Mary Daly, feminist theologian who fought against church patriarchy, died on Sunday, December 2nd. Daly was 81 and residing in Newton Centre Massachusetts at the time. In case you don’t already know who she is, in short: Mary Daly is an important woman to remember.
Daly taught at Boston College as a theology professor from the 1960’s until 2006, where she was “strongly encouraged” to retire after a lawsuit involving her refusal to let men join her classes. Daly felt that men would ruin the atmosphere and conversational dynamic of her classes. The Boston Globe quotes her explaining:
“If a man were in the class he would be very likely to say, ‘Oh, no. I am oppressed too… I can’t cry. I’m not allowed to express myself, wah, wah’.”
Daly made immense contributions to the feminist movement, especially with regard to the church. Her book The Church and the Second Sex, which was published in 1966, questioned the systematic patriarchy of the church and claimed that the Catholic Church was furthering the oppression of women. Her other books, although less notorious, were equally provocative and include Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation and the 1990 edition of Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism.
Daly will be remembered as a radical and outspoken academic icon whose four degrees, inspiring intelligence, and headstrong passion contributed to her undeniably fierce and provocative air. Author James Carol explains in the Boston Globe that Mary Daly was just as important to the Catholic world as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was to the secular world. Gloria Steinem explains:
“She was a great trained philosopher, theologian, and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy — or any idea that domination is natural — in its most defended place, which is religion.”
In her memory, and because of my recklessly impulsive personality, I have ordered two of her recent books from Amazon, which I will soon read, and I recommend that you all do the same.
Read more about Mary Daly here or visit her website here.
I’m glad she got fired if she was actually doing crap like that. Feminists would be screaming bloody murder if a male professor did the reverse.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
um me too. that’s bullshit.
I agree. I would be very upset if I weren’t allowed to get into a class because of my gender.
Totally! I’m female and that action right there almost completely removed her credibility for me. I thought that feminism was not just about equality for women but also for equality for everyone. Was I wrong?
Of course not, Whit.
No one is saying what she did was right, and we all know that the result would have been EXACTLY the same if it were a male professor – big hoopla in the press, followed by a forced retirement.
None of this changes the fact that she was extremely important in the early days of the Womens Movement.
Whatever foolishness she engaged in in her senior years – regardless of the reason, you cannot take that away from her. She left behind a very important body of work. When you read most anything written by her, Steinem, Freiden, etc – you can very often substitute the name of any oppressed group and the meaning is the same.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves – something I find more horrific than being a reverse sexist. Does this detract from all that they accomplished for the United States? Absolutely not.
It really kind of surprises me that since Zelda Lily is billed as a feminist site – how many of our number basically know NOTHING of how we got where we are today.
That’s pretty sad.
I totally agree, Blurry. And I probably should have thrown in my comment something about how much I admire her strength and incalculable drive and profound impact. Not doing so definitely didn’t do justice to a woman who worked her ass off in the name of women.
Mary Daly was an amazing woman. She was hard line because she had to be.
Here is a bit of insight from the first link:
“A self-described “radical lesbian feminist,” Professor Daly maintained a long, often uneasy relationship with Boston College, the Jesuit institution where she had taught theology since the 1960s.
In 1999, Professor Daly left the college after a male student threatened suit when he was denied a place in her class on feminist ethics. She had long limited enrollment in some advanced women’s studies classes to women only, maintaining that the presence of men there would inhibit frank discussion.
Professor Daly did let men enroll in her introductory feminism courses and offered to tutor them privately in the advanced subjects.”
And of even more interest:
“After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and Latin from the College of Saint Rose in Albany in 1950, she earned a master’s in English from the Catholic University of America and a Ph.D. in theology from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind. She later earned two more doctorates, in philosophy and theology, from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
Professor Daly joined the Boston College faculty in 1966. In 1969, in a widely reported case, she was denied tenure, a development interpreted by many as a response to “The Church and the Second Sex.” After more than 1,500 students signed a petition supporting her — most were men, for the college did not admit women to its liberal arts division until 1970 — she was reinstated with tenure.”
Women today can’t even imagine being subject to such blatant discrimination.
Separate but equal’s cool right?
Not really, Jorge.
Not in this day and age, and certainly not in the 90′s. Keep in mind that this woman earned her first degree in 1950.
For her to admit men to her advanced womens studies was probably a LOT like Boston Universiy admitting women to it’s Liberal Arts programs in 1970.
