A virus of misogyny

Defunkd

Saying the catholic church is a carrier of toxic misogny is saying all it's members are misogynistic whether they know it or not.

Peregrinus

Defunkd wrote: »

Saying the catholic church is a carrier of toxic misogny is saying all it's members are misogynistic whether they know it or not.

No, I don’t think it is. If it were, McAleese would be saying that she herself was misogynistic. I kind of doubt that she is saying that.

If we really want to know what McAleese is saying, Defunkd, there’S no short cut; we’re going to have to read her speech. Until we’ve done that, we probably should be cautious about making stuff up and claiming that it represents her views.

smacl

For those interested, the actual speech here, starts about 10 minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oFn3gWPrd8

smacl

Safehands wrote: »

Whether you accept that argument or not, Christ didn't have women in prominent positions. Did he therefore discriminate against women in his choices?

Yes, but given the time and culture he came from this would have been quite normal.

Christ was not a misogynist, obviously. This is my whole point. It is possible to be part of a Patriarchal culture without being misogynist.

I don't agree. Given that the patriarchal culture we're talking about here that sprang up from Christ's teachings is Catholicism, and that as shown in the previously linked poll that most of those polled consider Catholicism misogynistic, you have provided nothing to support your point.

Peregrinus

No, I think Safehands has a point.

Assume for the purposes of the discussion that the Christ presented to us in the gospel is historically accurate and reliable. (Not that I'm arguing that this is so; I just don't want the discussion to be sidetracked by, e.g, speculation that maybe Jesus appointed women to positions of authority but the gospel writers concealed this.)

Clearly, he lived in a patriarchal society. Clearly, he reflected that patriarchy, or at least failed to take an opportunity to challenge it, in his selection of the Twelve. He didn't hesitate to challenge other aspects of his society - that's what got him tortured to death, after all. But not this.

Can we speculate that the reason for his apparent complicity in patriarchy was anything other than his personal misogyny? Of course we can. It does not matter (for these purposes) whether the speculation is correct or not; all that matters is that it is plausible. This shows that its possible to be enmeshed in structures of patriarchy, and even to accept those structures and work within them, and yet not be misogynistic.

There's also, I cautiously suggest without having thought too much about it so this could be complete nonsense, some parallel between this point and the point I made earlier about the opening up of the franchise to women being followed not by the election of lots of women but by the reorientation of the policies pursued by the male leaders who continued to be elected. Jesus challenged the values of his society, expecially the values that attribute importance to status, power, rank. Perhaps the corollary of the teaching that these things are not important is that not attaining them, or even being excluded from them, is also relatively unimportant. Or, at least, is not the main issue. Patriarchy, obviously, completely buys into the idea that power, rank, leadership etc are of cardinal importance, since it focuses on capturing and controlling these things. But an opposition to patriarchy which focuses on recapturing, or opening up, these things implicitly buys into the same value system. Somebody who completely rejects not only the patriarchy system but also the value system that it is built on won't challenge patriarchy in the sense of complaining about the lack of women leaders, because that distracts from and even negates the form of subversion that they think most important. But they are not misogynistic.

jaxxx

Humanity is a cancer. Religion (each and every one) is a cancer within a cancer. It's all relative.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Assume for the purposes of the discussion that the Christ presented to us in the gospel is historically accurate and reliable. (Not that I'm arguing that this is so; I just don't want the discussion to be sidetracked by, e.g, speculation that maybe Jesus appointed women to positions of authority but the gospel writers concealed this.)

I think your point is reasonable if we accept this assumption, but I gather many scholars do not. Having recently read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities, his assertion is that the gospels we have today were selected from a far broader range of texts by what was to become the Catholic church and hence favoured their flavour of orthodoxy. Regardless of whether the gospel is historically accurate and reliable it seems doubtful as a sole source for the historicity of Jesus and his contemporaries.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I think your point is reasonable if we accept this assumption, but I gather many scholars do not. Having recently read Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities, his assertion is that the gospels we have today were selected from a far broader range of texts by what was to become the Catholic church and hence favoured their flavour of orthodoxy. Regardless of whether the gospel is historically accurate and reliable it seems doubtful as a sole source for the historicity of Jesus and his contemporaries.

Yes, but that's a matter for an entirely different thread.

And, in the present context, it doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you think the Jesus presented in the gospels is historically accurate, if you think he is even historically plausible in relation to matters bearing on patriarchy and misogyny, then there's a plausible figure who appears to accept patriarchy but not to be misogynistic. Which gives you an answer to the question, is it possible to be part of a patriarchal culture without being misogynistic?

