I try to be religiously tolerant, really I do, but with all due respect, I believe that the Vatican has apparently been spending so much time in the spin cycle that their little brains have overdosed on Downy softness:
“The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax,” said the headline on the article in Osservatore Romano.
“In the 20th cenutry, what contributed most to the emancipation of western women?” questioned the article.
“The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine,” it added.
And this is the best they could come up with for International Women’s Day? Memo to the Pontiff–wash your own damned dirty laundry.
5 Responses to “Vatican Says It Was The Washing Machine, Not The Pill That Liberated Women”
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This is why I have trouble following any organized religion. What a narrow minded bunch of “a h ” If it weren’t for their mothers where would they be? I also can’t for the life of me understand why any self respecting male that has daughters would not want the same opportunities and equalities for them as they do for their sons. I know my father did. He now has Alzheimers and my mother is his primary care giver. She is my hero. Shame on the Vatican. God bless President Obama an enlightened man and wonderful father.
What do you expect from a religion that was invented by a bunch of power hungry old men for the purposes of controlling the masses and rationalizing the death and destruction of other people and cultures for financial gain.
To date, women are still second class citizens to men in the Catholic Church, and hypocrisy still reigns supreme.
Well I’ll jostle for first in line to dump on the Vatican and religion as a whole but I’ve often said that, independent of emancipation, the washing machine trumps the airplane and pretty much anything out there. Most North-American women have access to the pill but it’s not available for a billion plus women worldwide. It is very presumptuous to comment on this however I’ve asked me mum, bless her heart, to describe what the washing-machine meant for her and her mother. And so I turn over the keyboard to her.
When I was growing up, wash day was a full day’s work for Mom. Although we had a washing machine powered by a gas engine, the water had to be heated on the stove. The clothes had to be physically put through a wringer, rinsed, rung through again, then hung outside on a clothesline – summer and winter. In the winter, the frozen clothes were then brought inside and hung around the stove to finish drying.
With the modern washer and dryer, even men can now, occasionally, do the laundry. And the machines do not have to be attended through every cycle.
Hmmmm……. (that’s the sound of a man being thoughtful):
Apparently the washing machine has not yet been successful, because I see so many women who are not yet liberated.
And most of the non-liberated belong to some man’s idea of a control industry: “organized” religion.
I’ve read about washing day in the 19th C & it took all day-they’d have to put lye in the water, blueing, & this after heating it over what appeared to me via sketches on a campfire, wood logs & all. This was also when a woman’s testimony in court did not matter & when any woman who worked outside the home was a “harlot”. I’m not even getting to the part about mothers not having any right to their own children, or being ‘suspect’ for walking outside without a proper escort. You might want to take a look at http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com next up on their agenda: “household voting” not ‘selfish women’ voting only for themselves.