Makers


There was a pretty good documentary on the recent history of the women’s movement in the US on PBS last night. It featured Pat Schroeder a lot, which was fun, because she was at Moving Secularism Forward last year (and I got her name tag as a souvenir).

The last hour, on the most recent history, spent too much time on pop culture figures as opposed to political ones, but the first two hours were good. We got the anti-feminist views of Phyllis Schlafly. You know what she said? That feminism teaches women to be victims. Oh, so that’s where Paula Kirby gets her lines! She channels Phyllis Schlafly! I knew that was a familiar, and indeed stale, line of bullshit, but I didn’t know it went back to Schlafly. Now there’s a proud heritage.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2336932877

 

Comments

  1. Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Actually that one goes back to the 17th century. The founding of Quakerism was greeted with a rejection of their right to marry and a general distaste for them by both Roundheads and the Cavaliers. Among the reasons? Quakerism taught its adherents to be discontent with their god-given lot in life. Now all of a sudden, the farmers, the brewers, the crafters, and – get this – the women were being told that they were as good as the Anglican and Catholic clergies! The corollary being that they must be being kept down by the PTB. See, perfectly happy peasants now acting as if they are victims!!! Will Satan’s mischief never end????

    Yeah, so it wasn’t directed (in the small amount I’ve read) at women disproportionately, but the role of women in quakerism did lead to essentially the same argument as Schlafly made/makes. It’s been too long for me to remember exactly what wording the argument took, but it was definitely there.

    ==========
    As a complete aside, I was reading about outlawed Quaker marriages b/c of the contemporary opposition to queer marriages. Do you know why they banned Quaker marriages?

    They rejected god.
    As all of them at that point had to be converts, and as parents who believed fervently in Catholicism and/or Anglicanism were pissed when they came out as quakers, their families of birth had stress over this. That they were willing to put their families through that stress? Proof Quakers are anti-family.
    Many Quakers became so after they fell in love with another Quaker and the time spent with that person enabled them to learn about a Quakerism that ended up appealing to them. This proves what? That Quakers are just in it for the sex.
    The rural/poor disproportionate membership led the nobility to see them as filthy and disease carriers.
    For some reason I’m not historically literate enough to understand, they were stereotyped as excessive consumers of beer.

    That’s right, Quaker marriage must be outlawed because Quakers are anti-god, anti-family sex addicts who are going to spread disease throughout society as a result of carelessness deriving directly from their immoral addiction to a mind affecting drug!!!

    Yeah. Seriously.

    I’ve been waiting 20+ years for someone with an actual, recognizable name to come out and argue publicly that we’ve already had the fight over queer marriage – in the 17th century w/ the Quakers, then again in the 18th-19th centuries with the squabbles over Catholic/Protestant marriages (and, really, the reason they weren’t arguing this in the 16th-17th centuries was that the discussion itself was suppressed), and about interracial marriages from 1500 to today. Then there were the (mainly) 19th century assertions that part of the reason that the European monarchies can and should be overthrown b/c even if Divine Right had existed at one point, the Eurpoean royals with their anti-godly educations, anti-family sexual immorality, disease-causing inbreeding, and excessive consumption of alcohol, could not possibly have been legitimately married. Thus no legitimate children and no Divine Right.

    Seriously, every time there’s an argument against marriage, it takes the same damn form. I predicted [like many others, I’m sure] that this anti-queer marriage position would soon be politically obsolete not based on Loving v Virginia (one example does not a reliable basis for prediction make) but because we keep banning certain marriages (I’m looking at you, Galton) and we keep justifying the bans on the same bases, and we keep deciding as a society, whoops! So wrong. We’re done banning those marriages now. Those were incredibly lousy reasons. Oh, but BTW: we’re still banning some other marriages b/c, DUH! Anti-god, anti-family, sexual animals that spread disease and get liquored up totes don’t deserve marriage, y’know!

  2. jackiepaper says

    Common stereotypes of black men, feminists and atheists is that we are all “angry”.

    It is an easy way to disregard the concerns of the minority.

  3. Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I did a bunch of research on this years ago, and I still have my sources on 3.5″ floppy (believe it or not), but it’s been quite a while (should be obvious from the floppies).

    I hate to say it, but it’s unlikely I’ll be digging them out any time soon, and by the time I do (I will be moving later this year) I’ll likely not be remembering this conversation. BUT I didn’t have any trouble finding the info. If you have a reference librarian at your local library, you should be able to turn something up pretty easily.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *