Oil & Water Meet Religion & Feminism

Sure you can be a feminist and be religious, as long as you don't read your holy text. In her article God Hates Women: Feminism and religion do not mix, Allison Kilkenny presents examples of misogyny from major religious texts.

...There is no room in religion for feminism, the doctrine advocating the equality of rights, social and political, with those of men. For feminism to work, it must exist outside of the constraining margins of religion. It must operate outside of the assumption that women are inferior to men, which is a foundational belief of the major theologies.

Pharyngula points out that Kilkenny does not mention female-centered religions like Wicca. I would like to argue that Wicca is not a major player when it comes to religion, however some folks estimate it to be the U.S.'s third largest religion by 2012. Huh.

Thanks Pharyngula!

I love me some honest celebrities.

"Grey's Anatomy" doc Katherine Heigl had a huge hit with the movie "Knocked Up," but the Emmy-winning actress now knocks the movie as "a little sexist," Vanity Fair reports.

"It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys," she says. "It was hard for me to love the movie.

Somehow I still haven't seen the damn movie, but I just thought this was interesting.

Check out Feministing for an active commentary on this - everything from yes the movie was all misogyny to hell no I identified with that woman!

WTF? rant.

Between the holidays and several gigantic papers, I've been completely ignoring the blog. I still don't really have time to post but have had an issue on my mind recently that I'd like to hear some thoughts on, if you have some time of course.

How do you deal with the negative effects of voicing your opinion? I know that it's right to speak up and say what's on my mind and so I do it regularly. I gave up keeping quiet a long time ago and have dealt with the consequences for years. Lately however it's been weighing on me. Men think I'm a bitch for not laughing at a misogynistic comment or even worse for calling them out on it. It's strange too because I am rarely anything but polite and never go straight on the attack; I might just ask a question about it or begin a discussion in a rational tone. Yet I am stereotyped quickly and misunderstood by whole groups of men just for being opinionated and assertive. I mean shit, without even saying a word I have been harassed for what I am assumed to be thinking (of course this only happens with men who don't know me at all).

Any thoughts about this? Does this happen to anyone else? If so, how do you deal with it?

I have to speak my mind and be myself but I also want to be understood and even liked. Maybe that's the problem.

Back in my day, girls played ball too!

In a feeble attempt to make time move faster, while sweating away on the gym treadmill, I tend to subject myself to television programs I wouldn’t wish on a Nazi or a pedophile. Yesterday, with my eyes glued to ESPN, I had the great fortune to catch a piece on “chatter” in little league baseball. The segment focused on how nowadays baseball chatter, such as “Hey batter batter batter, swiiiing, batter batter batter”, and dugout chants had gotten out of hand. Coaches and fans were interviewed to attest to their horror at the terrible sportsmanship these chants brought to the game. They stumbled over popular grandfather-ish sentiments, “It wasn’t like this back in my day,” and Christian pseudo-morality, “It just isn’t right.”

Now maybe this doesn’t raise your blood pressure, but even recalling these righteous sports fans, mine goes through the roof. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, however, I considered that maybe the chants had become more offensive since I was on the diamond. Of course this thought quickly faded as the cameras turned on the young chanting boys and I was hit with my own recognition of their cheers. Not only were they no more offensive than my mid-nineties softball chants, they were the exact same ones!

My anger was short-lived however when I was struck by my own familiarity with the game. I played softball for ten years, where were the girls’ teams on this program? Our games were overrun with chatter and chanting, how could they have completely forgotten about young female players? As I continued to watch, I became increasingly frustrated. If the footage had been only girls instead of boys, there is no way it would have gone by without comment. On the other hand, this segment became just another example of how males are not only the prototypical ball players, but also the prototypical human beings. Baseball aside, females make up the majority of the world’s population, but still we are deemed a deviation from the male norm. Maybe most folks assume that ESPN isn’t the most equality-minded station on the planet, but it’s still sad that their audience is being subjected to this kind of implicit sexism.

An Insightful Piece about Women's Rights

Not that I expect anything more from Fox, but this is some bullshit. I mean I understand why feminazis are so scary. They are clearly angry man-hating, baby-hating, irrational cunts whose only goal in life is to work (how dare they?!?!) and help other women (ACLU-lovin' bitches). It's frightening, I know. Unapologetically Female says it well...

Because according to them, pregnancy discrimination is non-issue. Because their message is apparently that pregnant women should know better than to think they're capable of doing their jobs or that they should be entitled to their state-mandated worker's rights before, during, and after their pregnancies. That pregnant women don't need to make a living. They should just shut up and smile and bask in the glow of the little miracle growing inside their bodies whether or not they are able to financially support it. And that those who actually speak up and demand their rights are loud, strident, baby-hating bitches. This garbage is on national television.

It really is amazing how so many people participated in getting this on the air. And by amazing, I mean disturbing.