an orgasm. Remove the clitoris, remove orgasm, which is the reason it is done—if a woman is incapable of experiencing sexual pleasure, the reasoning, goes, it is easier to control her sexuality (what’s left of it) and ensure monogamy. Sexual intercourse, let alone childbirth (which involes cutting the opening large enough to accommodate the infant, as all of the natural elasticity of the tissue and muscle is gone), is excruciating, thus eliniminating any inclination to engage in sexual activity.
SARAH J, NSPIRE & PDJ: You all get it, and thanks for trying to raise consciousness on those who think reality is ONLY their personal experience or what they in their limited ego’s stance happen to see or experience.
if the article isn’t about hillary, then why even mention her name. the only thing “stirring about hillary…” is her ability to invoke hostile feelings in the majority of americans today.
RE: As I understand it, in societies where it takes place, female circumcision is continued by and carried out by females. But of course if women do it- blame men.”
But, lemoncurry, you’ve just made the case for Bootes’ brilliantly insightful comment re ‘making no room for women in Patriarchy’. Some of the most patriarchal beings I have ever experienced in my life are women! Think about it–those who rose to the top and then stood on the heads of their sisters so they would remain beneath them–were they not slavishly patriarchal? They even started sounding like the men they disdained–think Condi, that sycophant!
Women’s liberation has brought us wonderful leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. They are equal in every respect to the male politicians we have been gifted with so far. Aren’t you incredibly happy?
To understand patriarchy learn about hierarchy. Today’s patriarchal assumptions about our relationship to nature, family, and neighbors were not always “assumed as natural.”
“The Chalice and The Blade” by cultural scholar Riane Eisler offers examines what once was — and what is still possible.
Nerissa
Why would any woman hold down another woman and do this to her? Or, why would someone who was victimized as a young girl to do this to another young girl after she herself has reached the age of reason? I guess there could be alot of answers to that, but ultimately, it is the system she is existing in that brings this about. That said, being a woman in the workplace doesnt make a woman compassionate towards others if she is’nt already by nature that is true in both men and women. I dont trust a woman in politics, just because she is a woman. That said, I hold out hope for great women leaders, they just may not be the ones getting all the $$$
In a curious way, the defamation of Hillary for her boneheaded policies and embarassment of an ex-president husband chief cheerleader(think Bush-lite for both of them!) is a sign of growing equality for women. Ditto for Obama and African-Americans.
Who would you rather see running for the presidency–Hillary or perhaps Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, or Cynthia McKinney?
Would you rather have a Barack Obama or a Jesse Jackson or maybe Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, or Dennis Kucinich?
There are women and African Americans worthy of support for such high office for either their convictions or advocacy on issues. Regrettably Hillary and Barack O are not among them.
Any feminist with even an ounce of sophistication and intelligence would have to acknowledge that while androcratic societies may involve the oppression of women by men, they also, in an equally fundamental sense, involve the oppression of men by other men. A decent feminist would also recognize that restrictive gender stereotypes have harmed men as well as women. A thoughtful feminist would grasp that power relationships within and between genders are of vast complexity, and that how much power one wields in society is determined by a plethora of other factors besides gender.
Unfortunately, for Ms. Marcel, (and, sadly, for all too many of today’s feminists), the world is a simple place in which all men supposedly wield “unlimited power” at the expense of all women. Blinded by such simplistic and hateful stereotypes, Ms. Marcel believes that Hillary Clinton is a fundamental challenge to America’s “patriarchal” power structure simply because of her female gender. If Ms. Marcel would take off her ideological blinders she would acknowledge that Hillary represents the conservative pro-corporate wing of the Democratic party and will do little or nothing to challenge America’s power structure.
There are many fine women working for social change in America. Cindy Sheehan and Greens Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney come to mind.
Among the Democratic candidates, however, those most committed to a program of real change are Dennis Kucinich, and perhaps, John Edwards. No matter how much Ms. Marcel may hate to admit it, both happen to be white males.
