the man Thomas Jefferson on women

It is fortunate for us, that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living men, women and children pell mell together, like beasts of the field or forest.

The [Indian] women are submitted to unjust drudgery.  This, I believe, is the case with every barbarous people.  With such, force is law.  The stronger sex, therefore, imposes on the weaker....  Were we in equal barbarism, our females would be equal drudges.

You think that the pleasures of Paris more than supply its want of domestic happiness; in other words, that a Parisian is happier than an American.  You will change your opinion and come over to mine in the end.  Recollect the women of this capital [Paris], some on foot, some on horses, and some in carriages, hunting pleasure in the streets, in routs and assemblies, and forgetting that they have left it behind them in their nurseries; compare them with our own countrywomen occupied in the tender and tranquil amusements of domestic life, and confess that it is a comparison of Americans and angels.

American women have the good sense to value domestic happiness above all other, and the art to cultivate it beyond all other.  There is no part of the earth where so much of this is enjoyed as in America.

In the country life of America, there are many moments when a woman can have recourse to nothing but her needle for employment.  In dull company, and in dull weather, for instance, it is ill-mannered to read, ill manners to leave them; no card-playing there among genteel people -- that is abandoned to black-guards.  The needle is, then, a valuable resource.  Besides, without knowing how to use it herself, how can the mistress of a family direct the work of her servants?

However nature by mental of physical disqualifications have marked infants and the weaker sex for the protection, rather than the direction of government, yet among the men who either pay or fight for their country, no line of right can be drawn.

 [quotations from The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia and from Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson]

2 Stories: 1 Carter on Women; 2 Headlines

Here are two different stories.

First, Jimmy Carter earlier this week made several statements in praise of and in defense of women in "an interview with VOA." Voice of America's own Peter Clottey reported on this on Tuesday, April 5, 2011, and the report was posted here at voanews.com. President Carter said the following specifically to the VOA interviewer:

“The discrimination against women on a global basis is almost attributable to the declaration by religious leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions that women are inferior in the eyes of God, and this gives men a right to abuse women, whether it’s the husband beating up his wife or depriving a woman of her basic rights.”

President Carter said a number of other things in praise of women. Here's the original headline out of VOA Africa:

Former US President Says Women 'Pivotal' in Uprisings

Please read the entire interview and news report for yourself here at voanews.com.

Second, some unnamed somebody at wnct.com picks up this story from somebody else somewhere else. It gets featured as an Associated Press article (but a search of www.ap.org shows that to be just bogus). The dateline is today, April 7, 2011, AP ATLANTA. And the full little article reads:

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief "that women are inferior in the eyes of God."

Carter said such teachings by "leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions" allow men to beat their wives and deny women their fundamental rights as human beings.

The former president made the remarks Wednesday at a gathering of human rights activists and religious leaders from more than 20 countries at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Carter said he doesn't fault religions for oppressing women, but blames men who selectively interpret the Bible and other scriptures. He suggested there are other, more flexible interpretations.

Carter called mistreatment of women "the most serious and all pervasive and damaging human rights abuse on Earth."

So Fox news online reposts it as a legit source. Some editor re-writes the headline as follows:

Jimmy Carter: Religion Makes Men Beat Their Wives

And now the Internet, the blogosphere, is just aflame with flamatory headlines and blogpost openers that disparage the former Presidents for these statements. When you google this ("Former President Jimmy Carter says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief"), then just see what you get. Notice how many sexist bloggers are making disparaging comments as they post. Some are women bashing the former President in the name of conservatism. For example, here's a headline from the Diary of a Mad Conservative:

You handcuff your wife to a stove? New defense: It’s the Bible’s fault.

And commentary in red letters from the same:

Is this guy for real? Oh Lord, unfortunately he is.
Sorry to inform the former Dork-in-Chief, but Islam is the religion that abuses and denigrates women. There aren’t a lot of stories of Christians killing their daughters to preserve family honor. Or Christian men cutting the noses off their wives to make them “too ugly for anyone else.”

