Some things in life just seem so unfair. For example, if I
get pulled over by a cop, because I am pale my big fear is getting an expensive
ticket. However, if I looked more like my African ancestors, I would
legitimately be afraid of being killed. The other day someone posted a
compelling article on social media about how sex is so different for men and
women; “bad” sex for men means boring, but for women it often means incredibly
painful. The author gave an example of an online poll about why women fake orgasm,
and she pointed out that the most common reason, “Because it hurt and I just
wanted him to stop,” wasn’t even one of the choices. She also pointed out that
there were ten times more medical studies about male erectile dysfunction than
female pain during sex. Seriously? You would think pain would be a more
persuasive problem than a little performance anxiety.
What really bothers me is that the Catholic Church, which I
love, engages in this double standard. If you look at the listing of male
saints, they are “bishops” and “martyrs” and “laymen” – nothing implied about
their sexual status. However, women saints are either “virgins” or “married
women.” As Catzookz once said, “Isn’t there a Ms. Category?” A man once said to
another woman and me that he disliked how Mary Magdalene is associated with a
prostitute, how that besmirched her name, and we said, “Don’t take her from us!
She’s the only example of a fallen woman that we have!” He said, “There are
lots of examples of saints who sinned and reformed, like St. Augustine,” and we
had to point out the obvious – he’s a MAN. Where are the WOMEN saints who fell
and reformed? Some orders don’t even let non-virgins join, but nobody asks a
man about his sexual status before he is ordained. Seriously, if God has
forgiven your sins, who are these people to continue to hold them against you?
And no other sins are; nobody says, “You may be thin now, but you once weighed
400 pounds so you obviously committed the sin of gluttony.” It’s just this one
sin that is unforgivable, and only for women. The worst part? A man is stronger
than a woman and can take her virginity by force, but only she would be marked
by the Church; the man could repent and he would be fine. How fair is that??
Seriously, all the female martyrs seemed to have died not for doctrinal issues
but just to protect this one thing that is so important to the Church. Why?
Nobody seems to be able to answer this for me.
Famous Hat
1 comment:
Of course, I can point out that male virgin saints are rarely, if ever, recognized as such. I suspect it has a very, very, deep origin in the fact that there is a biological indicator for female virginity (as least for very young women) and there is none for male virginity. I think the Orthodox Jews may still have the custom of the brides mother sitting in on the first night of a new marriage, and being presented a blood-stained sheet after the first night, so she would have evidence that she delivered her daughter to the marriage bed with virginity intact.
This had particular significance in the old days when women were married off at a very early age, perhaps 14 or 15 (or younger sometimes), when a loss of "intactness" was almost certainly an indicator of a loss of virginity.
Belonging to an order and being ordained are different things. I have no idea if there are orders of male religious that admit only virgins, or not. If there are congregations of women religious that do this, then this was done at the insistence of the foundress, probably not at the insistence of "the Church." In the case of the secular institute, the Schönstatt Sisters, I assume the founder and/or foundresses has something to with it.
In the case of ordination, I believe men are checked to make sure they (inter alia) are not missing their testes.
I imagine there will be more "fallen & reformed" women elevated to altars are time goes on, as more laymen are canonized...
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