Regarding female “circumcision” (really torturous mutilation) if the truth be known most of the men who promote such policies and indoctrinate women to carry out this cruelty are obsessed with cllitoral envy. (I am surprised that mysogynist psychotherapist Freud didn’t figure this one out–not!)
There are domineering men who just cannot stand the fact that a woman (unlike a man) has an organ whose sole purpose is for the experiencing of pleasure during sexual relations. That the Almighty whom they claim to worship and serve would design and equip women thus creates a cognitive dissonance within them that can only be relieved by “improving” on the Creator’s handiwork and justifying such meddling as being “God’s Will”. Siouxrose and a few others have this correct.
something stirring about Hillary? I don’t think so. I think this country needs change, not 4 more years of Bill Clinton. Who cries for Monica Lewinsky? Who cries for Paula Jones? Their careers were severely set back if not destroyed by that 60 year old sexual predator. Give me a break. If Hillary had any spine she would have left him a long time ago. Not to mention, vote against the Iraq war. Instead, she stands by him and every gatekeeper he stands for. Disgusting.
“I did though at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert.”- Monica Lewinsky
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2004-06-25-lewinsky-clinton_x.htm
“When I think of the person that I thought was Bill Clinton, I think he had genuine remorse. When I think of the person that I now see is 100 percent politician, I think he’s sorry he got caught.”-Monica Lewinsky
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/04/lewinsky.interview/
“I don’t want to present myself as some kind of singular figure…I think what is different is the times…I think we’re in one of those times right now. I think that we’re bogged down in one of those times right now…I think Kennedy moved the country in a fundamentally different direction…I think the Republican approach has played itself out…What I’m saying is is that I think the average baby boomer has moved beyond the issues of the 60s, but our politicians haven’t….”-Barack Obama
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews
18 minutes in
“Obama-Reagan Context You Have Not Read”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/18/172928/040/265/439089
“As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties. There is, too, as both Britain and America agree, some risk of Saddam using or transferring his weapons to terrorists. There is as well the possibility that more angry young Muslims can be recruited to terrorism. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.” -Bill Clinton, March 18, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,916233,00.html
“During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq “from the beginning” - a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28clinton.html
Saying that Hillary Clinton stands at the apex of the struggle against patriarchy is like saying that Clarence Thomas stands at the apex of the civil rights movement. Patriarchy isn’t just about gender. It’s also about structures and models of authority.
We liberals are a perverse lot sometimes. In the old days before 9/11, we used to criticize the misogyny, brutality, intolerance and homophobia so rampant in the Muslim world. The conservatives didn’t care as long as they were selling us oil and not bothering Israel too much. Now the conservatives have become slavering Islamophobes and we have held our fire. But isn’t there a more nuanced position? Can’t we admit that there are many regressive, repressive and odious currents in Islam without labeling all Muslims as evil?
There is a lot in the Koran that is offensive. Sharia law is an affront to civilization. Sure, you can find similar things in the Bible, but there is a difference: nobody is enforcing Levitical law any more, but Sharia is alive and well in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and there are calls for it worldwide. Furthermore, not many Christians and Jews believe any more that God literally wrote the Bible, while almost 100% of Muslims believe that about the Koran. So commands to slay unbelievers and beat wives, definitions of women as inferior creatures, advocacy of forced marriage of prepubescent girls, slave raiding and rape of non-Muslim slave girls, the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality and apostasy, and other outrages are seen as divine in origin. In the face of this obvious reality, notwithstanding the taboo on discussing it, it’s hard to see how they and we are going to see eye to eye. The most we can hope for is a lazy ambivalence, and our aggressive policies just push more and more moderates into the extremist camp.
I have a suspicion that neither Hillary nor Obama made it this far solely on their own merits, and are before us as a pretext of a “progressive” response (and choice) compared to fascidiot Geo.
I have wished for decades to see this possibly realized, but now coming out of this corrupt sea of mendacity, I do not see them as much more than (much smarter than Geo) token figureheads for a {hidden} gov’t that hardly cares what we really think (just enough to control us).