Another blogger who calls himself Noman (and who identifies as a Christian reading Ephesians 5), ridicules President Carter and concludes:

Should Noman ever slip up and turn into an abuser, he assures Jimmy that it will precisely be because he quit listening to his religious leaders, lost his faith, and left his religion, not because he misinterpreted it.

---

So we get two stories today. The real one from Tuesday and the inflamed fake, remake of that one from Thursday.

UK Top Female Christian Bloggers – Wikio for Apr(=Mar)

I am amazed and delighted to see ten blogs written by Christian women in the top 50 Religion and Belief Wikio rankings. In December it was only five. I mentioned this in January and had a tremendous response – recommending 29 women bloggers to read. I don’t know whether it was this interest that improved things, or whether there was a trend of more Christian women blogging, but to go from 10% to 20% women in the top 50 in four months is very good. (I’m turning a blind eye to the fact that Wounded Bird is in fact American!).

--The Rev'd Lesley Fellows

(HT Rachel Marszalek)

Read the rest of Lesley's post (including "a graph showing the movement of the blogs over the last four months" and "the table with the data in") here.

Growing Up Middle Eastern and African: Women

Yesterday, one of the male students from Afghanistan came to my office to pick up an immigration document for a woman in Afghanistan who is trying to come here to study English. He had been an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq and in Pakistan before he came here to improve his English and to begin a degree program. We talked of Benazir Bhutto's visit here sometime back and of the plight of women in Pakistan. We talked about what his friend from childhood, the woman wanting to study English here, is doing to better life for herself and for others in their village.

"It's much much worse for women in Afghanistan," he told me. "I tell other men there, 'The way you look at a woman walking down the street -- it's not how you want anyone looking at your mother or your daughter.' Women cannot vote in the upcoming election without men. Women are beaten and are raped. Girls are taken as brides. Their genitals are mutilated. It's very bad. We have a long way to go. I am here, and she is there, and we must do what we can. We must be patient while we do what we can."

Today, one of my blogger friends from the USA who lives in Africa muses about marriage. He's one of my favorite bloggers, and I have had the privilege of eating a meal with him here in Texas. David Ker (aka Lingamish) in a post today writes some things that are troubling but important for many of us here in the West to hear:

"I really hate labels like feminist and complementarian. But I use them a lot....

Here in Mozambique, race and gender roles are more clearly defined than those in modern America. I thank God that my daughter is not growing up an African. The exploitation and predation of young girls in Africa is a horror. And that carries through to adulthood where a woman’s options are very few. Interestingly, two of the most famous living Mozambicans are women: Luisa Dioga, the prime minister, and Olympic gold medalist, Maria Matola. Mozambique is in quite a few ways like the society found in Jane Austen’s romantic novels. A rich man is the quickest way for a woman to rise in society.

My hope for my sons and daughter is that they will grow up watching their parents struggle through life together trying to fulfill a vision that we can only realize together. May they be proud of our successes and learn from our mistakes."

(Ker begins that post of his today by quoting an English translation of a French proverb:

Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out.


I'm making this parenthetical note, this aside, just to muse about how relationships between women and men, in marriage especially, and as mothers and fathers especially, may work for change.  And I think change comes mostly with intentionality to effect change.

The quotation Ker uses is appropriated by a Chinese couple whose literature in China has been quite influential; I'm thinking now of the novel Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu whose work was inspired by his the work of his wife, Yang Jiang. And then that makes me think of the work of Lydia H. Liu, who studies Chinese appropriations of the West, and who makes this important comment in her book Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity: China, 1900-1937 [page 195]:

“The unmarking of the male gender as a gendered position… has the function of masking the true condition of gender politics in the universalizing discourse of modern literary criticism. This is the condition that concerns me most as I continue to ponder the meaning of national literature from a gendered point of view….

Her observation [Rey Chow’s observation] is timely and important, because it shows us that feminist gender criticism is not just about real women and sexuality – critics whose work is not theoretically informed by feminist gender criticism invariably express an interest in the so-called images of women or women writers – but rather, as Joan W. Scott, whom Chow quotes here, would put it, it is a way of reading and intervention into the dominant theoretical and critical practices.”

