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I think a dictionary may have helped her out here

Jill

So I know Slate prides itself of being different and politically incorrect, but that doesn’t have to translate into mind-numbing stupidity, does it? From XX, Slate’s lady-blog:

Today, the front page of the Washington Post has another installment in the “feminists are pissed” series dominating the press (and soon to dominate more if Hillary loses today). They call her a witch, a hag, an old bimbo, say the leaders of NOW. They are threatened by her power. Once again, I can’t relate, particularly since the NOW leaders never even consider the possibility that people simply may not like her. But one thought did strike me in reading this. One of the NOW leaders tells the story that she was wearing a Hillary sticker in a hotel and a man came up to her and said, “Ah, come on. A woman’s place is in the kitchen.” I’m not sure I believe the story, but let’s say it’s true. Maybe what it means is this: There are people who still believe this. When I travel around conservative Christian circles, it’s commonly held that a woman’s place is not in leadership. This is true even for modern, highly educated conservative evangelicals. In my book, I focus on a couple of highly successful young career-minded women who are facing this dilemma—work or cede your life to your new husband and family. Basically, they all choose the latter. This makes this “ism” different from “racism.” No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman’s place is fundamentally still in the kitchen. One may disagree, but is this the same as sexism?

Yes, Virginia, it is the same as sexism, even if lots of people believe it and even if religious fundamentalists have a theological justification for it — kinda like how it was still racism when the Mormon church had a theological basis for denying membership priesthood to black people. “Sexism” isn’t rare, and it doesn’t have to be uncommon to be identified — and the idea that women should be in the kitchen instead of in leadership positions is sexism a first-grader could understand.

Glad to see Slate has hired women with a basic understanding of women’s issues to write for their women’s issues blog.

32 thoughts on I think a dictionary may have helped her out here

  1. No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman’s place is fundamentally still in the kitchen.

    Exactly, because Christians never had a coherent (allegedly), theological, philosophical explanation for why a black man’s place is fundamentally in the cotton field- oh wait!

    God, what an idiot.

  3. When and how, exactly, did this country start making a fetish out of “beliefs”?

    If someone “believes” something to be true, especially if it’s a “theological” or “philosophical” belief, that apparently trumps all considerations of morality, logic or even fact. We can pile on the evidence for, say, global warming or evolution until the rafters are bulging, but if someone believes the opposite, not only must we “respect” that belief, but we must include it in news accounts lest we be thought “unobjective.”

    And if everyone’s brain turns to yogurt in the process, well, who needs brains when you’ve got beliefs?

  4. “No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down.”

    Somebody should tell her that she dropped the “in public” from the end of that sentence. Surely she didn’t mean to.

    “One may disagree, but is this the same as sexism?”

    *facepalm*

  5. Silly me, I can’t even FIND the word “kitchen” in the Bible. However, I did find one passage where a woman named Martha is feverishly cleaning house and running around serving, and she whines to Jesus to make her sister Mary help, and Jesus tells her to cut it out and pay attention to the sermon like her sister is doing, okay? Why don’t they ever quote that one?

    As a little girl, I just loved it–I knew this translated as: housework sucks!

    (Luke 10: 38-42)

  6. Daisy – yeah, I read that too, along with something about how the virtuous wife sells he wares in the marketplace (working outside the home and earning money – gasp!)

    Lindsay – well, they did switch around some between slavary existed in the Bible, it was punishment for being descended from Cain, and it was punishment for being descended from Ham. Besides, she said the magic word “anymore.”

  7. No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman’s place is fundamentally still in the kitchen. One may disagree, but is this the same as sexism?

    Yeesh!

    What is up with WaPo? First Charlotte Allen, now this. Clearly whoever hired Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon isn’t around anymore…

  8. Good god. I read Slate all the time but almost never click on that blog, for exactly reasons like this.

    I guess it’s only an -ism if it’s unconscious and not supported by conscious beliefs? So, like, if I see a black guy and cross the street out of vague nervousness, that’s racism, but if I give a heartfelt argument about why blacks are inferior and shouldn’t be allowed to vote, that’s…something different?

    Good to know.

  10. Thank you for addressing this. My jaw dropped when I read it. I think the Nazis had a fairly “coherent, theological, philosophical” understanding of why it was bad to have Jews in their country–it was still anti-Semitism.

  11. I’ve been sitting here at work all day fervently believing that I should be paid more than I am, and that I and my husband should each get at least six weeks of paid vacation. I have many theological and philosophical arguments for why this should be so.

    Damn. I just checked my pay scale. Still the same. I must not be believing HARD enough.

  12. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman’s place is fundamentally still in the kitchen.

    No, they don’t. What they have is religion, which is in no way coherent.

  13. Well, firstly, Christians did, in the past, have a “coherent, theological, philosophical explanation” of why black people were fundamentally inferior to white people, as several people have pointed out, and yet it was still racism.

    There seems to be a weird blind spot in people’s brains, whereby religious beliefs must be tolerated no matter how psychotic they may be. If I claimed I was Napoleon Bonaparte, I’d be considered insane, but if I found a few hundred other people to claim the same thing, and claimed it was religion, then anybody calling me insane would be guilty of religious hatred.

    It doesn’t help their case that their reasons are religious – religion is, in general, a lot of nonsense based upon ancient works of fiction, and has done much more harm than good throughout history. On the other hand, even if religion was based on solid fact, that’d not justify oppressing somebody: if God exists, and God says it’s okay to oppress women/homosexuals/non-white people/whatever, then that doesn’t mean it’s okay – it just means that God is a misogynist/homophobe/racist/whatever. There is no reason good enough to justify any of these things.

    I’m all for multiculturalism, tolerating other people’s beliefs, and so on, when it doesn’t harm anyone. However, some beliefs are just wrong, and they do harm people. Religion doesn’t excuse racism, and no matter what some people might want to believe, it doesn’t excuse homophobia or sexism either.

  14. The Mormon Church has always had Black members, even from the beginning in the 1830’s. It is true that they didn’t ordain Blacks as priests until 1976 – but so did many Protestant denominations.

  15. Perhaps the major reason Mormons were persecuted in Missouri was that they were abolitionists, and the Missourians were slaveowners. Goveernor Boggs even issued an extermination order for the Mormons (and not the Blacks).

  16. kinda like how it was still racism when the Mormon church had a theological basis for denying membership to black people.

    I hate to ruin the premise of your post, but the Mormon church never denied membership to black people. There were restrictions on blacks and the LDS priesthood.

    You should probably check your facts next time.

    http://www.blacklds.org/

  17. #13: There is no wrong and right without religion because we then are all just animals who can talk and make things with tools. It may be wrong TO YOU but that doesn’t make it inherently wrong. And just because a word has “-ism” at the end of it also doesn’t make it wrong. Also just because you think it’s “fiction” doesn’t make it so. If there is no truth to religion then why do you even care? You have nowhere to be after you’re gone so how about live and let live or live and let die? What’s the difference, right?

  18. The Mormon Church has always had Black members, even from the beginning in the 1830’s. It is true that they didn’t ordain Blacks as priests until 1976 – but so did many Protestant denominations.

    Oh, well in that case, there is clearly no racism at play. Glad to hear that God changed his mind about that whole black priest thing.

  19. whoa-
    Although I’m no fan of this posting, before we start hatin’ on Slate as a whole, and all the women contributing to the blog, take a look at these responses to Charlotte Allen’s ridiculous piece in the WashPo :

    http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/03/03/it-s-women-not-girls-and-it-s-not-funny.aspx

    http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/03/03/and-one-more-thing.aspx

    Written by Dahlia Lithwick & Emily Bazelon, which is kinda funny, given FashionablyEvil’s comment above

  20. Ah yes, you can only be a non-murderer, non-rapist, non-thief if you believe you will be rewarded or punished for your deeds in the afterlife. Hate to break it to you Joe, but it IS possible to not believe in any religion and be a good person. Perhaps believing that this life is all there is helps one realize that fucking it up for someone else is wrong and permanent… They won’t get recompense from god or whatever. And if religious followers would just allow ME to live my life, perhaps I wouldn’t care about their beliefs. Keep your beliefs off me and I’m sure we could get along just fine. Funny how tolerance is only supposed to be extended to the religious, as if being religious has any bearing on whether or not someone is a good person.

  21. If there is no truth to religion then why do you even care?

    Um, because it’s being used as a tool to oppress me?

  22. If there is no truth to religion then why do you even care?

    When theists stop trying to invade my life with their baloney, I will stop caring.

  23. There is no wrong and right without religion because we then are all just animals who can talk and make things with tools.

    This is the attitude I consider to be one of the more frightening ones theists seem to hold.

    The only reason you’re not out murdering, raping and kicking babies is because you believe you’ll get a eternal cookie upon death, or because you think there’s some anthropomorphic supreme being who will punish you if you don’t?

    That’s about as immoral as its possible to get.

    Right and wrong are not defined by religion – as anyone who’s ever read any religious text knows, they’re rife with wrong dressed up like right.

    Right and wrong and entirely independent of religion, but religion loves to steal everything good and noble about human beings to pretend it came up with it.

    Baloney.

  24. Betty, that’s exactly my problem with theists who think atheists can’t be moral. I was actually told that by an H.R. professional at one of my jobs, before she knew I was an atheist.

    I asked her what’s stopping Christians from committing those acts, then, since they believe they can be forgiven and still be rewarded with eternal life. She didn’t have an answer.

  25. There is no wrong and right without religion

    Oh yeah, this.

    Are you telling me you wouldn’t know right from wrong if “god” hadn’t told you in some ancient book? That’s not only pathetic, but deranged.

    If your “god” ordered you to murder and steal, would murdering and stealing be right, or wrong?

    There’s this thing called ethics, and it exists outside your narrow, dogmatic worldview.

  26. Even ultra-Christian Scott Peck (!) said that atheism and agnosticism was a higher level of moral development than the “I desist from wrongdoing only because Big Daddy is watching me!” brand of religiosity. Having a moral center has NOTHING to do with whether you are religious, spiritual, atheist or what have you. I get really, really fed up with this “Atheists have no morals, O NOES!” argument that inevitably gets trotted out. And I’m not even an atheist!

    However, anti-feminism doesn’t necessarily spring from religion. I’ve read some nasty, mouth-foaming anti-feminist screeds from “secular,” atheist men. (Almost always men – atheism in women usually means a feminist outlook.) The justification these men use is evolutionary psychology – women are biologically programmed to be conniving little gold-diggers and suchlike. Phooey on them, and phooey on the anti-feminist religious nuts.

  27. I think that the blogger’s main point is not a point about the correct use of ‘sexism’ (though that is an important issue connected to what the blogger says). The main point is that, given a person who has a morally objectionable belief, the person’s reasons for holding that belief bear on that person’s character. If some guy holds a sexist belief because he was raised to believe it, or because he is part of a religion which teaches it, or whatever, then that tends to reflect less negatively on his character than if he holds the same belief because he hates women and wants them to suffer. That is the main point, I think, and it seems right to me. Interestingly, however, morally obejctionable beliefs held for reasons that don’t bear so negatively on a person’s character are more pernicious in a way. If you had to explicitly hate women in order to hold a sexist belief, there would be far fewer sexist beliefs out there.

  28. “She didn’t have an answer.”

    Did she go on a lust/envy/gluttony/wrath spree later that day?

  29. She didn’t have an answer.

    😆 Shocker.

    anti-feminism doesn’t necessarily spring from religion. I’ve read some nasty, mouth-foaming anti-feminist screeds from “secular,” atheist men.

    Ramen to that. I have too. Not just anti-feminist, but anti-all-women screeds.

    The justification these men use is evolutionary psychology

    Evo psych is frequently used to peddle baloney. If something conveniently excuses and justifies all the bad behavior of one sex, and conveniently excuses and justifies bigotry against the other, you know you’ve got a pile of rotten baloney.

    If you had to explicitly hate women in order to hold a sexist belief, there would be far fewer sexist beliefs out there.

    Maybe, but the opposite is also true. One can explicity hate women and manufacture a sexist belief to justify it. That’s what I think sits at the core of religious misogyny. They needed a reason to justify hating women, so they made it gawd’s word.

