women’s independence – Feminism and Religion

Um, You Were So Happy by Vibha Shetiya

“We were so happy,” he said, emphasizing the so.

Her thoughts flashed back to that car ride. Hearing that an acquaintance was taking the GRE, she had half-jokingly quipped – “Maybe I should too.” He responded: “You should. You don’t know anything about life. Your life consists of your parents and brother and a handful of friends. It’s time you learned what it really was about,” this time stressing the really. The next few months were spent prepping for entrance exams and sending out grad school applications. Within six months, she was in the US of A.

She couldn’t believe it. She had been trapped for nearly two decades. As a child, she had had no choice. As an adult, it was too late; the indoctrination of being in a family cult had left her completely alienated; she was a stranger to herself. Marriage took on another dimension. Any chance of deprogramming was replaced by degrading, the methods remaining the same though; browbeating and gaslighting as a time-tested and guaranteed method of emotional torment never disappointed.

Ode to My Twenties by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Anjeanette Society has created this vortex of fear surrounding women aging. Yet, as I turn 30, I am only feeling awe. Awe over everything I accomplished in my twenties and awe in all the things yet to be realized in my thirties. The interesting thing is how other people are experiencing me turning thirty. Some are reminiscent of their twenties or how their experienced their thirties. Others start to bring up certain things which are apparently still lacking in my life. The biggest ones are a husband and children. They look at my eve of thirty-hood as the clock ticking away on me finding love and most definitely on my biological clock.

Continue reading “Ode to My Twenties by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

“LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE by Carol P. Christ

Where patriarchalism trumps love, when push comes, shove often follows. The underside of love patriarchalism is hatred of the independence of women.

We are told that it is the duty of a loving father and husband to protect his wife and children. In exchange, good wives support their husbands and good children obey their fathers. The bottom line of patriarchy is control. The fight over abortion is a fight about men’s right to control women.

I have spent much of the past few weeks wondering why so many Republican men hate women. Why do they want to deny the right to an abortion to a 12 year-old girl raped by her father, to a 21 year-old college student gang raped at a fraternity party, to a 33 year-old woman who submitted to a violent boyfriend she did not know had poked a hole in his condom, or a to a 41 year-old woman who offered a cup of coffee to the man who came to her house to fix the electricity, but who said “no” when he assaulted her.

I have also wondered why Republican men would deny the right to an abortion to 28 year-old married woman who got pregnant while taking the pill, to a 15 year-old girl who got carried away with her boyfriend, or even to a 35 year-old woman who got drunk one night and had sex without protection. We are all human aren’t we? Birth control sometimes fails and sometimes women make mistakes. Apparently women are to be punished for both! Continue reading ““LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE by Carol P. Christ”