feminine-genius

Essential information

It deserves notice that Dale O'Leary has begun to archive her carefully compiled information about same-sex attraction here. Her work involves reading the actual data of existing studies and parsing them honestly for what they actually tell us. She's also written an excellent book on marriage, One Man, One Woman, which provides critical data about the efforts to redefine marriage. She writes with great affection for souls, but with an equal reverence for the truth about the human person, in which science honestly applied comes down in line with the ancient teaching of Holy Mother Church.

Faith or culture?

 

True Sisters in Christ

How gratifying it is to see the prayer support and familial affection that is a bedrock of our faith. The members of a Spanish convent have rallied to the defense of a Pakistani Christian woman in solitary confinement:

"I feel very close to Asia Bibi, to her suffering, as a sister in Christ" writes Sister Mary Immaculate Perez to Fides, abbess of the nuns from the Franciscan Monastery Conception of Escalona in Toledo, near Madrid (Spain). The community of cloistered nuns in Escalona was among the first to promote a spontaneous prayer campaign for Asia Bibi, and adheres to the special day of prayer for the victims of the blasphemy law in Pakistan, which will be celebrated worldwide on 20 April. For this reason the nuns have been called “the guardian angels of Asia Bibi.” Today the Mother writes a Letter to Fides, and through the “Masihi Foundation,” would like Asia Bibi, who is in Sheikupura prison, to receive it for Easter.

“We want to send a brief message of consolation to Asia. Since the beginning we have been following her case with great interest and affection,” said the nun, speaking also on behalf of her sisters. "We see with great concern that those who have defended Asia, as the Minister Shahbaz Bhatti or the Governor Salman Taseer, paid with their lives in defense of the Gospel. We confide them to the Lord, together with their families."

Picture the women who have chosen seclusion praying for the woman secluded against her will, who in turn has turned her own cell into a little monastery. In turn, all of us joined for this intention -- moral support for a woman jailed for her Christian beliefs -- have a special bond within the Mystical Body.

The Spanish nuns are spreading word about their special day of prayer for Asia, April 20th, during which they will "put everything under the protection of the Virgin Mary, our Mother.”

When she was informed of the initiative, Asia responded, bursting into tears and said she was “very happy because the world would pray for her.” Contacting Fides, through the Masihi Foundation, which provides her legal assistance, Asia said. “I am grateful to the Masihi Foundation for organising such an event, which gives me hope to go on living. I feel loved by the Catholic Church and all Christian communities around the world. I am proud to be the daughter of a community that is so loving and merciful.” Despite her illness, fasting and physical weakness, her morale is high “through faith in Jesus Christ”: “I would like to send a message of peace and love to all the world. I want to say thank you to every sister, every brother, every nun and priest who prays for me, and especially to the Holy Father. I hope with all my heart that this Lent and all the prayers may bring me freedom and happiness to my family.”

Let's remember the date and join them in this intention!

Women killing women

No, not a dire account of intense female gang activity, but a cultural norm in India:

Some women, like 30-year-old Lakshmi Rani from Bhiwani district in Uttar Pradesh, have been pressured into multiple abortions. Ms. Rani’s first three pregnancies were terminated.

“My mother-in-law took me to the clinic herself,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact but barely audible. “It wasn’t my decision, but I didn’t have a choice. They didn’t want girls.”

Now her husband’s family is pushing her to get pregnant again, and she is hoping for a boy. Despite government campaigns against aborting female fetuses, she does not believe she will be allowed a choice.

Ms. Rani’s story is echoed across Uttar Pradesh, a state that has among the most skewed sex ratios in India. Census figures show the female-male ratio in the 0-6 year group slipping from 916 in 2001 to 899 in 2011.

Unfortunately, the only way that one can get the New York Times's attention about the killing babies is when the babies are selected because of their sex, but you knew that. And now you have feminists--who are firm supporters of abortion--uncomfortable when the tables are turned and their sisters-to-be are snuffed out.

Men have occasion to kill women as well in this culture:

Another form of violence against women — dowry deaths — is equally well-documented, and just as ugly, though Indians are so used to these that they have become almost invisible. The names of Sunita Devi, Seetal Gupta, Shabreen Tajm and Salma Sadiq will not resonate strongly for most Indians, though they were all in the news last week for similar reasons. Sunita Devi was strangled in Gopiganj, Uttar Pradesh, the pregnant Seetal Gupta was found unconscious and died in a Delhi hospital, Shabreen Tajm was burned to death in Tarikere, Karnataka, and Salma Sadiq suffered a miscarriage after being beaten by her husband in Bangalore.

Demands for larger dowries by the husband’s family were behind all of these acts of violence, so commonplace that they receive no more than a brief mention in the newspapers. National Crime Bureau figures indicate that reported dowry deaths have risen, with 8,172 in 2008, up from an estimated 5,800 a decade earlier.

May we establish that multi-culturalism has its down side, and not all should be celebrated by those who think that the West is too imperialistic with its self-centeredness? Perhaps there's somethings we should export, for the sake of women and girls at least.

At the heart of it all is money, since the dowry system is what makes girls a liability while young and a complication when they are older:

In one of Delhi’s upscale office areas, Kiran Verma, 28, surveyed her tiny shop, a photocopying center. Ms. Verma’s father left the family years ago, and her mother, a domestic worker, worries about covering the cost of her daughter’s wedding. But like many other urban women today, Ms. Verma has her own plans. “In another year I’ll have earned my dowry,” she said with confidence. “That way, I’ll have some choice over the family I marry into.”

