Patriarchy and Misogyny

I and my sisters got into a discussion regarding "The Patriarchy" in organized religion, particularly that found within the Mormon faith.

It was a pretty deep discussion and we discussed a whole lot of issues that I couldn't hope to go over here but I did want to bring up one thing:

We observed that men in the church are often dismissive of women and women's opinions and observations. In the Mormon faith, the revelation a woman receives is not nearly as significant as that which a man receives.

Similarly, in church culture, discussions on things like doctrinal interpretation of scripture are often dominated by the male perspective. In general, women are "wrong" and need to be corrected whilst men are "not wrong".

(Note: I realize that discrimination and inequality do not have a gender, or color, or sexuality for that matter. There are many examples of men, of people of any color, or any sexual preference who have been unfairly treated, belittled, and silenced simply because another person didn't like their gender/color/sexuality etc OR thought they knew better.

However, I do believe that the patriarchy's domination in the faith culture is a form of misogyny. I have seen it manifested in the attitudes of men and women of all faiths and I think it is something we should be ashamed of.)

I believe it is ungodly, and I believe it persists within the 'Faith Culture', in part, because both men and women let it.

I also don't think it's an issue that's going to be resolved any time soon. How can it? When day after day women and men of faith don't have courage and do the right thing?

• When we argue amongst ourselves that objectification of females and female bodies is a good thing?
• When we say that women need to be week, that God wants them to be weak? Or that strength in women is somehow a threat to men?
• When we emphasize to our daughters the importance of purity and chastity, but not our sons???

We were in the middle of this conversation, and we were talking loudly. And then our dad came in...

A male, entering a group entirely composed of females... and illustrated perfectly the phenomena we'd been discussing...

And told us (among other things) that we couldn't talk about it anymore.

It was actually pretty funny, because we'd just been talking about how women get shut down by men...then he walked in and provided us with an excellent example of the phenomena!!

Because we couldn't talk about it anymore, my sister handed me a letter with her feelings, I thought it was significant, so I wanted to post it here.

 It's really why I made this whole post....

"I just think that it's a very worthy issue to attempt to discuss. As women, this is something that really and truely bothers us. We want to know our roles in life and understand the roles others play in our lives. And it's easy for dad to dismiss it as easily as he does because it doesn't bother him the same way it does us.

"I think we should really attempt to come up with a valid conclusion to that discussion about the roles of women and the patriarchy organization. And if we can't come to a conclusion then we know it's part of the mysteries of God that will be revealed to us "Line upon line" according to our faith.

"All I know is that God loves us and the Eternity He has planned for us will be completely fair and just, because He loves us enough to never let us ever be in any form of minority, because we are his beloved children.

God DOES NOT do that "Power over another" crap."

Another thing that was shared was that the only example we can really look to in faith or how we should treat one another is Jesus.

I really believe that to be true. I think about the way He listened to people and the ways He helped people (men and women) work thought their salvation. (I particularly like His example with the Canaanite woman). He helped us have faith...and he taught us to live that faith did not discriminate based on demographic factors.

He was not a bigot and there was no hate, or resentment, in his heart. He was teaching us a different way to live...a way in which we...as Christians...TWO-THOUSAND YEARS LATER...have not even grasped yet.