A woman should not laugh in public? What absolute rubbish. This controlling, ridiculous, gob-smacking dogma is ratified by a man in the name of a religion and should be relgated to the bin where it belongs. A woman should laugh long and often and anywhere she wants.

Andee, it is all very well to point out the way beliefs are false, but if you yourself don't make sure that yours are true, you'll be in no better position than those you criticize, and will end up similarly talking nonsense, and in this case, gender nonsense that is sexist and unust. injustice.
The female genetic contribution is not half. The male's biomass contribution is truly insignicant: only the atoms of the original sperm. The male contributes only half of the DNA in the nucleus of the gamete, but nothing of the extra-nuclear DNA in the cytoplasm, namely the mitochondria and the telemeres. (The latter are the bits of 'string' which pull the choromosomes into shape at mitosis, and which we see in chicken eggs as the little white stringy bits next to the yolk. And the mitochondria of course supply the power for the cell's operations.)
It is only the male *information content* that is significant, and that only for the DNA in the nucleus. (There is a separate female genome passed on in the mitochondria and telemeres, to which the male makes no contribution, and inheriting only his mother's.)
This means, if we are to start our understanding of gender relations with the facts, the fact is that the woman, in the nature of things, contributes:
a) the original ovum
b) its nucleus and nuclear DNA
c) its cytoplasm and extra-nuclear DNA
d) all the biomass from conception to birth
e) any suckling.

The male by contrast contributes only the genetic material in the nucleus of the original sperm. Any other contributions he may make is entirely a social construct.

If we take as given the injustice of patriarchy (and that is not given, so far as any social relations may be based on consent), then what needs to be explained, is why the male contribution to offspring should be equal, rather than one-trillionth that of the female's; anything more requiring the male's consent as a matter of social justice and gender equality.

Your pretended concern for gender justice would have seemed more plausible if you had
a) a theory based in fact rather than shooting fish in the biblical barrel – easy sport indeed, and
b) taken account of the sexism and double standards in the feminist orthodoxy you spout.

Where women are not attempting to throw off the costs of their reproductive choices onto other people, and using the state to force others to obey and pay under a double standard, it is common for all human societies to have different standards of modesty for men and women - for obvious reasons - women have babies and men don't! The sexes are not factually equal, there's no reason why they should be, and this invalidates the feminist line of reasoning.

If we had real gender equality and social justice, a man's contribution to any child he gets, should not be half but a much smaller fraction.

Everything else is, to use the feminists' own polemics against them, just a "social construct" and "ideology" - no justification for policy.

Feminism has never been for gender equality, but always female privilege and sexist double standards, in which women have the benefits of feminism and patriarchy, and men have the costs and responsibilities of both.

Feminist gender ideology is every bit as factually untrue, illogical, sexist, hypocritical as the that of the traditional Jewish, Christian or Muslim patriarchs.

IF you were advocating real gender equality and social justice – based on *consent* - you might have a point, but alas, you're not.
That will be the day the feminists devote as much indignation and recrimination to arguing against all the sexist privileges and double standards they now enjoy under the feminist state.

I'd like to see that!

Something I just composed - with a little help* which I'm sure all feminists will identify with http://youtu.be/rZ7WT02wFOk .

WIVES AND LOVERS

Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup
Soon he will open the door
Don't think because there's a ring on your finger
You needn't try anymore

For wives should always be lovers too
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you
I'm warning you

Day after day there are girls at the office
And men will always be men
Don't send him off with your hair still in curlers
You may not see him again

For wives should always be lovers too
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you
He's almost here

Hey, little girl, better wear something pretty
Something you'd wear to go to the city and
Dim all the lights, pour the wine, start the music
Time to get ready for love

Dim all the lights, pour the wine, start the music
Time to get ready for love, time to get ready
Time to get ready for love
Time to get ready, time to get ready for love.

* with a smidgen of help and apologies from Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1963 song).

Pete

Suse,

Suggest that you do Rels 101 or at the least read the course content.

Rhian

'[Paul's] letters are often addressed to or make reference to female church leaders'

I wasn't fully aware of that, but it does make sense in the context of what I already know about the nature of the pagan European societies that later converted to (i.e. were forced by their rulers to adopt) Christianity.

For example, it was routine for the Celtic Church (or Church of John) of early Ireland, Scotland and England to have women in high positions. They ran abbeys, said mass and (gasp!) blessed the Eucharist.

There were no priests or nuns until the Celtic Church was absorbed by the aggressively patriarchal Roman Catholic Church by the ninth century. Men and women in the church married and raised children in the service of god. Celibacy was not introduced across the Christian world until the eleventh century (or thereabouts).

In fact, I've always felt the pantheistic religions of the early egalitarian tribal societies of the temperate forests of northern Europe were completely unsuited to the Abrahamic religions of the desert-dwelling, intensely hierarchical desert societies of the Middle East. However, the Abrahamic religions and their obsession with blind obedience to brutal power certainly suited the leaders of the Roman empire.

The rest, as they say, is history.