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Women Cannot Be In Positions Of Authority Over Boys

Jill

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A lady-cop can tell you what to do?! Watch the heads of religious conservatives explode.

A religious academy in Kansas recently removed a female referee from a boys’ basketball game because it would have been improper for her to tell them what to do.

So do they not have female teachers? Are sons not taught to listen to their mothers? Do men not have to follow instructions from female police officers or law enforcement officials?

I’m confused as to how this all works off of the basketball court. Thanks to Bradley for the link.

27 thoughts on Women Cannot Be In Positions Of Authority Over Boys

  2. The heartening thing about this is that all the other people involved are backing her up. One male ref walked off the field and another refused to sub in when they found out why she was not refereeing.

  4. Oh, Jesus, the Pope Pius X psychos. So not surprised. They’re still pissed that they don’t get to persecute the Jews for killing Jesus anymore.

  8. Wait–an adult woman isn’t supposed to have authority over male children? Who the hell is supposed to raise these kids? Are their dads gonna take off work to do it?

    “When I found out what the emergency was, I said there was no way I was going to work those games,” said Shockey, who spent 12 years in the Army and became a ref about three years ago. “I have been led by some of the finest women this nation has to offer, and there was no way I was going to go along with that.”

    Aw.

  9. sorry, just related to a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when people say that someone has “balls” to indicate that the person is brave. Guts, a spine, and, yes, ‘nads, all work just as well and aren’t sexist.

  10. Oh Good Lord…

    Do men not have to follow instructions from female police officers or law enforcement officials?

    Yah…one wonders just how these boys are gonna navigate life outside of the bubble. The world is getting bigger by the day, and there is simply no realm of human endeavor left where men will not find themselves under the authority of some woman, some time, some place. While I loathe hyperbole, I can’t help but think it is sad neglect to deny young men the understanding they need to succeed in the wider world. Deliberately setting boys up for failure in the larger world is just stupid.

  11. Hmmmm…..

    This must be news to the hundreds of male physics students who were taught and advised by my Physics Prof Great-Aunt at a Beijing area university from the 1940’s to the 1960’s.

  12. Why didn’t they make the school forfeit the game?

    Also, I’m struck by how calm and reasonable the official in question was. According to the Fox News (!) account linked to, she said:

    “This issue was going to come up eventually,” said Campbell, 49, a retired Albuquerque, N.M., police officer who now lives in Ozawkie, Kan. “I just happened to be the person who was there this time.

    “It’s kind of a sticky situation. It needs to be looked at carefully, slowly, with all the facts.”

    Of course, being a cop means she dealt with assholes for a living. I guess that teaches you patience (unless you go bananas and start tasing everyone in sight).

  13. In answer to your questions:

    Female teachers – probs not at this school
    Female moms – they only have to listen to them when dad’s not around and only with dad’s blessing. if dad and mom disagree, mom’s opinion goes out the windw.

    Now female cops and judges, that I really want to see. Please oh please St. Mary’s men, get pulled over by a lowly female and then mouth off to her. I can’t wait to see you in front of the lowly female judge.

  15. You’re welcome for the link.

    It’s very sad that this happened. It is great that her partner for the game also walked out with her. Also hopeful is this:

    The Activities Association said it is considering whether to take action against the private religious school. St. Mary’s Academy, about 25 miles northwest of Topeka, is owned and operated by the Society of St. Pius X, which follows older Roman Catholic laws. The society’s world leader, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in the late 1980s.

    Gary Musselman, the association’s executive director, said the organization will not make a decision until it confirms whether St. Mary’s Academy has a policy of not allowing female referees to work boys basketball games.

    If that is indeed the school’s written policy, Musselman said, the association could decide to remove St. Mary’s Academy from the list of approved schools and take away its ability to compete against the association’s more than 300 member schools.

    Sadly considering this is a Catholic school there’s probably plenty of other schools like them.

  16. My 11-year-old son just finished up basketball season playing with a Catholic league. Not only did we have female referees, but also female coaches. I particularly liked one referee–she really got that it was a developmental league so she enforced the rules but also took a moment to explain the infraction to the player, or to talk to the coach after the game about something that a player was doing that was acceptable now but wouldn’t be as they got into the older age brackets (certain types of dribbling, etc.). She added value to the season.

    Shame on St. Mary’s.

  17. Kat: My 11-year-old son just finished up basketball season playing with a Catholic league. Not only did we have female referees, but also female coaches.