    Kinda like evo psych.

  30. What, you mean deciding what 50% of the population should and shouldn’t do, treating them like children and demanding servitude is sexist?

    But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman’s place is fundamentally still in the kitchen.

    Oh, you mean ‘because I say so.’ Really, that’s a coherent explanation? If this really was such a big deal in God’s eyes, you’d think it’d be in the commandments, or something. Funny how He seems to leave it out, just like abortion. Makes it much easier for people to tack on more and more bits and pieces to justify their crap, and then pass it on. Considering it was written thousands of years ago, I’m surprised the bible isn’t a lot more sexist, even.

    It also boggles me that people still think that ethics cannot be separate from religion. I’m not even an atheist and I believe thay have nothing to do with each other. Or rather, that it’s perfectly possible to be an ethical, dare I say it – kind human being, without believing in a deity or afterlife. True ethics, that of considering other living organisms (and this planet) is not incopatible with any religion, per se, but is incompatible with strict interpretations if scriptures written thousands of years ago.

    I think it’s important we as a group are ethical first, and religious second. People follow their religion because it doesn’t go against what they believe wrong or right. It’s comforting or gives a sense of community. When a conflict arises, for example over contraception, abortion, gay rights, or many other issues, many people question what their religion tells them, and leave that religion. A person’s ethics can be subject to change and development, but since most religons tend to resist change, those who wish to follow strictly must follow rules set for a different society in a different time and maybe place, and follow only the interpretations of those who seem the most traditional. Unfortunately, although there are some amazing people of faith out there, there are also plenty who go into religion for one big power trip.

  31. Evo psych is frequently used to peddle baloney.

    Yes! Too many secularist or atheist men use Evo Psych the way that religious people use their religion. It becomes a justification for their own preconceived notions. It’s used as a shortcut by people who don’t actually have a solid argument. “It’s Science, so it’s right!” isn’t any better than “God told me so, so it’s right!” when there’s no actual science behind it.

  32. Yes, it clearly is sexism.

    However, I think there’s a point underlying the question that should be noted. The point is that not all sexism is created equal.

    In order to create a women’s rights movement, there has to be some conception of women, some identity or common identification, some common ground upon which to place the label “women.” There has to be some idea of who is a woman and who is not a woman. There has to be some way of knowing or identifying who it is the women’s rights movement is fighting for.

    Feminism has undergone several challenges to this conception of “woman” – in some cases from women of different races or classes who felt that white middle class feminists were erasing differences between classes and races and assuming that the experience of all women is the same. This is not to accuse feminism, because feminist philosophers have met the challenge of providing points of identification in a non-essentializing and non-erasing framework. However, it is to acknowledge that there can be no struggle for women’s rights without sexism.

    Sexism, then, is simply a means to an end. It is good or bad only based on how it is deployed, and when, and by whom. For example, a theorist like Kathi Weeks, who wants to construct a collective feminist subjectivity, engages in sexism by valorizing social roles typically assigned to women – by valorizing these roles she perpetuates the idea that men and women are different and have different roles, but she also strengthens and validates the roles of women in comparison with men. This approach is not without danger, but varied approaches are necessary for the women’s rights movement to remain vital and robust. We can say that Weeks’ deployment of sexism furthers the cause of women’s rights at the same time as we acknowledge the danger of being pinned down by gender roles – a danger Weeks herself recognizes and acknowledges.

    We should certainly condemn any system of philosophy that assigns women to kitchen work. However, rather than simply condemn these systems, it is worthwhile to try to understand the differences between sexisms. Domestic violence is sexism. Gender roles are sexism. The wage gap is sexism. But all of these sexisms come from different philosophies, and must be understood differently and fought differently. In the case of conservative Christianity, women themselves may feel comfortable in their roles, and it may be that the goal of feminism should to show these women their full potential as women, rather than to simply tell them that their beliefs are irrational, backwards, or stupid. It may also be to argue not that Slate’s blogger needs a dictionary, but instead a more subtle (and therefore dangerous) point: Just because some women choose home and family over their career does not mean that that choice is appropriate or “natural” for all women. Because that seems to be the real objectionable implication made by this author.

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