Also, remember that there was a lot of bitterness in the Feminist movement. Equal wages, equal credit, equal education, and equal employment opportunity was NOT a law until 1972. And it was hotly debated even then! Nixon took major political flak for signing it into law.
The point that I was trying to make is that she was most definitely an “old school” hard line feminist, if you will.
It actually surprised me that she offered to do private tuition. I don’t mean to imply that she was anti men so much as she was extremely pro women.
I hope that made some sense.
“Professor Daly did let men enroll in her introductory feminism courses and offered to tutor them privately in the advanced subjects.”
THAT is “separate but equal.” She is most definitely anti-men, I don’t understand how you can say otherwise.
“If a man were in the class he would be very likely to say, ‘Oh, no. I am oppressed too… I can’t cry. I’m not allowed to express myself, wah, wah’.”
If a man said that about women, that’d they’d disrupt his class with their whining and woman problems, you’d label him misogynist, no? Why so hesitant to label this man-hater a misandrist?
I’m hesitant because *I* don’t know that for certain.
Sometimes bits and pieces of what people (particularly prominent people) say are widely publicized simply because it makes for good copy, furthers someone’s agenda, etc.
Is she a misandrist?
Quite probably.
Do I know this for certain?
No, I don’t.
I think that Sarah has the right idea. I’ll read (and re-read in some instances) more of her work and let you know.
I can’t seem to make up my mind what to think of her. One the one hand, she seems to be fairly hostile to men, but then again at the time it was a reaction to the shit that men had given women for years (and years and years and years). It’s pretty justifiable, I think.
In context of the times, perhaps.
But not in today’s world.
Exactly. It totally wouldn’t fly in my book today, but I think it was actually necessary when she did it. Before then men certainly hadn’t had to deal with being discriminated against simply because of their gender the way women always had.
Although on a separate note, I’m not trying to blame men for all of womenkind’s oppression throughout history. Women can be pretty damn good at oppressing each other too–not in overtly obvious ways, like not hiring women into a “man’s” company or job, but rather in subtle ways, such as enforcing the “women should stay at home” standard.
The incident with Boston College actually happened in 1999 – she was about 71 at the time.
I think that she was probably as inflexible in her attitudes towards men as men were towards her in years past, yes.
Still not defensible, but perhaps understandable.
Still, when a male professor of 71 did the same thing the other way around, we would be outraged. We would not say, “oh, but he’s just getting a bit old and we have to remember the context of his generation, bla, bla, bla.” Of a university professor would would probably demand that he can realise and deal with society changes. So why not demand the same of a female professor?
Sorry, can’t excuse the behaviour. It was right that she got fired.
She did not get fired.
And, you have completely missed the entire point.
When the point makes excuses for hatred and prejudicial treatment, it’s a point worth missing.
Her death was on January 3rd, not December 2nd. For someone you think was so awesome and important you could have at least gotten a very basic fact correct. Shame on you for being sloppy. Now dear, please do give us a book review in the near future.
The catholic church has oppressed women for centuries,maybe Sinead O’Connor was right when she tore up the picture of the pope.
The catholic church and many other christian churches simply have a biblical view of women. According to the bible women are below men (the man is the head of the family as christ is the head of the church) and shouldn’t be preaching and so on. If women don’t like it then perhaps they should be following another religion rather than trying to get said religion to stop following their holy book. I know people who dismiss the majority of biblical teachings by saying they’re not applicable to their situation or to modern day life so they just pick and choose the parts they like. Sorry, not how it works. If you choose to follow a religion then you should follow the religion, not go around changing all their basic teachings to suit yourself. If I were christian (which I’m most definitely not, my interest is entirely academic) then I would not be attending a church that allows women to preach or one that claims to baptize babies or one that insists women wear long skirts and head coverings because none of those things are biblical teachings.
Don’t you think that those”basic teachings”change with time and interpretation. They should,its called growth.
I disagree. The day to day stuff can and should change, how the church is organized and run for example and style of worship is flexible too. Claiming to follow a holy book and discounting great chunks of it is not the same thing. Many of the things that are ignored by modern churches are small things only referred to in a few verses but some are much bigger and when you add them all together you get a substantial deviation from biblical teachings. What’s next, a church that says a couple of the ten commandments are no longer relevant? Perhaps a church that says Mary wasn’t actually a virgin or that Jesus didn’t really walk on water, he was just wading in the shallows? There are many different churches and denominations calling themselves christian nowadays and it’s hard to believe that some of them are looking at the same book. If memory serves that’s actually one of the signs of the end of times in Revelations, the splintering of the church, so maybe they should stop the bickering for the good of mankind ;-)
Rhonda, I think (only “think” because I’m not 100% sure if my reading of what you said is accurate) I agree with you. I’m a Catholic woman, and I’ve had many struggles with Catholicism because of my feminist stance.