    Sorry Kat, I wasn’t implying that this is all or even most Catholic schools policy at all. I just meant that since it’s a Catholic school there might be other Catholic schools nearby who share the same policy.

  18. Other Catholic schools don’t share the same policy. St. Mary’s isn’t Catholic. It’s headed by a bunch of freakazoid people who want the church to go back to Latin Mass, women’s heads covered, etc. Their leader was excommunicated, so this school is not sanctioned by the official church.

    That said, the Catholic church is one of the biggest bastions of misogyny in existence. I left years ago and have never felt more free.

  19. *boggles*

    Well, it sounds like it’s moving toward a satisfactory solution. You don’t like the league’s refs, you don’t get to play in the league.

  20. Hubby’s family is from the town of St. Mary’s where this school is located. The established locals (most of the people in “The Academy” are from out of state) can’t stand this cult. The Academy has been around in its present form for about 30 years and they are nothing but a drain on the tax base. 10-kid families on public assistance. Academy members who try to weasel out of paying property tax because they think that being a part of this church provides immunity. There was a recent scandal because a couple of Academy members stole copper telephone wire from an abandonded line, claiming that is was free for the taking (which pretty much sums up the entire Academy’s attitude toward the local government). The girl students don’t have sports teams. The culture of the town is really divided between locals and Academy. The locals want the Academy out but there just isn’t enough local population or money to make it happen. Maybe a little national coverage will help.

  21. Sadly considering this is a Catholic school there’s probably plenty of other schools like them.

    Like tinfoil hattie said, they’re not actually Catholic. They’re a breakaway cult that follows what they think is “real” Catholicism, unlike that namby-pamby Vatican II Catholicism that says you can say Mass in the local language and that the altar area doesn’t really get infested with girl cooties if a woman stands in it.

    Picture the most misogynist moment you’ve ever seen from a Pope, and then multiply it by ten. They’re to regular Catholics kinda what the Amish are to the rest of Protestantism. Except totally psycho.

  22. Brad —
    These are “Old Catholic” congregations.

    Their leadership was discredited and ousted from the Roman Catholic ranks.

    Of course, with the current papal environment, I wouldn’t be surprised that
    they (and their doctrines) don’t get welcomed back. I’m happier, day by day, that I worship Anglican these days, and not RC.

    And I know lots of RC members who are jumping ship to the Episcopal Church or UU

  24. Before everyone gets too excited, finding out what actually happened might help:

    http://www.americanpapist.com/2008/02/commentary-sspx-hs-refuses-to-allow.html

    But hey, don’t let me make the facts interrupt you!

    …what’s your point? There isn’t anything in my post that is factually inaccurate, even when compared to your post. I didn’t “Catholic-bash,” as you accuse me of doing in your post. I didn’t even use the word “Catholic.” I did bash the academy for having incredibly regressive ideals, and I did identify them as “religious,” but as far as I can tell, that’s all true.

    Read comprehension skillz are teh coolest.

  25. First and foremost, why isn’t there a lawsuit filed against this religious school for sexual discrimination? These Catholic schools all think that they are holier-than-thou and above everyone else. I was glad that former NBA power forward and current NBA on TNT analyst Charles Barkley called these people out as fake Christians on Friday.

    There are female officers that have authority over men and boys — even in small places like Pelion, S.C. Case in point, Betty Boondoggle, a frequent reader of blogs such as this one and the Curvature, who was in law enforcement until recently when she retired due to being shot in the chest.

    There are other positions that have women in authority over men and boys, such as mayors (Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, Ga.), judges (Jean Toal, chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court), college professors, CEOs of both public and private companies, superintendents (such as Alexis Clamp of my high school alma mater), and so on.

    What the Kansas academy did was blatant sexism at its worst. And religious zealots in this country keep telling us that they are not like the Taliban. Bullshit.

  26. They believe that because women are naturally weaker than men, they should be protected and treated better than men. They believe that sports diminishes the respect (due to women by virtue of their femenine nature) in the eyes of the boys. It is not about control or subjection or anything like that. In fact they have many females at the school – teachers, secretaries, nuns, administration, monitors,etc…and support women whole-heartedly.

    Oh goodie, women are only “respectable” when they’re being passive. Congratulations on saying some really ugly shit without even swearing.

  27. First and foremost, why isn’t there a lawsuit filed against this religious school for sexual discrimination?

    Religious churches, schools, and youth organizations have limited exemptions from many employment discrimination laws.

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