Young women earning their own dowries is not the radical solution — the total eradication of the dowry and discrimination against women — that a generation of feminists have dreamed about. But in their efforts to redefine themselves as generators of wealth, rather than as liabilities to their families, Ms. Verma and her generation of Indian women may be striking a few blows of their own against the prejudices that contribute to gender-based abortion.

Interesting to see what feminists dream about. I'll settle for recognition of the humanity of all women--born and unborn. Marriage isn't the problem, it's the denigrated value of women, which  equates them with chattel. Very sad.

Interesting backdrop to wedding

Parents in Britain are in a bit of a "sticky wicket," according to the Telegraph:

[M]illions of parents are facing an unprecedented childcare headache in the coming weeks, as a "perfect storm" of the Royal Wedding, Easter holidays and AV referendum see schools shut their doors for longer than ever at this time of year. Children whose schools are used as polling stations in the May 5 referendum and council elections will be at home for a total of 14 weekdays over the next month.

Parenting groups warned that the extra days off will put families under strain, as working parents struggle to make childcare arrangements for the unusually long break. Economists have warned that the extra bank holiday on April 29 will knock a quarter of a percentage point of growth off the economy. Business groups expect productivity to suffer to the tune of £6bn.

The one-off bank holiday falls at the end of Easter week and is the day running into the May Day bank holiday weekend. As a result, it will create two consecutive four-day weekends.

Part of the challenge of modern family life in the developed world is that there are few extended families around, single parents have little back-up, and fewer children in each family means that older kids are not available as they once were. Moreover, the job market forces every capable person into the workforce leaving them unable to help in this situation. Even the elderly aunties and grannies are corralled into nursing homes or other senior living facilities.

None of this is necessarily morally bad, it's simply part of the  dreary landscape we've created for ourselves, so that the Royal Wedding becomes a Royal Nightmare for those who are alone and struggling. Neither does it serve as inspiration for the upcoming generation who have yet to embark on parenthood -- they may see babies as more trouble than they're worth.

Move over, "big tobacco"

Tobacco companies got a reputation (impossible to shake) that they had cooked the books when it came to data about side effects of smoking. They’re not the only ones who know that the truth is bad for business. The only problem is that the public isn’t rallying for the real data surrounding the dark consequences of abortion to be released, fore they know that it might significantly impact the way that adults order their lives.

Just as tobacco companies once deep-sixed any negative research on the smoker’s health and well-being, abortionists and their extensive lobbying web of far-left, social-engineering ‘feminists’ now scamper to squelch every new research study which demonstrates elevated risk associated with their killing-field business model. In this diabolical scheme, abortionists are far, far worse than tobacco companies could ever have been, if only for the single reason that abortion is controlled not by known capitalistic corporations, but by the very people whom the public trusts for its healthcare.

The excellent point made by Kyle-Anne Shriver is that a private industry might be vilified by doing what is in its own best interest and customers should steer clear, but when it's the actual health care industry that is lying about health information, the patients have nowhere else to go.

This information has been available for years, and the charts she offers show the overwhelming evidence of predictable rises in cancer rates that accompany the increased number of abortions. Where is the outcry she asks? Folks are decidedly uninterested in essential data concerning life and death -- which shows the cultish hold that the abortion industry has over those who will not reconsider the risks.

Sad news from Bangladesh

From Asia News:

At least 249 women were killed in 2010. Out of anger or vengeance, husbands throw kerosene on their wives and set them on fire. The problem is widespread despite the fact that Islamic law, which is in place in Bangladesh, requires would-be husbands to pay a price for their future wives.

The background is a little complicated, with Islamic law being challenged by the occasional "spiritual" Muslim group, by the UN's Convention Against Discrimination Against Women, and by local legislation that has tried to reverse the dowry trend, but it doesn't seem to change the landscape.

Under the existing dowry system, a bride’s family must pay her future groom a sum of money. The practice first appeared some 50 years ago. Before that, would-be husbands had to pay instead a ‘bride price’ to the woman’s family in accordance with Islamic law. The change appears to be the result of an imbalance in the country’s demography, as there were more women than men of marriageable age at that time. For example in 1950, the population of women of marriageable age was 10 per cent more than that of eligible men; by 1975, the percentage had risen to 43.

Whenever money must change hands, there will be ways to undermine the system, especially when girls are  married so young to men they do not choose themselves. Money cannot provide adequate leverage when the two parties are not fundamentally equal. When the bride's family must pay, she becomes a burden:

First of all, poor families end up taking on debt to raise enough money to pay for their daughters’ dowry. In some cases, parents end up not sending their daughters to school to save money for their dowry or because they see education as something their daughters would lose after marriage. Finally, early marriage (two out of five women marry between 15 and 17) has serious consequences because of early pregnancies, which are often followed by deep depressions as well as psychological and physical violence.

Furthermore, with the development of cheaper, more mobile ultrasounds, the families can also resort to aborting girl babies to avoid the dreaded expenses.

On the other hand, when the husband pays the family for the girl, she becomes a commodity and her father can be compromised if her best interest is subsumed by the family debts or other pressing financial concerns. Either way, women are not chattel, and when they are reduced to "bride prices" or family investments, they will never be seen as fully human.