Women Bishops!

Eloethan Thu 28-Aug-14 09:47:38

Margaret Thatcher came into it when Marmark said she wasn't a feminist - and that, of course, depends upon the definition being used. MT didn't toe the female line very much in any way at all from what I saw (other than being a wife and mother). The posts were not intended as a tribute to Margaret Thatcher but comments had been made that were incorrect.

It is pertinent to the thread as already quoted: 'In 1988, [Margaret Thatcher] angering traditionalists in the Anglican Church, she spoke out in favor of women’s ordination to the priesthood.' - if that isn't championing women's rights I don't know what is!

Maggie showed us that a woman can be just as uncaring and callous as a man.

Good for Maggie. She boldly went where no woman had gone before. She believed that a woman can do or be anything she wants to be - a definition of a feminist, whatever she was labelled as.

Sometimes for a woman doing or being what you want involves changing something drastically so that your path to fulfilment is not blocked by a anti-female law promulgated by those who believe that a woman's place is in the kitchen, nursery, drawingroom or bedroom, but not in the higher ranks of church, law, medecine, government. Who allowed a husband to own all of his wife's money, and do with it what he wished, and if the marriage failed, to keep custody of her children so that she never saw them again. Who grudgingly allowed women to attend University lectures, but behind screens so that the real students were not distracted, and without being awarded degrees, and who barred female medical students from anatomy lectures.

To do that a certain amount of chutzpah is necessary, and a lot of single-minded determination not to be side-tracked into a different destiny which does not transgress conventions.

It also helps to be born into a country/religion/society where the spadework has already been done by the pioneers. Those who have made it possible for women to be consecrated as bishops are among those pioneers.

As men cannot carry and bear babies, there will always be a tendency to slip back into a society where women generally have lesser or temporary work, with corresponding lower pay and self-esteem. women are more free than they have been for centuries - not complacency and "I made it OK so there is no problem" but "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
(a simplified variant of a line from a 1790 speech by Irish orator John Philpot Curran: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt".)

FIRST -WOMAN British PM.

Whatever people think Of Maggie, she was the FIRST British PM.

She deserves Great respect!

<Applaud>

I don't know how this discussion has morphed into a tribute to Margaret Thatcher. She didn't see herself as a feminist and I certainly didn't see her as one either.

What we were talking about was a position in the church that women were not formerly allowed to hold - not about the general difficulties of women reaching certain positions but about women being totally excluded from particular positions.

She succeeded.fact.She was a woman,fact.Maybe if a PERSON is determined to think in one direction,that PERSON will miss things.Maybe contentment and happiness will not touch that PERSON,because that PERSON is too busy looking the other way.

Some people believe she succeeded in spite of being a woman Marmark1 - it hasn't been repeated since has it and I doubt that that is because there are no suitably qualified/capable women. Do any of us really know what her feelings were about feminism? Can you state, with absolute certainty that she wasn't given that her actions did, indeed, support the advancement of women? As i have said, there are several forms of feminism and not all of them are about shouting the loudest - the most effective ones tend to be those who work quietly in the background making changes slowly but surely and those people (men included) tend not to noticed or highlighted by the media - thank goodness!

There was a very interesting item on the news this morning about 'elitist Britain' that could well explain this - if I have time later, and to appease those who become irritated by unsubstantiated quotes (even though I have never made a post that couldn't be substantiated - so little trust on here), I will look up the report and supply the relevant links.

It is interesting JessM - when we move away from popular media stories regarding anyone (as the Americans say: the Brits love nothing more than to build someone up to stardom then they put them in a cage and continually poke them with a stick). I had heard that she had little choice but to abandon women's rights as people (probably her 'wonderfully supportive cabinet ministers) were just waiting for a reason to pick up that stick and start beating her with it (which is what they did anyway).

The quotes I took are from several sites janeainsworth - the one's I can remember visiting are:

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/18/margaret_thatcher_and_feminism_118018.html

Her often misquoted statement regarding feminism is put back into context here:

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/09/margaret-thatcher-the-accidental-feminist.html - she made quite a valid point and quite rightly, imo, defended the fact that she succeeded before women's rights were supported by society.

This link doesn't actually get all the facts straight but does highlight other areas where she succeeded quite well:

www.stylist.co.uk/people/was-thatcher-a-feminist-2

'Juggling career and parenthood with an immense amount of ambition paid off, and Thatcher won the London seat of Finchley in 1959. She was promoted to the front bench as Minister of Pensions two years later. During this time Thatcher supported some diverse causes, she was one of the few Conservative MPs to vote both for a bill to decriminalise male homosexuality and one to legalise abortion.'