OK, the _beasts_ care about how we think about them, usually terrorized and incapacitated of democratic sensations, but also are leading us into another illusion.
If Geo had a 6-pac everyday for 7 years how would we know?
I believe the beasts are playing upon the ambivalent messages of “we’re beyond racism” and “we’re OK with woman”, just to put them into power and then possibly blame them for every that goes wrong - but not really (just like Billy).
I also suspect that Billy boy was purposely randy and caught, to blind the America people of his hidden rethuglican agenda.
This electioneering is just a fancier shuffle than we’re used to seeing during the regular shell game, of where did my money go?
More actors, wrestlers, perhaps a reformed madam or gigolo next? Honestly, I’d just prefer a magician who can easily just disappear when challenged.
The beasts must be laughing their a$$e$ off now.
Joyce Marcel is a progressive woman who writes intelligent articles on Common Dreams and has written a fine collection of essays in her book which is for sale. That’s my opinion of Joyce, no more, no less.
Her artlcle is not an endorsement for Hillary Clinton, but an acknowledgement of the progress women have made, from the ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ type of stay at home women with the clean-as-a-whistle apron that never had food stains on it,, waiting for the all-wise patriarch coming home. (I gotta admit, O&H was one of my favorite tv shows)
“And no matter what you think of her politics or ethics,there is something stirring about Hillary Clinton standing at the apex of this struggle today.”
That, my friends is not an endorsement for Clinton, only what women have achieved, away from kitchen duty.
What you should been discussing is the female genitalia mutilations, the rape and mutilation of females in the Congo as I write, and our own “see no evil, do no evil, or hear no evil” country that has made a mockery of the teaching of the Christ, who said, “prove all things, hold fast that which is true”. I question all of these phoney Christian soothsayers and their sermons of fear and hatred. It’s not Ms Marcel, my friends.
Read her article again. Peace and Harmony to all in the world.
Just a few questions: Would a totally equal society need abortions? Why would a matriarchy need abortions? Abortions only exacerbate the situation–having abortions available do NOTHING (and have done nothing in 35 years)to change patriarchal disrespect of women. Lack of financial, educational, and emotional support are the main reasons why women feel the need to have abortions. No woman wants to get one, and we need to eliminate the reasons why women feel an abortion is necessary. Don’t equate the horrors of female genital mutilations of girls in Africa with the “denial of abortions” to women in the United States. (I have no problem with preventive birth control, which I do not believe should be restricted.) We as a global community need to get rid of both. Permanently.
P PATTON: Interesting post (I agree).
I find it unfortunate that discussions of culturally enforced circumcision so often devolve into a “who is the worst victim” battle between men and women. The practices labeled female circumcision that take place in Africa certainly sound much more traumatic and damaging than the practices of male circumcision that are prevalent in the Western world. Nobody denies that.
But that does not take away from the fact that removal of the infant boy’s foreskin is a brutal introduction to life, leaves the penis permanently disfigured and with a reduced capacity to experience sexual pleasure upon adulthood, and it is largely unnecessary.
And it is a practice that takes place, here in the West (where I am presuming most of CD’s readers live), and we can actually do something about it.
Why do some people feel they need to dismiss one group’s victim hood in order to emphasize the plight of the group they are more concerned with?
Alex Lawyer:
I disagree on the Koran. There is not much offensive in it, and the bible is inded much worse. The fact that it has been interpreted by some in an extreme way is not the Koran’s fault. At the time it was written, the Koran helped women. Christians have twisted things too. The most extreme Muslim country is a US ally and a dictatorship kingdom, Saudi Arabia. The least affected by Muslim extremism was Iraq. Thanks to the US it is likely to go bad now. Iran is bad but the people are not as you describe muslims, that is the clergy only. Yes, Muslims are very religious, and that is not ideal, but it is not the fault of the Koran, nor can you blame the bible for anything. Nobody has to follow the advice in these books.