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

And, in the present context, it doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you think the Jesus presented in the gospels is historically accurate, if you think he is even historically plausible in relation to matters bearing on patriarchy and misogyny, then there's a plausible figure who appears to accept patriarchy but not to be misogynistic. Which gives you an answer to the question, is it possible to be part of a patriarchal culture without being misogynistic?

Yet in the present context we're qualifying the term misogynistic as 'determined that women will always be second class', so patriarchy clearly fits the bill. What I find more interesting is that if McAleese considers the Catholic church misogynistic, as a committed Catholic herself, how far back does she consider this to be the case and does she reconcile these two apparently opposing beliefs?

Delirium

jaxxx wrote: »

Humanity is a cancer. Religion (each and every one) is a cancer within a cancer. It's all relative.

MOD NOTE

Please lift the standard of any future posts above off-topic sound bites.

Thanks for your attention.

Graces7

Occurs to me that we are taking the term "misogyny" in a purely pejorative insulting term, rather than a theological and technical term?

She is after all a theologian.

Safehands

Graces7 wrote: »

Occurs to me that we are taking the term "misogyny" in a purely pejorative insulting term, rather than a theological and technical term?

She is after all a theologian.

I don't think that Mrs McAleese was using the term in a theological way. She seemed to be using it pejoratively.

"A toxic virus of misogyny" A technical theological term? I don't think so!

Graces7

Safehands wrote: »

I don't think that Mrs McAleese was using the term in a theological way. She seemed to be using it pejoratively.

"A toxic virus of misogyny" A technical theological term? I don't think so!

On that we will have to agree to disagree, reading it in context.

Achasanai

Safehands wrote: »

Whether you accept that argument or not, Christ didn't have women in prominent positions. Did he therefore discriminate against women in his choices?
Christ was not a misogynist, obviously. This is my whole point. It is possible to be part of a Patriarchal culture without being misogynist.

You could argue that Jesus was working from a smaller sample, so that those he chose were not necessarily indicative of a policy, but more of who was around at the time that was best for preaching and converting people. He was also working within a patriarchal (and I would argue misogynistic) culture, as were the women he had interaction with: they might not have been as well-versed in the techniques that he wanted because society made sure that they didn't have the practice.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not to nitpick or anything, but this is not in fact the Catholic account of why women can't be priests. Their rationale has nothing to do with subservience of women to men.

That's interesting, I always just assumed the RCC based their attitudes on women priests on the Pauline texts like Timothy, which link the argument to a woman not preaching based on not having authority over men. Is there a different line that they take?

Peregrinus

Achasanai wrote: »

You could argue that Jesus was working from a smaller sample, so that those he chose were not necessarily indicative of a policy, but more of who was around at the time that was best for preaching and converting people. He was also working within a patriarchal (and I would argue misogynistic) culture, as were the women he had interaction with: they might not have been as well-versed in the techniques that he wanted because society made sure that they didn't have the practice.

Well, possibly. On the other hand there were strong women around him and among his followers and, while it would have been counter-cultural for him to give them positions of leadership or authority, he was nothing if not counter-cultural, so that’s not neccessarily a clincher.

Achasanai wrote: »

That's interesting, I always just assumed the RCC based their attitudes on women priests on the Pauline texts like Timothy, which link the argument to a woman not preaching based on not having authority over men. Is there a different line that they take?

Two different lines, I think. Since I’m not particularly in sympathy with this teaching I’m probably not best[positioned to explain it, but:

The most recent official teaching on this came in Pope John Paul II’s time came in an Apostolic Letter called Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and is to the effect that “the Church has no authority to ordain women”. This , obviously, is teaching about the authority of the church, not the capacity of women. It points to the example set by Jesus, argues that his actions were freely chosen and not constrained by the culture of the time, and says that the church is bound to follow him and has no authority to depart from his example. It adds that this “cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity”. It’s quite short.

It refers to a previous teaching document issued in the 1970s, a Declaration called Inter Insigniores, which goes into a bit more detail. The explanations put forward in that document point to “the church’s constant tradition”, “the attitude of Christ”, “the practice of the Apostles” and “the permanent value of the attitude of Jesus and the apostles”. There’s a section on the way in which the priest does not act in his own name, but represents Christ who acts through him, and that a male priest is a more fitting sign to represent Christ.

Neither of the documents simply takes Paul’s statements about women being silent in church, not having authority over men, etc as determining the issue. Ordinatio Sacerdotalis doesn’t mention them at all, while Inter Insigniores does mention these passages, but also mentions other passages in which Paul recognised the right of women to prophesy in the assembly, and insist on the fundamental equality of men and women, and also acknowledges that some of what Paul writes is “inspired by the customs of the period” and “no longer has a normative value”.

