Posts Written by Soraya
By Soraya Chemaly • 14 years ago

It’s Not Complicated: Catholic Bishops are Misogynists

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “obscene” as something that is “offensive or disgusting by accepted standards of morality and decency.”

Accordingly, this is how I define obscene: that in 2012 we live in a country, the only one in the industrialized word, that empowers 456 Catholic Bishops, theoretically celibate, misogynistic men to dominate public discourse on how we manage the health of 150 million women in the United States?

Misogyny, a cultural hatred of girls and women because they are female, is defined by its placing of women in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making. There is no clearer description of the Catholic Church, or as we so visibly saw last week, Congress, it seems.  There are no women in the Catholic Church Hierarchy and only 90 of the 536 seats in Congress are held by women. Together, these two organizations paint a pretty clear portrait of misogyny in action.
By Soraya Chemaly • 14 years ago

Katie Roiphe Is Just Wrong

Ladies, If You Can’t Take A Joke Get A New Job. WTF?

What exactly is the point of Katie Roiphe’s “In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risque Remarks” anyway? That women should “lighten up?” That no “strong professional” women are cowed by off-color jokes?  This kind of dismissal, trivialization and denial of the problem is a type of harassment.  It’s why pieces like Katie Roiphe’s, which concludes that “perhaps we should be worrying about different norms of hostility in our workplaces”  end up in the New York Times Op Ed section but stories like Melinda Hennenberger’s “Sexual Harassment Deserves a Place Among ‘The Real Issues” four days earlier in the Washington Post revealing the common and ubiquitous experiences of women ...

Ladies, If You Can’t Take A Joke Get A New Job. WTF?

What exactly is the point of Katie Roiphe’s “In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risque Remarks” anyway? That women should “lighten up?” That no “strong professional” ...