Nice post. Too bad all the Hilliary haters who regularly post comments on this website are so idealistic or full-of-it, that they just don’t get it. The strain that runs through these people is one of perceived moral righteous and they just can’t fathom having a women [who isn’t “perfect”] be the President of the United States. Just an excuse to not support real change. Their naivete is how the boys club gets to stay in power and thereby keep the rest of us “in our place”. Religion, like politics, was designed by men for men and anything or anyone who gets in the way is severely punished and the worst of the punishers it seems are women themselves. Go figure; who needs the boys club, when the high and mighty girls will do their bidding and do so on the cheap!
Hey Rockerbabe–
What makes you think “the boyz klub” isn’t the principle reason Hillary is as prominent as she is. It’s kind of like the KKK adopting “Step n Fetchit” (whose real name was Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry) as their favorite negro!
Hey, if it makes it to the WSJ, it is happening everywhere. I mean come on taking the little old lady out on a Sunday - in handcuffs! - with another sheriff to carry her bible, come now, good people. Last year I made the mistake of trying to find my spiritual roots in the Catholic church. I was smart to leave quietly with my progressive views.
In my case, my only saving grace was that I had a genuine connection with the Parish Pastor, we adored one another, it was everyone else all the good hypocrites that couldnt tolerate something they couldnt label and squash.
THe only thing stirring about Hillary is my stomach. THat Ms. Marcel could not muster up a better example of acendency to power by woman speaks for her value system. True, Hillary must have fought with a lot of the opposite geneder to have made it to where she is. That is the sheer nature of conventional politics. Not only Hillary, any man would have to do the same thing to challenge the reuling incumbents in the prevailaing political system. But, none of that fight or hard work will merit any respect unless that quest for power is accompanied with a strong sense of justice for the poor and the weak in whose name those powers are acquired.
No one enjoying the fruits of liberty and freedom as in the USA would justify barbaric practices like genital mutilation - be them of of a man or a woman. A moral outrage against those barbaric practices does not autmoatically translate into a patriarcy bashing bash in a country where women have got every right imaginable & at times even higher rights. Not will it translate into a glory song for some one who sold out her soul to satan just to stay in in power. Never forget that she has voted for the blood of a million odd innocent Iraqis & a 4000 odd american troops.
I applaud Joyce for bringing up Hillary Clinton as a part of this discussion on the insanity of patriarchy. I don’t especially like Hillary and I think some of the grievances in regard to her are well-founded, but I still think that’s it’s essential for women to be in the forefront of politics. Politics is power and when more women step up to the plate, we’re going to have greater women-power.
A wonderful article — although I believe Hillary is truly “standing at the apex of this struggle” because she wishes to stomp-it-down into ‘Nothingness’ [just like she did with Single-Payer Healthcare when she was last-First-Lady in Grey-House, and Worker-Rights when she lawyered for Wal-Mart, and with ME-Peace when she pretended to Represent the State of New York]
Just having her clitoris doesn’t make Hillary a ‘woman, struggling’…WHAT one struggles-for is more-important than ‘who’ does the struggling.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” “This article is not an endorsement of Hillary Clinton.” Both equally convincing. I wondered as I read, how would the threads of this article be tied together? Then I found out. On the other hand, Hillary might be a good president. I don’t care for her legislative history, but I think she has the ability to lead. Let’s keep in perspective the negative angles and keep a hard headed rein on our idealism. Kucinich or Edwards is better. If Hillary or Obama are our choices we could do far worse. Remember, we are the adults in this country. We have to make it a great place. No one else is going to do it for us.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7693
THAT is what you can expect from either Hillary or Obama/Edwards (or a Clinton/Obama-ticket, or from any Repug-hopeful).
Name your poison [Click my Name, meantime]
BTW…I, also, would NOT have sex with this-woman…(my heart finally goes-out to Bill, the-Triangulator and Butcher-of-Bosnia, while NAFTAesque and anti-Welfare at-home).
