Men’s Rights graphics extravaganza: “I need feminism so I can treat women like equals and beat them.”

There’s tons of misogyny in the bible and in the history of Christianity. Of course misogyny in the religion has helped to shape the cultures of the western world.
Christians are privileged in Europe and the Americas. It’s important for liberal Christians who don’t hold misogynist or homophobic beliefs to acknowledge the role Christianity has played in the oppression of marginalized groups. To say so isn’t anti-Christian. It’s the same as asking men to acknowledge their privilege or white people to acknowledge theirs IMO.

“Rule of thumb” in English common law:

A reference to this connection is found in 1881, in a book by Harriet H. Robinson: Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement. She says there, “By the English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could ‘punish her with a stick no bigger than his thumb,’ and she could not complain against him.”

Most of her statement is undoubtedly true: married women had little recourse if a husband treated her or her children badly, including many acts of battery.

There was an 1868 case, State v. Rhodes, where a husband was found innocent because, the judge said, “the defendant had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb,” and in another case in 1874, State v. Oliver, the judge cited the “old doctrine, that a husband had a right to whip his wife, provided he used a switch no longer than his thumb” but continued on that this was “not law in North Carolina. Indeed, the Courts have advanced from that barbarism….”

No one has yet found, though, any written reference to such a rule in English common law, and if you read Robinson’s paragraph carefully, she only ascribes that “her husband was lord and master” to English common law. The rest can be read as examples. It sounds as though she’s quoting something or somebody, but that reference hasn’t been found. Perhaps it was just common knowledge of her time, and she assumed her readers would recognize it. Whether the rule about “a stick no bigger than his thumb” was a common saying of the time, or something she invented, we don’t know, but it sounds like it probably was.

Personally, I always assumed that “rule of thumb” simply meant using one’s thumb as a rough measuring device for…whatever. The French word for inch is pouce, meaning “thumb”, because a man’s thumb is roughly that wide, on average. So when you go by rule of thumb, you’re guesstimating, eyeballing, etc.

Not that this in any way diminishes the common-law notion that a man was “lord and master” of the woman of the house, mind you.

Did she have to annotate each quote? She was pointing out the misogyny, there’s the context. So no, not really much of a treasure hunt.

An annotation certainly isn’t always needed, but it’s important to consider the greater context as well. Interpretation of religious texts is rarely as simple as looking at a quote and deciding what it means without further analysis.

I learned that the hard way when I used to read the Qur’an (the book of my former religion). There are quite a few quotes in that book that seem very unsavory without any additional context, but are actually completely benign when understood with that additional context. A lot of Islamophobes pick and choose the verses that sound terrible at a glance, and in doing so they only prove how little they understand the text. I know that Islam and Christianity differ in many ways, but at the very least they are both are easy to interpret in ways that make the religions look terrible.

Pointing out quotes is not a critique of religion. Pointing out religious practice is. And while there are many who practice Christianity with a misogynist bent, there are also plenty of people who don’t. Focusing on mining a book for quotes is not helpful.

(my two cents. sorry.)

katz, yes, I’ve seen the beating with a stick quote attributed to the Koran, I think.

It means “you’re not a child and you should know better,” hellkell.

trans_commie: it’s nice to be remembered. I was under water for a while. 🙂 Still am, but at some point one learns to breathe underwater 🙂

Satire, the go-to claim of abuse promoters everywhere.

Here’s Johnny! Oh, sorry, Paul. I meant Paul.

@shigekuni

trans_commie: it’s nice to be remembered. I was under water for a while. 🙂 Still am, but at some point one learns to breathe underwater 🙂

In case you’re wondering how I remember you, I recall you commenting on Feministe a while ago. It’s been so long since I last saw you there that I didn’t even realize I was trans back then (I had been commenting under the name “mxe354”). In any case, I totally understand why you would want to stay away from Feministe for a while because the commenting section there is overwhelming these days.

I feel your pain, kitteh. The same thing is happening to me. Curse you, Older Comments Serpent!

Completely OT but this is a book cover that has appropriate design and says something:

http://www.catchannel.com/images/articles/catfancy/june_2007/0706MediaSlaves.jpg

Rather then reply to each upset post, I will address this to all.

I am sorry that what I wrote got some backs up, but I maintain that religion IS a valid and important aspect of human culture to examine and, yes, critique precisely BECAUSE it is such a powerful and root part of life. Many cultures throughout history have justified all kind of actions, good and not so, because some god(s) and/or goddess(es) have put their stamp of approval on them. That does include attitudes about and actions towards women.

Even when people give up the religions of their childhoods, they still carry the attitudes that they were enculturated with as children. Those beliefs/ideas may be unconscious, but they still inform a lot of their ideas and actions as adults. I believe that this is one reason why quite a few return to the religions of their youths when they get much older.

In any religious or philosophical book you can find both sublime beauty and horror – and everything in between. And faith is a wonderful thing, as long as it is not blind.

All of that said, I will refrain from mentioning specifically religious ideas or quoting religious passages in the future.

By the way, the day I am “too old” to look ANYWHERE I feel may have some relevance to anything I am concerned with will be the day I decide that I am ready to move on.