When a woman is exhorted to be compliant, cooperative, and quiet, to not make upset or go against the old guard, she is pressed into living a most unnatural life – a life that is self-blinding…without innovation. The world-wide issue for women is that under such conditions they are not only silenced, they are put to sleep. Their concerns, their viewpoints, their own truths are vaporized.
(Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
Are we asleep? Have we been lulled into a semi-conscious state that renders us unaware of not only our own circumstances as women, but those of women around the world? I wonder.
I signed a petition last week fighting insurance language that views (and then won’t pay for) many medical realities inherent to women. There is a media campaign afoot called A Woman Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition that speaks to this. This is worth waking up for.
UNICEF reports that 1.2 million children are trafficked internationally every year. The US State Department estimates that 50,000 to 100,000 women and girls are trafficked each year in the United States. This is worth waking up for.
Feminist scholars say that the objectification of women involves disregarding personal and intellectual abilities and capabilities, and women’s reduction to instruments of sexual pleasure. Examples noted include depictions of women in advertising, media, and pornography, as well as images in more mainstream media such as advertising and art, stripping and prostitution, and men evaluating women sexually in public spaces…(Wikipedia). This is worth waking up for.
Belief systems abound within religious structures that still do not value the role, value, and impact of women in leadership. This issue is not unique to the Catholic Church. Textual interpretation within many denominations and contexts continues to be propagandized with the following slant:
God has ordained that only men are to serve in positions of spiritual teaching authority in the church…The only activity women are restricted from is teaching men or having spiritual authority over them. This logically would preclude women from serving as pastors/preachers. This does not make women less important, by any means, but rather gives them a ministry focus more in agreement with God’s plan and His gifting of them.
DO NOT get me started. This is worth waking up for.
These are only four of many issues facing women, facing each of us. They are worth waking up for. We are worth waking up for.
Cry as if you have a million voices, it is silence that kills the world.
(Catherine of Siena, 14th century)
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Great read, Ronna. I count myself incredibly lucky, indeed, to live in a time and (perhaps even more important) a place where I have the luxury of forgetting how much oppression against women still exists. Because I live in a progressive region of a very wealthy (by global standards) Western society, I have been able to choose the paths I walk and, for the most part, the people with whom I surround myself. So much so, that I often fail to remember things I saw and experienced in my own life even just twenty years ago.
Thank you for the reminder, a crucial one.
Emma Alvarez Gibson´s last blog ..Let Us Compare Mythologies
Thanks for saying what’s often hard to admit, but so true for so many of us. ‘Appreciate your honesty so much, Emma.
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