The author says “Dare I say that any time a society is based - in part or in whole - on some kind of criminal falsehood, you get the same kind of rigid, repressive and doctrinaire support of the status quo.” I think of it as being the other way around. When you have a doctrinaire and repressive status quo, it is maintained by inducing the populace to accept the criminal falsehoods that perpetuate it. I think the distinction is important as the first implies that the status quo, and the powers that benefit from it, are a by product of the falsehoods rather than the falsehoods being employed by the powers that be to keep their power. One is much more of an active process.
The only point I take serious issue with is: one half of the population represses the other half to maintain unlimited power. It’s more like a system with a few controllers repressing everyone. As Russell Means stated so passionately, “Wake up white men! Your own system is crushing even you”. I am a white man who has been acutely aware of that fact my whole life. I am expected to be perfectly competent and wield power over women, children, and other white men. I don’t have the constitution and/or character to do that. I am perfectly incompetent and yield power to women, children, but not other white men. Whatever. I don’t think Hillary Clinton is necessarily an antidote to the patriarchy but for the symbolism of her candidacy. Dennis Kucininch or Mike Gravel are better feminists. Maybe John Edwards, too. Again, whatever. It’s only the individuals courageous enough to be unpopular who can catalyze the necessary radical change.
Only white women bemoan other people’s customs while their men blindly follow the sweet smell of pussy! What about white women’s customs: cinching? tranquilizers? Lydia E. Pinkham’s Compound? Are those any less socially debilitating?
The issue is that certain men are using structure and ‘rules’ to excoriate and ostracize people who have the gall to disagee. That is the issue, not Indonesian custom. Whites need to wake up and realize they have caused the real problems in this world and poorly-veiled efforts to obfuscate will not be tolerated.
It’s stunning how an article about the brutal and horrifying mutilation of young girls practiced by some cultures can so clearly reveal the deep-rooted hatred of female and minority empowerment that still exists in our own culture. One doesn’t have to like or agree with Hilary Clinton’s or Barak Obama’s politics to appreciate the social and historic significance of having a woman and a black man within reach of the presidency. When one considers that women have only been allowed to vote in national elections for about 80 years, and that the Civil Rights Ammendment is only about 40 years old, it isn’t hard to see the importance of this development in terms of our evolution as a country. The author was making this point. She was not endorsing a candidate, nor was she implying that electing a female president meant that all of the country’s ills would be magically fixed. I don’t have to like Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama as political candidates, but I can still take a measure of pride and pleasure in seeing old barriers gradually crumbling. It gives me a sense of hope in the ability of our country to actually become the kind of culture that others can admire and aspire to.
There is some validity in the comparison between male circumsion and female genital mutilation. They are both brutal, unnecessary practices, grounded in social, cultural and religious myths about the nature of sexuality and gender roles. It is the form in which of some of these arguments are presented that shocks me. One poster states that it is women who are inflicting the mutilation, and it therefore cannot be the product of patriarchal cultural norms. I would argue that it is also true that the vast majority of circumsions performed in our country are inflicted by male physicians with the consent of the child’s parents. These doctors and parents are not being forced to do this against their will any more than the women of Indonesia are mutilating their daughters against their will. The fact that both parties are willing participants speaks to the deep-rooted and insidious nature of cultural/religious rules of conformity, authoritarianism and control. Like it or not, these kinds of rules are a hallmark of patriarchal societies. Whether life would be any different in a matriarchal society, who knows? There are none from which to draw a comparison. But to over simplify the point the author was trying to make and reduce it to a comparison of who is victimizing whom, or who is more victimized, isn’t worthy of someone who claims to be progressive in their views.
I guess it just shows how far we have yet to go.
GrumpyOldLady:
When you said “But to over simplify the point the author was trying to make and reduce it to a comparison of who is victimizing whom, or who is more victimized, isn’t worthy of someone who claims to be progressive in their views,” I think you may have been referring to my post.
I should clarify that when I was criticizing people for comparing who is the more victimized between male and female sufferers of genital mutilation, I was not addressing Joyce Marcel, the author of the original article…. I was addressing some of the other commenters here.
Other than that, I agree with everything you said.
