I've been reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," and one of the interesting themes is the extent to which the "system" (institutions, collectively) continues to exploit and manipulate people even after those people have been admitted into the system.

A good example is the case with women. Women thought, before they won the right to vote, that everything would be fine once suffrage was granted. Of course this has proven not to be the case. Women still earn less than men for comparable work, are still the victims of domestic violence, rape and other atrocities more so than men, hold a mere fraction of the leadership positions in government, business etc. that men do, etc.

For some time now there has been an active and well-publicized effort to change the rules of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to admit women into the priesthood. I believe that, were this to happen, NOT MUCH WOULD CHANGE. The church would not magically stop its systematic patriarchy. Women would still be pressured to spit out a houseful of children and sacrifice careers to raise those kids. A few token women might occasionally be "called" to be bishops or even rise to the level of the Seventy. But, mainly, the church would enjoy a larger pool of indentured servants to exploit.

Zinn notes the extent to which the "system" enforces its values by forcing families to do the dirty work:

"In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression but for everybody's. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead, the family was used--men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another, to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren't going right."

Zinn is, however, optimistic:

"Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds--male, female, parents, children--they could undertake the changing of society itself."

It was impossible for me to read the above and not think, also, of TSCC. I understand the rationale behind some women wanting to be priests but, seriously, there's only one thing a Mormon woman can do if she wants to become fully self-actualized:

LEAVE THE CHURCH.

If LDS women were ever allowed to become priests, the only one I know of who I think would be allowed to go further up the ladder would be ScherrieDew (not sure of spelling). And, from everything I've read about her, plus listening to an interview with her after the last LDS "prophet" died, I'm not convinced that she would be very supportive of other members of her gender.

Regarding the last quote from Howard Zinn, I think he is being very idealistic. Both my experiences and observations of others tell me that the vast majority of my fellow humans tend to focus on the trees (individual human frailties) and fail to see the forest those trees are operating in (the system that places human beings where we are). And I'm afraid that our systems, for better or worse, are all responses to our short-term animal instincts than to any long-term goals of making life better for us all.

blindguy Wrote:
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> And
> I'm afraid that our systems, for better or worse,
> are all responses to our short-term animal
> instincts than to any long-term goals of making
> life better for us all.

I don't believe the subjugation of women by men human nature at all.

I think agrarian societies have made misogyny more of a reality than it ever was for tens of thousands of years before the most recent ten.

Men are NOT inherently dominant in our species. It is domestication which has made this more of a fact of life in my opinion. Defending what you sow and pasture makes men more in charge.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2017 02:17PM by Elder Berry.