Posted on 01/19/2006 2:54:19 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
If church-going women floated into women's liberation groups, she said, a lot of time was spent raising their consciousness about what an oppressive institution it was: "If you started to think about your life as a woman, the first thing you would do is reject Christianity."
IN 1970, a Sydney University student, Irina Dunn, was reading a 19th-century philosophy text on atheism for her English honours course when she stumbled across a phrase: "A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle."
Being, as she later described herself, "a bit of a smart-arse", she changed the words to "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" and graffitied it on two toilet doors: one at Sydney University and another at a wine bar in Woolloomooloo.
From there it was telegraphed almost immediately to the rest of the Western world.
While the American feminist Gloria Steinem has frequently been credited with the now-famous phrase, she last corrected this in a letter to Time magazine in 2000, pointing out that it had in fact been Dunn, "a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician".
But what is most fascinating about the origins of this slogan is the anti-religious sentiment it morphed from. The women's liberation movement rebelled against the church as it did against most other male-run institutions, but it was also part of a broader cultural movement in the 1960s which decried organised religion and challenged its authority.
Today, a mere glance at political life reveals the consequences of so many liberals walking away from what was seen to be a hostile and rigid church, instead of staying, and challenging it to change.
Abortion, gay marriage, censorship and sexuality are debates still dominated by religious conservatives, particularly in Sydney.
It was in 1971 that, for the first time, the instruction "if no religion, write 'none"' was printed on the Australian census form. The number leapt from less than 1 per cent to almost 7 per cent, and has mainly increased since, only, surprisingly, sliding backwards from 17 to 16 per cent between 1996 and 2001.
It was a telling development, though, introduced after years of agitation from increasingly assertive atheists and counter-cultural activists who spurned the conservative Christian religion of their parents, and declared themselves morally independent while many explored more mystical, experiential Eastern religions.
Much of what they did and said was a necessary challenge to the blokey, stifling, dictatorial and often boring nature of the church in the 1950s and '60s.
As the self-described "Catholic atheist" Germaine Greer said of the nuns who taught her in the '50s: "I was hungry for something else - spiritual values. Just not their spiritual values."
The symbols of the church were often parodied in an attempt to strip them of their power.
When the feisty libertarian activist Wendy Bacon was called before a magistrate on obscenity charges in 1970 over issues of the University of NSW student journal Tharunka, women dressed in nuns' habits gathered outside the courtroom to hand out the allegedly obscene material. Bacon's habit read: "I have been f---ed by God's steel prick." She was arrested and spent a week in prison.
The historian Manning Clark described it as an apocryphal time: "Restraints on human behaviour were thrown aside. Nothing was sacred, nothing escaped examination. Men and women walked naked on the beaches, the stage and the screen, and they were not ashamed. Men and women no longer conceded to politicians, priests, parsons, professors, or presidents of the Returned Services League the right to draw up codes of behaviour or prescribe what could or could not be read. The people broke the Tablets of the Law. The people killed their gods."
What was the place for those who stayed in the church?
The NSW MLC Meredith Burgmann - then an anti-apartheid and anti-war activist - told the Herald: "When we had activist Christians we were more surprised than anything else. It was almost not an issue. There was an assumption that everyone was an atheist."
If church-going women floated into women's liberation groups, she said, a lot of time was spent raising their consciousness about what an oppressive institution it was: "If you started to think about your life as a woman, the first thing you would do is reject Christianity."
Church attendance began to decline, along with the number of candidates for ministry. In the 1950s, 44 per cent of all Australians attended church at least once a month. According to National Church Life Survey research, this figure fell dramatically in the 1960s, to 30 per cent in 1972.
What is increasingly obvious is that, in the midst of the excitement and turmoil, those driving the social change of the 1970s failed to seriously understand the power of religion as a social force.
Many scorned those who tried to reform the church and argued it should be rejected entirely. Comments such as those of the theologian Mary Daly were typical: "For women to seek ordination in the Christian church is as destructive as it would be for black people to seek to become leaders in the Ku Klux Klan."
Their rationale was understandable, but intellectually, this was a major stuff-up. It's not a question of what they believed, but one of whether they recognised the importance of reforming the church.
Now we are reaping the legacy of their mistakes, with the conservative wings of the evangelical and pentecostal churches gaining in size and influence, and the more progressive wings of Protestantism, like the Uniting Church, seriously diminishing in stature and voice. Weekly attendance of Uniting Church congregations plunged by 22 per cent between 1991 and 2001.