The truth is that it’s either very easy, or very difficult, to ground an argument for almost anything in Paul’s writings. Paul wrote a large number of letters over a long period of time, and his thinking and understanding developed over that time, so often his concerns and emphases are quite different in different letters. Plus, none of his letters are general teachings offered to the whole church; they are all written to specific Christian communities or specific Christian individuals, in specific circumstances, addressing specific problems that those communities or individuals were facing at that time. Unfortunately, the letters never set out clearly and directly what the circumstances and problems are - the letters are written to people who already know this, so they don’t need to be told - so often we have to infer from the advice which Paul offers what the context is.

What this means is that it’s easy, but dangerous, to pluck a line out of one of Paul’s letters (like “women should be silent in church”). We don’t know that Paul felt that women should always be silent in church; in the particular situation that was facing the Corinthians at the time of his first letter to them he felt that this was the way to go, but it would be a mistake to assume that this is a univerally valid statement. And, as noted, what he says in other circumstances has a quite different tone. And this is true of an awful lot of Paul’s writing.

Paul is a gift to the simplistic fundamentalist Christian who is looking for a simple answer to a complex question; you can often find a verse in Paul which appears to offer the simple answer you crave. And it’s equally a gift to the simplistic fundamentalist critic of Christianity; you can find a verse in Paul which appears to offer an answer which is simple and objectionable. But the Catholic tradition has always been that Paul requires a more holistic reading than that. If you’re interested in (say) Paul’s views on women you have to look at everything he writes to different communities and in different circumstances which is relevant to that question, and then look through that to try and discern the values, attitudes, principles, understandings, etc which underlie it. And this approach tends not to yield one-line answers.

Graces7

Excellent previous post.

There was a long period of transition from Mosaic Jewish law.

Peregrinus

Graces7 wrote: »

Occurs to me that we are taking the term "misogyny" in a purely pejorative insulting term, rather than a theological and technical term?

She is after all a theologian.

Well, she's definitely using it in a very negative sense. She says the following things about misogyny in, or in connection with, the church:

First, in her introduction, she roots opposition to monogamy in the Church's own teaching:

"The Israelites under Joshua’s command circled Jericho’s walls for seven days, blew trumpets and shouted to make the walls fall down. (Joshua 6:1-20). We don’t have trumpets but we have voices, voices of faith and we are here to shout, to bring down our Church’s walls of misogyny. We have been circling these walls for 55 years since John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris first pointed to the advancement of women as one of the most important 'signs of the times'."

Then, she surveys the limited progress which the church has made in eliminating gender discrimination in its own structures, and quotes Gerry O'Hanlon's statement that the church has a "form of clericalism which has reinforced male domination with an ostensibly divine sanction." This, she says, has happened because . . .

". . . the Catholic Church has long since been a primary global carrier of the virus of misogyny. It has never sought a cure though a cure is freely available. Its name is 'equality'."

She then asserts that the influence of the church in the world has been double-edged:

"Down the 2000 year highway of Christian history came the ethereal divine beauty of the Nativity, the cruel sacrifice of the Crucifixion, the Hallelujah of the Resurrection and the rallying cry of the great commandment to love one another. But down that same highway came man-made toxins such as misogyny and homophobia to say nothing of anti-semitism with their legacy of damaged and wasted lives and deeply embedded institutional dysfunction."

And at this point in history, she argues . . .

". . . because it is the 'pulpit of the world' . . . its overt clerical patriarchalism acts as a powerful brake on dismantling the architecture of misogyny wherever it is found."

In short, the church has spread, and continues to shore up, misogyny. She describes this as a "man-made toxin"; she doesn't see it as an authentic aspect of Christianity, but as something the church has (to continue the viral metaphor) picked up from its environment, and then spread more widely.

Then she turns to the present (and the future), challenging Pope Francis

". . . to develop a credible strategy for the inclusion of women as equals throughout the Church’s root and branch infrastructure, including its decision-making."

In her concluding section she refers to his call for a "deeper theology of women", a call she supports because, as she puts it with some harshness,

". . . God knows it would be hard to find a more shallow theology of women than the misogyny dressed up as theology which the magisterium currently hides behind."

And she finishes by suggesting that it's the church's own patriarchal structures and traditions which continue to impede it from developing the deeper theology for which the Pope calls.

So, yeah, it's a theological address, at least in parts. But I don't see that she is using "misogyny" in some specialist theological sense. She doesn't offer any special understanding of misogyny and, whether you agree with her or not, everything she says is perfectly understandable on the assumption that when she says "misogyny" she means misogyny in its normal sense.

The full text of her address is here.