The ubiquity and universality of male dominance over females is something that can't go unmarked.  There is much work to do, and it is gendered work through ways of intervention that continue to be marked, if labelled and marked "feminist.")

Mother Mary, Anthropos

Luke's Greek gospel offers compelling evidence that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is an anthropos. 

(John Radcliffe inspires me to look at Mary by pointing us to that saying of Mary's son, a saying about mothers and their anthropos offspring.  Take a look here, scrolling down to what Radcliffe calls "Off topic somewhat.")

Now we can look at Luke's introduction of Mary and then his conclusion where he continues to figure her prominently.  Below is Luke's chapter 1 and his chapter 24.  I've included the Greek (and Hebrew names) after the English translation.  (Since John Radcliffe notes how the NKJV "gets it right" in John's gospel, let's stay in the same translation and even show the NKJV mechanics, such as italics). 

What should be obvious are these facts: 

1) when Luke introduces Mary, there are several other males also introduced, but none of these individuals is described as anthropos; 

2) when Luke is towards the end of his story, Mary is there the anthropos.

²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”  ²⁹ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”   ³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

Luke's first description of Mary includes his use of these words:

παρθένος [parthénos, aka "marriable girl," NKJV "virgin"];
Μαριάμ [Mariám, aka מִרְיָם, "Miriam," NKJV "Mary"];
ἐν γυναιξίν [ẻn gunaizín, aka "within (married) women," NKJV "among women"].

In the same context (vv 27, 34), Luke's words for "man" are ἀνδρί, ἄνδρα [andri, andra].  Her baby, incidentally, is to be named Ἰησοῦν [Iesoun, aka יְהוֹשֻׁעַ , "Joshua," NKJV "JESUS"]

When one fast-forwards to the end, Luke has another angel speaking to other women, some married, some mothers, some Marys.  The angel quotes the son of Mary.  But the NKJV here does not get things quite right this time.  Here's a bit:

⁶ He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, ⁷ saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”  ⁸ And they remembered His words. ⁹ Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles.

Luke never says here andri or andra for the men.  Rather he writes, καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς λοιποῖς [kai pasin tois loipois] which NKJV renders "and to all the rest."

Likewise, Luke doesn't say gune for the (married) women.  Instead he offers καὶ αἱ λοιπαὶ σὺν αὐταῖς [kai hai loipai sun autais] which NKJV makes "and the other women with them."

But Luke does have τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου [ton huion tou anthropou].  And to this Joshua (aka Jesus) there must have been in his own nickname for himself a fondness for his mother.  Because - despite NKJV's "The Son of Man" - he is reminding the other Marys and other women to tell the eleven disciples and the other men that he is the son of the anthropos.  And she is the anthropos, according to Luke's account, who knew no "man" and yet conceived and gave birth to her own anthropos.  Mother Mary, Anthropos.

Word Weaving

Picture this: Jane Stranz and colleagues are weaving words in wordplay with "prayers, poems and personal stories."

Pregnant Chickens

Aristotle wrote a few things on the uterus, on eggs, on abortion, and on chickens. We can read this in Greek or in translation. Below are a few snippets in or around translation that other people are posting. (I’ll just say, beware of the pregnant chickens and other funny stuff.)

Kellie asks us, “Was Aristotle a knitter? Because he might have wanted to look into this great new toy pattern from Craft: magazine.” And she concludes, “You're never too young to form opinions on Ancient Greek philosophers and translations. Especially when they can be backed up by super cute toys!”

Sean tells us,

In the famous question "What came first; the chicken or the egg?", Plato answers that the "idea" chicken came before the egg and the chicken. Aristotle though[t] Plato had it upside down. He agreed with his mentor that the horse doesn't change or "flow" and that all horses are imperfect and mortal, and he agreed that the basic form of the horse is eternal. But he argued that the "idea" horse is just a concept that humans had come up with after seeing a lot of horses. Aristotle said that the "idea" or, as he liked to put it, the "form" horse was made up of the horse's characteristics, which we call the species. In modern science, we have discovered deoxyribonucleic acid (or DNA), which we have found, controls the characteristics of every living plant and animal. This is the "form" horse that Aristotle was explaining.

