Women's rights

Mark 16:1-8

     I read something very powerful written by Julie McCormick Odneal (see below ) about the torment and maligning of Emma Gonzalez and women in general. It is a must read as far as I am concerned and is a reading assignment for today’s blog entry.

     In today’s passage from Mark we notice that it is women who are the first witnesses to the Resurrection. I always thought that was quite telling. I also noted from my feelings of marginalization when I was younger that the obvious involvement, support and apparent ministry of women in the early church had been systematically whitewashed. Sadly, male domination seems still all the rage today and euro-centric male domination has never missed a beat.

     For Easter I wrote about how much of a rebel, or perhaps even a radical, Jesus was in his openness and inclusiveness to everyone. That especially pertains to women and we see in today's passage that God chose women to be the first witnesses to the Resurrection.That must still irk some men of the Church, too late now to do any re-writes or whitewashing. That women are excluded now from ministry and the Priesthood of any church, frankly, is an abomination.

     That we choose to exclude any people is a sin of sorts on a personal level. As we move forward in life we must do our personal best to redress that. As we move forward as humanity we must realize that we should not be deferring to males when faced with a choice of who can get the job done or who is more faithful or who will be the best suited to serve or work. It isn't right for men, society or religions to put limits on God given talents. You can extrapolate that out to anyone and anything and if you do that, kudos.  While women's equality is key, it is truly one important step of many towards our social sin of putting our own limits on the love and giftedness God offers all of us through his creations, magnificent human hearts, minds and souls. 

( by Julie McCormick Odneal )

This girl. She’s learning what most women already know. She’s learning the tactics some people (men and women) will take in order to rationalize disregarding your message. They’ll criticize your hair—because valuable women should have beautiful hair. They’ll talk about your sexuality—because anytime they don’t like your message, your sexuality is fair game. They’ll talk about your clothes—because valuable women dress a certain way. And anything bad that happens to women is the result of the clothing they choose. They’ll criticize you because you don’t wear makeup because women, valuable worthy women, wear lipstick. They’ll deride your tears—because women are so emotional. Never mind the fact that, had the strongest among them gone through what you have, they would cry too. They’ll talk about the patch on your jacket—as if it’s relevant—because they can’t comprehend that a flag belongs, not to a country, but to the people. They’ll talk about how you should’ve been nicer to the unpopular kid—because, as always, it’s your responsibility to prevent violence against you. Men aren’t expected to behave but women are expected to soothe them and not provoke them. You must behave a certain way and, if you don’t, you deserve to suffer violence or even death. When you ask for, demand, safety and protection, they’ll tell you that you don’t deserve it. (They’ll tell you that the real threat to you is texting and driving and that you should just give up your cell phone. As if you wouldn’t gladly give up that and more to change what happened to you and your friends. The real threat is shoot-em-up video games. The real threat is violent movies and television shows like The Walking Dead. Seriously??) They’ll criticize you if you show strength and they’ll criticize you if you show weakness. If you’re proud, they’ll say you’re arrogant. If you’re vulnerable, they’ll mock you. They’ll show contempt for your intelligence, the fact that you’re well spoken. When you stand up and speak as a woman, they’ll call you a child. When you cry, they’ll tell you to grow up. Nothing you do or say or become will ever be enough for them. But that’s alright. Keep speaking up and out. Keep standing true to yourself—wear what you like, love who you love. Shout, cry, laugh. Because you, baby girl, are already MORE THAN ENOUGH. And there are millions of us, who are so proud of you.