I went to a Catholic school and I was never discriminated against for being a woman. I was an altar girl at my church, and I got to do all the stuff that the boys did. I was top of my class in both academics and athletics and was very supported because of it.
It has been very difficult for me to reconcile my feminism and my religeon. I’m still working on it, and I’ve had a lot of help from my mother. My boyfriend and I are about to begin marriage classes in the Church, so I’ll try to keep you posted on all that, because I’m sure there will be plenty of things that seriously piss me off, but it’ll also be interesting to learn about the man/woman relationship according to the church.
I don’t really know what my point was with all this, but I wrote it, and damnit, I’m not going to delete it, so. Yeah.
I have to disagree to some extent, Rhonda.
The bible was written by men.
It has been interpreted by….men.
I’m not saying there was anything evil afoot, I am saying that they saw things through their own particular shade of glasses, based on the times and… oh yeah – they were men.
The difference between the bible as it was written and how it has been interpreted is still argued about today.
If, for example – a passage in the Bible said something to the effect of “all of your people shall be priests”, they would shake their heads slightly and think, “ah, it means men”. Because that is their frame of reference.
When a church ceases to change and grow, it will die.
I didn’t necessarily mean that the Catholic Church hasn’t changed, it has, and I’ve seen more and more that they are evolving to include more and to be more accepting. Methods and deliveries have been adjusted to be more all-encompassing, but what hasn’t changed, and what I’m glad hasn’t changed, are the fundamental, core values.
I have to agree with you, Joey.
This was brought home to me very clearly when I was visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
I believe it is called the Treasury Museum – a small place inside the main building.
Anyway – There were a lot of interesting church artifacts, including a lot of very old tapestries and papal garments. Now, I enjoy needlework, I do embroidery and counted cross stitch, a little bit of needlepoint, so this part of the display intrigued me.
In particular, there was one particular vestment that was absolutely stunning in it’s artistry and beauty. What the artist did with a needle and thread was breathtaking, not to mention that it was created in the 1500′s. The very notion that all of the threads were hand dyed is amazing to contemplate.
The card simply named the pope who wore it.
This was an item of such intricacy, such perfection – it had to have taken many months of loving, painstaking work.
All that mattered was who wore it.
Yes, I recognize that this sort of thing is lost in the passage of time. But I feel it is a very accurate thumbnail of a woman’s place historically in the Catholic church
Just curious but why do you think it was a woman who made it and not a man?
Just how often do you think men did needlework in the 1500s?
My mind went to male tailors especially with how important this attire was and the hatred of women as inferior creatures, but to be perfectly honest I know nothing of fashion in the 1500 which is why I asked the question hoping to increase my limited knowledge.
Even if it was a man who did the structural sewing (which I believe was quite unlikely back then) it would still have been a woman doing the decorative stuff. The needlework is almost alway done by women. Even nowadays there are very few men who do any sort of decorative needlework but many woman still do. Personally I sew a lot of my family’s clothes myself and I sew for recreation too, cross stitch and other embroidery.
In my experience females tend to be better at that sort of thing anyway. I never learned to sew at home, all of my basic sewing skills were taught in school. The girls were always better at the hand sewing stuff, there was only one guy in my class who was really good at it. Once we progressed to sewing machines girls and boys were about equally proficient. It’s not like we had more experience, I didn’t learn any of that stuff before school because my mother doesn’t sew anything beyond replacing the odd button, but we just seemed to pick it up faster than the guys. Who knows, maybe it was just because most of the guys had no desire to learn to sew at all, it’s just my observation.
I asked a docent in the museum.
It was actually one of the nun’s responsibilities. A gifted needleworker could actually be moved from her convent to the Vatican solely to do the needlework for the Pope.