>> “But to over simplify the point the author was trying to make and
>> reduce it to a comparison of who is victimizing whom, or who is more
>> victimized,
It is precisely this kind of cold equation that Ms. JM postulates when she says:
“Elsewhere on the festival grounds, about 100 young men were also being ceremonially circumcised. But to equate male and female circumcision, you would have to have them remove the entire penis, not just the foreskin.”
Babies & very young children are above all forms of distinctions & discriminations - sexual, econonmical, racial & communal - that grown up rational minds are capable of.
I would like to point out that in cultures where female genital mutilation is done (and this is NOT a Muslim tradition), men who “stray” sexually are given a pass, but women who stray are usually killed, often by stoning. I can understand mothers trying to protect their daughters, even if the solution is outrageous, since the problem is horrific. It IS a male issue. It isn’t women stoning those girls to death.
kathyodat
Circumcision, at least in this country (US), should be subject to legal action. That nobody but the individual (as an elective procedure) has the right to modify your body in any way should be utterly self evident. Why it hasn’t been made illegal is beyond me. Perfect case for the ACLU.
Do I even have to say what I think about female mutilation?
And no matter what you think of her politics or ethics, there is something stirring about Hillary Clinton standing at the apex of this struggle today.
______________________________
I’m pretty sure that “Hillary Clinton” is just a typo for “Cindy Sheehan”*.
* Unless one is a “practical”, down-to-earth, sensible essayist who truly believes that a female Nexus 6 replicant running for President is way more significant in the scheme of things than an intelligent, thoughtful, eloquent , passionate, and committed woman running for Congress against great odds, and with a comparable handicap of scorn, derision, and reflexive contempt and dismissal.
I disagree with Leirdberg- this person seems to be forgetting that some women want abortions because we do not want to have children, not because we or the children won’t be supported!
It seems strange to me that people assume that all women want children.
“Whether life would be any different in a matriarchal society, who knows? ”
Actually, there are some examples of matriarchal societies that have existed and even still exist!
http://www.saunalahti.fi/penelope/Feminism/matrifoc.html#West_Africa
One other thing…why is it that when someone wants to keep a system in place that treats women unfairly, that person is jsut seen as traditionalist, yet if a woman wants to be treated fairly, she is accused ot “hating men”?
I get that all the time. If I write about how 1 in 3 women will get raped in her lifetime, I am asked why I hate men. Why does me speaking the truth mean I hate somebody? The simple truth is that MEN RAPE. Not all men, but some men. And isn’t rape an act of hatred? The fact that men rape women indicates that they hate women, not that we hate them!
if some kind of animal was attacking and soemtimes killing 1 out of 3 men, what do you think would happen? I bet people wouldn’t blame the men and tell them to be more careful.
Meredoo, rape is really about power.
kathyodat
>micah_303 January 23rd, 2008 3:08 pm
>Male circumcision is purely based on ‘looks’ and has no effect on Sex Drive, hormones, etc…
Micah, this is not true. Do you know that until 1995 the medical field had not even taken a look to see what a foreskin was? That they were still using descriptions that came from the 1500s? That we have since discovered that the foreskin is full of exquisitely sensitive cells that are cut off, leaving only a small band adjacent to the head of the penis? That the frenulum is key to sensation. The most sensitive spot on the circumcised penis is the spot where a tiny bit of the frenumlum remains.
We are understanding now that the male equivalent of the clitoris is the foreskin - but since it is impossible to remove it all, without removing the head of the penis with it, those of us who are circumcised are still capable of sexual activity.
Circumcision was introduced into Britain and America as a means of controlling sexuality. It was performed both on men, and also and women (up to the late 1930s). For boys, it was often punishment for masturbation. Children were taken to the doctor to be circumcised over and over, if they were incorrigible masturbators. If that didn’t teach them, sometimes the whole penis would be removed.
There are ways to stretch the skin on the shaft of the penis to cover the head. Since a few of the cells that had been in the foreskin remain, and continue to produce moisture, they will help keep the area wet and help the process of the accumulated layers of dead skin coming off. For anyone interested in this, google lost-list and foreskin.