New Archaic Afterwords

     "Feminist theorist Andrea Dworkin has written of the promises of the ultra-Right which entrap women. The Right offers form (which banishes the confusion women feel in a senseless society), shelter (which allays women's deep fear of homelessness in a world owned by men), safety (in a gynocidal world), rules (so that women can know how to survive in servitude), and love (especially the love of jesus[sic]). In Dworkin's analysis, which applies accurately to the plight of conservative catholic women, mormon women, fundamentalist women, et ectera, these lethal gifts are payment for loyalty to the divine males." page XXI

The Original: The Church and The Second Sex

1)      "Contemporary scriptural exegetes of all faiths, having the tools of scholarship at their disposal, as well as insights of psychology and anthropology, are enabled to look critically at the first chapter of Genesis. The two creation accounts, which differ greatly from each other, have been carefully scrutinized. The later creation story gives no hint that woman was brought into being as an afterthought. On the contrary, it stresses an original sexual duality and describes God's act of giving dominion to both. The plural is used, indicating their common authority to rule: "And God said, Let us make mankind in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion ...' (Gen 1:26). The following verse says: 'God created man in his image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27). This is understood by exegetes to mean that the image of God is in the human person, whether man or woman. Moreover, the plural is used in the following:

'Then God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle and all the animals that crawl on the earth" '      (Gen1:28). " page 77

3)      "The contemporary social inferiority of women was, indeed, reflected in the New Testament. Although the seeds of emancipation were present in the Christian message, their full implications were not evident to the first century authors. The most strikingly antifeminist passages are, of course, in the Pauline texts, which are all too familiar to Catholic, who have heard them cited approvingly ad nauseam. We now know it is important to understand that Paul was greatly preoccupied with order in society and in Christian assemblies in particular. In modern parlance, it seemed necessary to sustain a good 'image' of the Church. Thus it appeared to him an important consideration that women should not have too predominant a place in Christian assemblies, that they should not 'speak' too much or unveil their heads. This would have caused a scandal and ridicule of the new sect, which already had to face accusations of immorality and effeminacy. In ancient Corinth, as one scholar has pointed out, for a woman to go unveiled would be to behave like a prostitute. Paul was concerned with protecting the new Church against scandal. Thus he repeatedly insisted upon 'correct' sexual behavior, including the subjection of wives at meetings. Once this is understood, it becomes evident that it is a perversion to use Pauline texts, which should be interpreted within their own social context, to support the claim that even today, in a totally different society, women should be subject." page 80

4)      "Jerome wrote that it is contrary to the order of nature, or of law, that woman should speak in the assembly of men. He maintained that the man should be commanded to love his wife, whereas the woman should fear her husband: 'For love befits the man; fear befits the woman. As for the slave, not only fear is befitting him, but also trembling.' " page 87

5)      "The presumed defectiveness of woman extended also, and perhaps especially, into the moral sphere. The primary grievance against her was her supposed guilt in the Fall. The violence of some of the tirades on this subject has psychoanalytic implications. Tertullian, for example, wrote for the edification of his contemporaries:

'Do you not know that you are Eve? ... You are the devil's gateway. ... How easily you destroyed man, the image of God. Because of the death which you brought upon us, even the Son of God had to die. '

6)      "On the whole, then, the Fathers display a strongly disparaging attitude toward women, at times even a fierce misogynism." page 89

7)      "It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that Thomas [Aquinas] thought woman has a major or even an equal role, even in her one specialty, i.e. reproduction. He wrote:

'Father and mother are loved as principles of our natural origin. Now the father is principle in a more excellent way than the mother, because he is the active principle, while the mother is a passive and material principle. Consequently, strictly speaking, the father is to be loved more.'

'In the begetting of man, the mother supplies the formless matter of the body; and the latter receives its form through the formative power that is in the semen of the father. And though this power cannot create the rational soul, yet it disposes the matter of the body to receive that form.' "      pages 91-92

"Even the pains that, since original sin, a mother has to suffer to give birth to her child only draws tighter the bond that binds them: she loves it the more, the more pain it cost her.'

9)      "In another petition on the liturgy and women, the same author cited a seemingly minor point of sexual discrimination by recalling her conversation with one of the Council Fathers. When she suggested to this bishop that the words Orate fratres ('Pray, brothers'), spoken by the priest just before the Prayer over the offerings at Mass, be changed to Orate fratres et sorores (Pray, brothers and sisters'), she found the bishop completely opposed to her request. What was significant was the reason given for his opposition. He did not reject the idea because it seemed trivial, or because he thought the proposed new formulation was too long, or because 'brothers' also implies 'sisters.' Rather he claimed that the basic reason for addressing the people as 'brothers' was that in principle a woman cannot offer sacrifice to God. He maintained that a laywoman has a much lesser stake in the sacrifice of the Mass than does a layman. Frau Munch's point was that such weird and distorted theological notions are encouraged and perpetuated by practices such as exclusively masculine forms of address used by churchmen in speaking to an audience made up of both men and women." page 125

10)      Speaking of the Eternal Woman: "She is shrouded in 'mystery', because she is not recognized as a genuine person." page 149

11)      "It is indeed characteristic of the opposition that it interprets woman's efforts to become more completely human as efforts to become 'masculine.' ' page 150

12)      "Thus it follows, we are told, that man has the mission to preach and woman has the mission to listen. However, we are assured this does not reduce the feminine role to something small, for 'in willing to listen and assimilate, woman is rendering service to the man who speaks.' There is no evidence that the author intends the obvious irony. With incredible naiveté the argument concludes with the affirmation that this silence is what permits woman to play a veritable role, that of receiving the word of God and thus of making it penetrate more deeply into humanity. If logic were at all operative here, it would follow that, given this total identification of the individual with a fixed sex 'role', it should be impossible for the male to receive the word of God, and then, of course, it would follow that he could not transmit it. However, in this happy dream world of reified symbols, no embarrassing logic or facts are admitted." page 163

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