The last election placed religion on the political agenda in an unprecedented way in Australia: health, education, sexuality and morality. When Parliament resumes, we can expect heated debates about the abortion drug RU486, as well as further arguments about gay marriage now Britain has led the way.
It would be simplistic to blame a swag of 1960s activists alone for the resurgence and dominance of conservative religion in political life today. Especially when journalists have so often been dismissive of religion, and tardy to understand its potency and personal sway. Groups like Family First and Hillsong tend to be prodded and dissected after their power is revealed, not before.
But I cannot help but wonder if the "smart-arses" of the boomer activists and intellectuals had tackled the corruption and decay in the churches as well as the state, instead of simply turning on their heels, if many politicians would be singing from a different hymn sheet today.
BTTT
Great read.
My sense is that there is a turn around happening that many libs are not seeing or ignoring.
There have to be "canaries in the mineshaft" that we can look at that might indicate if there is truly a shift going on. A couple of things that pop into my head are the $$ generated by Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" movie. How about the "Chronicles of Narnia" movie. How about sales of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"?
We've had 2 generations of folks who have gone on "non-catechized" but the newer generation of religion teachers are more faithfull to the truth than in the past and this is resulting in parents questioning beliefs they have held and now think could be wrong.
When Catholic seminary applicants no longer have to pledge they will support women priests as a prerequisite to entrance, things are improving.
If one of these feminist babes had a husband who treated her like a real husband is supposed to treat a wife, according to Biblical teaching, she would think she had died and gone to heaven. OTOH, they probably think the whole idea of heaven is oppressive, so forget all that.
America's founders foresaw all this:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending
with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice,
ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of
our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution
was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other."
-- John Adams (Address to the Military, 11 October 1798)
I agree with you. This is what happens when you let smug, unknowlegable, know-it-alls create movements through catchy phrases on bar bathroom stalls. The people who read it thought, "Wow, that's really profound!" and they didn't even know what they were slamming. But that's probably why college campuses are the fountain of every goofy and wrongheaded idea that has come down the pike.
Good post.
It will take time to put things right (or solidly move toward moral sanity).
Schools and families have suffered terribly from the idea that government should be in charge.
Our country has to celebrate families guided by a strong moral compass.
Ping for later.
Where do you have your informations from??!
All this "Eurabia" propaganda is BS. It is correct that we Europeans have a problem with young muslims on our continent since they are usually undereducated and unemployed. This is the reason why they get aggressive - just as some minorities in the US (do you remember the Los Angeles riots in 1992?). But there is one thing for sure: They will not take over the power here. I.e. Most Turks in Germany are assimilated, peaceful and decent people. I employ some in my own business and I know what I am talking about. The much more fanatic Islamiacs come usually from northern Africa or Pakistan. Their part in our German populace is nearly zero. That does not mean that we have to ignore the problem but we should get the right dimensions.
Even in France or in the UK where the problems with muslims are much more severe, there is no sign that they would ever have the chance to take over the power. The problem is not religious, it is social. Quite a big part of those young rioters in France are usually that dumb that they left school as illiterates. In fact they do not have the intellectual potential to move anything in politics or economy. Therefore they never gain any power. They can torch some cars but they can not turn France into a muslim caliphathe.
You Americans seem have the same problem we have in Europe: Not every proposition in the media is the truth. Therefore you should be careful in believing everything.
Greetings from Lake Constance Germany.
Andreas
Don't call the US when you need rescuing in the future. We will practice the European religion of non-intervention. Europe is on its own.
We will not have any reason to ask.
Exactly! Militant secularism, feminism, diversity celebrations etc are paving way for the radical Islam.
Spending limited resources on military adventures abroad will not help if the home is crumbling and the doors are widely open.
( History and Demographics 101.)
The radical unassimilated Moslems are making babies, are you? How many children do you have? How many children do your non-Moslem friends and neighbors have? Do you see anything at all that can turn this around? Will your Turkish friends fight and die for your country, or are they just going to go back home when things get rough?
When they become the majority, they will take power. Like in Lebanon. How many children do you have?
BTW - Immigration into Germany is a wide field. I.e. we have many immigrants from Poland, Russia, Kasachstan and many other places. Quite a big part of them are former Germans who lived in those countries. Did you know that more jewish people immigrate to Germany in the meantime than to Israel?
I am happy about every baby that is born in my country (and elsewhere). No matter who its parents are. It is obvious that the negative birth-rate in Germany makes it nessecary that we have immigration from the outside. The problem will be to attract only those who are a benefit for our country and society.
Just a question: Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a bad American because he is not born in California?
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