I can’t help wondering if that was something to be joyful about (what an honor blah blah) or something to be depressed about (hunted down and uprooted from your sometimes humble life and then to have such enormous pressure applied)
I imagine it was somewhat depressing on a personal level, being taken away from their home and convent family, but the nun would have squashed those feeling down. Personal feelings would be somewhat irrelevant when offered an opportunity like that. Heck, I’m not even catholic but if I were single and someone asked me to go live in the vatican and sew pretty things all day I’d jump at the chance. ;-)
I’ve taken a couple of feminist/women’s studies type classes in my time. One was in my undergrad and that class welcomed both men and women, the other was a graduate program that was women only including all faculty. Gotta say, the undergrad class was way more interesting and educational. Having men in the room changes the dynamic but in a very positive way. Whenever someone started in on the ‘why men suck’ path the men could offer additional information and a defense. In the graduate program it was too easy to descend in to bitching and a balanced discussion was rare.
If you’re purely studying the history of the feminist movement and you can remain objective then it’s possible to do it with only women in the room. If you’re studying modern day feminism and woman’s place in the world then it’s far better to have men in the room. We can’t function in society purely as women without studying interactions with men so it doesn’t make any sense to study that academically without the male perspective either.
Maybe I’m in the minority but all female discussions bore me to tears. They seem to always devolve into male bashing and neurotic obsessing. I think men are needed to keep discussions balanced.
Or like Joey to add some much needed humor…
Yes, Samantha dear – you are in the minority.
Now, go have a pop tart.
That’s a good girl.
Hahaha! I am so glad I swallowed that drink of coffee before I read this…
(You do realize that this is turning into a hobby, don’t you?)
Actually, in my world – I do run things.
Thanks. -Blurry
Your world fits on the head of a pin.
Blurrryyyyyyy, be nice. Remember how invincibile we were at that age! :)
May I remind you that picking on minority groups is RACIST.
And this is why women sit about wondering why they don’t run things
Actually, in my world – I do run things.
Thanks.
I run things in my world too. I thought about running more, decided against it. Much happier running my own home than I would be in Washington.
I’m sorry. I’m busy right now.
I’ll be World Dictator just as soon as I have time to get to it.
And then you’ll see some changes. Oh yessss…
I think I know what you are getting at Samanatha. Divirisity is good for the soul. Just think if we all had the same opinion on Zelda Lilly, the threads would be quite boring. I know I wouldn’t be coming back for more. It is not just the difference between male and female, but age, education, and orgins of where we live and how we were raised.
Even though I might not agree with all of the people here, I do value their points of view. And on occassion have opened my mind to different ways of thinking.
And I in no way was diminishing Joey’s or any other males contribution.
He has alternately pissed me off, made me laugh and made me think – often in the same thread.
I am in the Women’s Studies club at my university, and we actively seek men to join. It creates a much deeper discussion, because frankly, women don’t think the same way as men, and would never bring up some of the fantastic points that men do. Not saying that the discussion wouldn’t be deep with just women, because it would, but women don’t think like men, and it’s very refreshing to get a male perspective. Also, why would we discriminate since we’ve been trying so hard ourselves to not be discriminated against? Wouldn’t that be a little hypocritical?
Rhonda – It’s often decided by Catholics/Christians that a couple of the commandments AREN’T relevant – not when it comes to war or execution anyway. ;)
Samantha et al. – Yeah, boo hoo, we can’t have relevant conversations without men present to enlighten us!! That’s what I always overhear at bars from men too – “It’s so hard to have an intelligent discussion without some female perspective – hey look at the tits on that one!!” Ugh.
Hey now, I’m Catholic, and I adhere strictly to the “Thou shall not kill” commandment. I am strongly opposed to the death penalty. I also believe in self-defense. That dosen’t make me a war monger. Don’t lump all Catholics and Christians into one category, please.
Well, “Thou shall not kill” doesn’t come with disclaimers. Perhaps you should turn the other cheek in self-defense. ;)
Haha, thanks, but no thanks! I’d rather not get beaten, shot, or stabbed to death if can do anything about it.
Actually, it does. Specifically, ‘Thou shalt not commit murder’. ‘commit murder’ is a better translation, and more common, than ‘kill’.
The difference between them is immense. In the old testament, from which the ten commandments arise, there is certainly no prohibition against all killing – it is advocated as a punishment for some things, and war acceptable in the right circumstances. (Not going to debate the actual rightness of any of it – just saying it is consistent.) Murder, however, or unlawful killing, is not acceptable.
I’m just saying, in all seriousness, that even the big 10 aren’t exempt from some interpretation.
I guess it depends on the person, but I agree with you. I try to remain true to the literal meaning of the commandments, but obviously there are exceptions, and people will always exploit them. :)
Yup, sometimes you just have to do the best you can. Jesus appreciates the effort.