Patriarchy


	PANTHER : PATRIARCHY And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man Chapter I. ----Introduction. Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women, in Memory of the Introduction of Sin into the World Through a Woman. Tertullian, ca 155-230, held to be one of the 'Fathers of the Church'. The 1988 Apostolic Letter of John Paul II On the Dignity and Vocation of Women contains a very great deal about Genesis, Eve and Mary and, without naming names, goes to considerable lengths to establish that interpretations of Eve such as Tertullian's are invalid, with insistence on mutuality and equality within marriage. Certainly the document is important insofar as there may have been Catholics remaining who thought them valid; the message remains male and female created he them and they are different, and female achieves fulfilment through virginity or motherhood, with Mary the exemplar. The present reflections, now at an end, have sought to recognize, within the "gift of God", what he, as Creator and Redeemer, entrusts to women, to every woman. In the Spirit of Christ, in fact, women can discover the entire meaning of their femininity and thus be disposed to making a "sincere gift of self" to others, thereby finding themselves. During the Marian Year the Church desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the "mystery of woman" and for every woman - for that which constitutes the eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the "great works of God", which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through her. After all, was it not in and through her that the greatest event in human history - the incarnation of God himself - was accomplished? Therefore the Church gives thanks for each and every woman: for mothers, for sisters, for wives; for women consecrated to God in virginity; for women dedicated to the many human beings who await the gratuitous love of another person; for women who watch over the human persons in the family, which is the fundamental sign of the human community; for women who work professionally, and who at times are burdened by a great social responsibility; for "perfect" women and for "weak" women - for all women as they have come forth from the heart of God in all the beauty and richness of their femininity; as they have been embraced by his eternal love; as, together with men, they are pilgrims on this earth, which is the temporal "homeland" of all people and is transformed sometimes into a "valley of tears"; as they assume, together with men, a common responsibility for the destiny of humanity according to daily necessities and according to that definitive destiny which the human family has in God himself, in the bosom of the ineffable Trinity. This is the sole reference to women who work professionally and indeed to women who do anything other than care for others. The document exists in a different world from that of the lives of female bus-conductors, shop-assistants, factory-workers, cabbies, architects, nuclear physicists, barristers and indeed Prime Ministers: it is hard to believe Margaret Thatcher had at the time been PM for nearly ten years. It is a document from a planet on which all that is summed up by the expression 'women's revolution' simply hasn't happened. Patriarchy: just say no. PANTHER is intended specifically as a conference of the birds. Heterosexual males are neither divinely nor historically appointed to rule but have proved disgracefully willing to dismiss the rights of women and gays who happen to be brown. A kitsch Left of pretend socialists voluble on the subject of cartoons, strangely silent on the subject of mentally handicapped girl-children stoned to death for 'crimes against chastity', is beginning to annoy me. Comment is free "What they did to my sister was devilish, disgusting and despicable." The murder of Banoz Mahmod Who killed Banaz: is there one bloody politician in this country prepared to back women against religious men? Selective reading. Deuteronomy is most explicit, you know Ooh, we are so sensitive Female dissent - who cares? A Saudi blogger disagrees with the Muslim Weekly... Human trafficking in Saudi Arabia - more about our noble allies Officer training in the Army of the Republic of India (truly the world has moved on, comrades) Terrorism is the result of imbalance between male and female Islamic civilization From Iranian blogs: 1. A Letter about Stoning to Death From Iranian blogs: 2. A Father's Desperate Plea to Save the Life of his Daughter From Iranian blogs: 3. Beatings, torture, execution It would be useful if we could move forward from the best of the Middle Ages rather than back. HOME