David cites for us a “recent study of ornithlogy” that “exposes the tenacity of certain unfortunate Aristotelian attitudes toward the female body, sometimes manifested in scientists’ simple yet profound inattention to female biology.” He goes on:

Whereas the zygote is a product of its mother and father (barring parthenogenesis), the egg in which it ill develop is a product of its mother alone (underscored by the fact that if you want to go into the egg business, chickens are a necessity, whereas roosters are optional). Ironically, it is Aristotle who correctly points out that

"In its initial stage the embryo develops from part of the egg, and the rest serves as nourishment for the creature while it is forming." [Historia Anomalium, 489b]

To call any egg a chicken on account of its embryonic passenger is like calling the mother’s uterus a chicken uterus on account of its delivering a chicken. Aristotle turns out to be right again when he says

"In the case of the animals that are produced oviparously, we should think of them as having the same relationship to the yolk as the vivparously formed embryos have to the mother. . . for since the nourishment of the oviparously formed embyros is not completed within the mother, when they leave her they take a part of her out with them." [Generation of Animals, 754a]

Revert2saved startles us with flippancy:

I was flipping through my copy of The Politics the other day (yes, this is the sort of thing I do with my spare time) and I came across this passage:

If contrary to these arrangements copulation does take place and a child is conceived, abortion should be procured before the embryo has acquired life and sensation; the presence of life and sensation will be the mark of division between right and wrong here.

Our modern knowledge of fetal development tells us that brain waves can be recorded and the embryo responds to touch by around the 6th week of pregnancy, so applying Aristotle's "life and sensation" standard would at minimum restrict abortion to the 1st half of the 1st trimester of pregnancy.

Why is this interesting? First, because Aristotle's views cannot be said to derive in any way from Christian revelation or Catholic dogma, but purely from reason and natural law. Second, because I found it not in his works on metaphysics or ethics but specifically in his work on politics. Clearly Aristotle did not consider abortion a matter of private religious or ethical opinion, he simply assumed it was a proper subject of public policy.

This once again refutes the claim that the pro-life position is inherently theological or a matter of Christians "imposing their religion" on others. Of course abortion is and must be a political issue.

James reminds of us Aristotle's and other ancient Greek men's objective attention to the scientific facts about women:

Although Aristotle believed that pregnancy resulted when semen and menstrual blood mixed in the womb, he downplayed the woman’s role to little but a secure environment in which the fetus could grow. Most other Greek writers believed in a more equal contribution by the father and mother, but they were unaware of the ovaries and therefore could speak only in philosophic terms.

Women who are too fat will have difficulty conceiving because the fat will block the entrance to the womb. Their only hope for pregnancy is to lose weight.

A pregnant woman with good color will deliver a male baby; if the mother's color is bad the child will be a girl.

Wayne insists that “Objective attention to the linguistic facts of the biblical languages and equal attention to the linguistic facts of a target language determine accuracy and naturalness.” When it comes to Greek turned into English, the Bible now can “find her to be pregnant” more naturally than it can “find the child in her.”

2 Men on HairDos

Aristotle and then Paul/Saul write about hairdos. I'll spare you their Greek (and won't bother you with which hairdressing schools they went to either).

"The front part of the head goes bald because the brain is there and man is the only animal to go bald, because his brain is much the largest and moistest. Women do not go bald."

--Aristotle, DE GENERATIONE, 784a (translated by A. L. Peck, 1943)

"Again, one quality or action is nobler than another if it is that of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be nobler than a woman's. . . Things that deserve to be remembered are noble, and the more they deserve this, the nobler they are. . . So are the distinctive qualities of a particular people, and the symbols of what it specially admires, like long hair in Sparta, where this is a mark of a free man, as it is not easy to perform any menial task when one's hair is long."

--Aristotle, RHETORIC, 1367a (translated by W. Rhys Roberts, 1954)

"Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head -- it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels. (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering."

--Paul, I CORINTHIANS, 11:1-16 (Revised Standard Version translators, 1946)