The Misbegotten Male
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| "For Republicans in Texas
and other Republican controlled states, the establishment of a
male patriarchy that is much like that of the Taliban is clearly
considered a virtuous endeavor.." |
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| By
Debby Long |
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"The female is a misbegotten male."
Aristotle, 384 BC to 322 BC - Greece
When Aisha Mohammadzai was 14 years old, she was promised to a
Taliban fighter as recompense for a murder committed by a member
of her family. Her husband was decades older than she. He and
his family violently abused her throughout her marriage, and at
18, she fled. She was caught by the police and imprisoned for 5
months and then returned by her father to her husband and his
family. Upon her return, her husband, father-in-law, and three
other men cut off her nose and ears and left her to die in the
mountains. She received help at a US military base and
eventually was resettled in the US where she received
psychiatric treatment for the trauma she had endured, and later,
reconstructive surgery to rebuild her nose and ears. In 2014,
she was adopted by an Afghan-American couple. She is now known
as Bibi Aisha. Bibi is a term of respect meaning "Lady".
"Women have two choices: Either she's a feminist or a
masochist.", Gloria Steinem, - America
Why do patriarchies persist in the 21st century? It is easy for
Americans of all political persuasions and religious
denominations to look with horror at the backwardness of the
Taliban of Afghanistan and its breathtaking and bone crushing
cruelty toward women. This photo of Aisha Mohammadzai was the
cover photo for Time Magazine in 2010. It is almost impossible
to look at.
But for Republicans in Texas and other Republican controlled
states, the establishment of a male patriarchy that is much like
that of the Taliban is clearly considered a virtuous endeavor,
an earnest fulfillment of scripture, and a political tactic
intended to secure Governor Greg Abbott’s reelection in Texas in
2022. For the Republican Party, and for most of the United
States Supreme Court, a reinstatement of Christian
Fundamentalism to guide our legal system is a cherished
objective. We most clearly see this turn toward theocracy
exposed in the Court’s refusal to block Texas’s six-week
abortion ban, and the means by which it will be enforced.
Phrases like “forced to bear the child of her rapist”, and
“institutionalized vigilantism” in Texas are not far from
Aisha’s experience growing up in a backward culture like
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The backwardness of the Republican Party looks, from the
perspective of half of America, to be the last gasp of white
male entitlement - as demographics lap at the cuffs of their
trousers, and climate denial is drowning the future of their
historic business plan. And as their Covid denialism implacably
claims the lives of their own Taliban fighters in Texas,
Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, the educated in America
recognize that male entitlement in government, in corporate
America, and in marriage, will no longer be symbolized by the
question: “Who’s your daddy?” but increasingly by the question:
“Who signs your paycheck?”
Misogyny is the chest beating of a stratified society where all
women are stigmatized as inferior and must remain subservient to
men – because white supremacy, misogyny, and nationalism are
intended to create "the other" – a them versus us dichotomy that
politicians like Donald Trump know are powerfully embedded
within us.
“Woman is a temple built over a sewer” – Tertullian, De Cultu
Feminarum (160-225 AD), - Carthage
In ancient Greece, men’s testicles were believed to have
specific functions: the left one produced girls, and the right
one produced boys. Aristotle thought that men should tie off
their left testicle during intercourse in order to insure the
birth of a son. If a daughter was born instead of the desired
son, she was considered “a misbegotten male” because the birth
of a daughter meant the birth of a deformed male. And Saint
Thomas Aquinas agreed: “As regards the individual nature, woman
is defective and misbegotten…". His writings and teachings
influenced Roman Catholic doctrine for centuries and was adopted
as the official philosophy of the Catholic Church in 1917.
So, in today’s America, one needs to ask: is biology still
destiny? Mary T. Barra, CEO of General Motors doesn’t think so.
Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup doesn’t think so either. Nor does
Carol Tomé, CEO of United Parcel Service, Inc. But leaders of
America’s mainline religions do, indeed, think so:
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is
about a socialist, anti-family political movement that
encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” -
Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist leader, July 1992 -
https://www.nytimes.com/.../robertson-letter-attacks...
- America
“A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her
husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of
Christ.” –Official Faith and Message Statement of Southern
Baptist Convention, Summer 1998, 15.7 million members - America
This photo of Bibi Aisha may engender accusations of a false
equivalence because America is not a tribal society like
Afghanistan, yet. Its heartland has not lost its place in
providing for 16.8% of the world’s agriculture, yet. Its laws
are not defined by theocratic warlords who manage the production
of its real economy, yet. And its predominant religion does not
determine who and how women are punished for seeking justice,
yet.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!” –
Gloria Steinem |
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