The Brave Women of Iran: Protesting the Morality Police

Women friends are free to enjoy  
each other and yet...  

I'm a fan of the women in Iran who are literally risking their lives to protest the 'morality police' who arrested and then killed a 22 year old woman Mahsa Amini for uncovering her head. This is preposterous, first that there would even be a "morality police" and secondly, murder for a mild protest. Right? How primitive these Iranian men are. Oh, wait, how about the men in Idaho and Texas who have placed a bounty on any woman who asserts the right to control her own body. Think gentle people, think.

The big question today, as it has been for centuries: what's happened to women in all religions of the world? Why is it almost every major religion's policy is to exclude women from all the important functions of their churches and allow misogyny to reign supreme? How can any level headed female today participate in a church which, for all practical purposes, shuns them because of their sex? From Muslims, to Jews, to Catholics to Baptists to Mormons, to name just a few, the treatment of women in their teachings and rules is frankly humiliating and in my mind, non-sensible. But things have started to turn from laughable to oppressive then to lethal. There I said it. Women as cattle.

Until very recently no woman was allowed on the altar in the Catholic churches, no altar girls. This has changed but priests are still not allowed to marry--- as if being intimate with a woman somehow makes the priest unclean. My own sainted Mother used to say, "if they allowed priests to marry they'd fill all those empty pews." She was right. Listen to his: the Episcopalians have allowed women ministers for over two decades, and married clergy, and not surprisingly, they've not come to ruin. 

My conclusion is that all the men in charge of these ridiculous rules are afraid of women. Why are there  'morality police' not only in Iran, the Taliban and even in the Supreme Court of the US? In this country there is supposed to be separation of Church and State. It says just that in our Constitution. Does this even count anymore? Who is violating the Constitution right now by taking away women's rights to privacy with their physicians.

Why are these men [and some deluded women] so afraid of the rights of women being equal to men? Would a man stand for having women decide when and if a man could be  ordered to have a vasectomy or refused one?  Or is it more simplistic; that women will bleed on their altar, or they will decide when and if they want to have a baby? Are they afraid that women will be unwilling to follow the unspoken rules that fosters misogyny and lets females be treated as second class citizens? Getting closer to the truth: could it be that they are desperately afraid of our power, to love, nurture, create and rule?

What is not laughable is one sad statistic: 99% of the pedophilia in the churches is caused by men. I know that the Catholic church has gotten all of the publicity and lawsuits about the pedophiles, but truth be told, there are an equal number of pedophiles in all major religions, [see the list above] especially the ones that are fundamentalist and oppressive in their attitudes towards women. What all of the sexual predators in these hierarchies of the churches have in common is their sex: male. So remind me, why aren't women playing a bigger part in the hierarchy of these churches?

I realize that even though it is purported that the churches are all about spiritual values in fact they are also about power and money. This fact cries out for overseers. There is a movement afoot to tax the churches who are religiously preaching party politics [fundamentalist "Christians"]  in their vast arenas.  Oh, the cries of anguish but there are consequences---they should be taxed.

It is important for us to be electing more women in our country. Women tend to be more sympathetic to people. How many men in Congress wanted to give themselves and all the billionaires tax breaks and yet were unwilling to raise minimum wages? 

We also should be actively recruiting women as watchdogs in our churches. If these men want to keep the power in churches, they need to have check and balances. A good check for the males in power is to have someone of the opposite sex that can keep tabs on the emotional well being of their church members. This I realize is a grand fantasy on my part, but hey it's my blog.

As for the women of Iran, I salute your bravery, compassion and fierceness to defy the egregious acts of the 'morality police'. I for one believe that bullies [which include Mr Trump and Mr. Putin] are the height of immorality. Here's to Mahsa Amini, long may she be an inspiration to all of us.

Dante Gabriel Rossitti's St. Joan of Arc

 

susansmagicfeather copyright 2022 Susan R. Grout