'Her political agenda divided the nation, privatising nationally owned enterprises, allowing council tenants to buy their homes and putting legal restrictions on trade unions. But for Berlinski, this benefited women far more than any genderspecific agenda could have. “In creatingeconomic opportunity for so many people who had never had any before, I am sure she did more for women than any of her political rivals who were specifically targeting programmes supposed to help women. What helps women most is economic opportunity.”'

'Berlinski stresses that you have to take into account the state of the economy at the time, “This was an economy crippled by labour unrest, growth was below any other comparable European power and the standard of living was worse than Italy’s. This was an economy that was in relative decline. After she left office, the UK was one of the most powerful countries in Europe.”'

I have no particular feelings one way or the other towards her but I do think she has been unfairly maligned (some she deserved, others she didn't).

Margret Thatcher,was a democratically elected Prime Minister,who happened to be a woman.She got to the top simply because she was the best candidate at the time.She was NOT a feminist.Im not saying I agreed with all she stood for,but I did admire her.AS A PERSON.Who happened to be female.

Indeed. There are few things more irritating than unattributed quotes.

Hollydaze where did that quote come from? I notice the spelling is American.

That is a very interesting comment on M Thatcher Hollydaze and I'm sure that she would have made some different decisions if she had not had to fight her corner and maintain her dominance of the Tory party for so long. Which was, whatever you think of her, an amazing achievement. No doubt she would have been happy to deal with female bishops and archbishops.

So, now that we have returned from our fascinating excursion into general feminism, it is very good to hear that the bar to women bishops has now been lifted. It is not a job that would ever feature in my career plan, and I seldom cross the threshold of a church, but I am delighted that those women for whom the ministry is a calling can now serve in equality alongside their male colleagues. It is about time that those who opposed them for so long read their scripture:-

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Galatians 3:28

I'm fed up with this now.Im not playing any more.Im off to bed,with my sweet little ole Husband of 42 years.and my tiny little Yorkie.Goodnight,One tast word,there's good and bad in everybody,all people,what ever their gender.We ARE,all equal,very different most of the time,but we all contribute,to the world.I couldn't care less about women Bishops,I'm not in the least bit religious.And if a woman wants to be a Brickie,good bleddy luck to her.I wouldn't want to do it.Ok more than one word.

There is a difference, Marmark between feminists and radical feminists.

Love her or loathe her,Margret Thatcher was most positively a very strong women.And guess what,she wasn't a feminist.

' In February 1952, Thatcher—then a 26-year-old aspiring politician—wrote an article for a popular tabloid, The Sunday Graphic, expressing the hope that Elizabeth II’s recent ascension as Queen of England would “help to remove the last shreds of prejudice against women aspiring to the highest places” and usher in a new era for women. Deploring the “mistaken” idea that the family suffers when women combine marriage and motherhood with careers outside the home, she cited the inspiring examples of outstanding women in various fields—and warned that unless female success becomes more common, “we shall have betrayed the tremendous work of those who fought for equal rights.” This call to action was titled, “Wake Up, Women.”'

'As a politician, Thatcher did not focus on “women’s issues”—partly because, notes historian Amanda Foreman, she had to avoid being pigeonholed into a female political ghetto. (Because of that, Foreman says, she gave up her early effort while in Parliament to change the tax code to incorporate the costs of child care.) However, she always supported abortion rights, saying that “one of the worst things anyone can do in this world is to bring an unwanted child into it,” and generally strongly believed that the government should not play Big Brother on social issues.'

'In 1988, [Margaret Thatcher] angering traditionalists in the Anglican Church, she spoke out in favor of women’s ordination to the priesthood.'

'She [Thatcher] also angered feminists by warning against a generation of “crèche” (day care) children; her issue, however, was not with working mothers but with government programs that she was convinced had grown so large as to threaten liberty.'

'Another leftist female journalist who makes no secret of “hating” Thatcher even while conceding that she broadened horizons for women, Zoe Williams, concedes that Thatcher’s relentless assault on the power of labor unions—bastions of traditional working-class manhood—likely facilitated and sped up women’s entry into the labor force.'

She did her bit

It is no good believing that everyone is born equal when within society they are not treated equally. That is why 'feminists' (men can be feminist too!) campaign for greater actualequality for women.

I'm confused now.Ok,fair enough,it don't take much.

Do bishops need to have great muscular strength, Marmark?

I've heard of muscular Christianity but this thread takes the biscuit.

The priests wre more religious than the (rectum as we in the choir called him) rector or the bishop.

JessM
A woman doing the top job in the country?
Please advice.

Come on Mark1 you're going to have to do better than that.

And they were religious?Galen

Our bishop, completely ignored the problems we were having with our late rectum rector until there was a possibility the police might be involved.
I, for one, was not impressed by him or his predecessor who both allowed the parish to become divided and two very nice and capable priests to have nervous breakdowns and be hounded out of the clergy.