Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!gateway From: rsp@PacBell.COM (Steve Price) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Feminism in the Craft Message-ID: <6398@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> Date: 9 Nov 89 04:12:35 GMT References: <8911070310.AA06802@mimsy.UMD.EDU> Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Reply-To: Steve Price Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 42 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu In article <8911070310.AA06802@mimsy.UMD.EDU> mangoe@cs.UMD.EDU (Charley Wingate) writes: >Steve Bloch writes: > >>[...]straight men have something "better": powerful, established religions >>and social structures that tell them they're wonderful. > >Social structures, maybe. But religions? Which religions? This seems like >an overgeneralization. The "established religions" I know about -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism -- don't necessarily tell males they are "wonderful"; in fact, they often tell them they are bad or in need of major improvements. But I think what Mr. Bloch meant (correct me, Steve, if I misrepresent you), is that established religions tend to place males in the dominant or normative positions. Priests, clerical authorities, interpreters of tradition and scripture tend to be male. Husbands seem to be placed above wives with religious doctrines: "Wives be submissive unto your husband", says Christianity's St. Paul. Hindu tradition permited the burning of a widow on the pyre of her late husband. Witness the fury attending the ordination of women to the priesthood or rabbinate. Islam permits multiple wives, but not multiple husbands. Buddhist monks avoid touching or gazing upon females to preserve cultic purity. The Pope won't talk unity with Episocopalians because of women priest. Orthodox rabbis actively attempt to block a woman rabbi from receiving an appointment to military chaplancy. etc. etc. etc. for the last 10 thousand years or so... So while religions may not say men are wonderful, it does tend to act like they are better than women -- in any case men are in charge, according to all the relgious practices I see in "established" relgions. (A good case could be made that established religious notions about gender roles played a large part in the defeat of the ERA in the USA.) -- Steve Price UNIX: pacbell!pbhyf!rsp PHONE: (415)823-1951 ...argument does not teach children or the immature. Only time and experience does that. Doris Lessing