The feminists must be distracted; otherwise they would be outraged by the abuse of Uzbek women, who are being sterilised against their will. These poor women are not even aware of that government's monthly quotas which are assigned to each Ob-Gyn, and carried out during childbirth.
And look at the health risks that women are unnecessarily subject to for this govt. program:
The forced sterilizations may even be on the rise. Antelava’s medical sources reported a dramatic increase in Caesarean section births in the last two years, which provide surgeons with an easy opportunity to sterilize women.
“Rules on Caesareans used to be very strict, but now I believe 80% of women give birth through C-sections. This makes it very easy to perform a sterilisation and tie the fallopian tubes,” a chief surgeon at a hospital near Tashkent said.
“The mark of a totalitarian government is the use of secretive programs, violence and force to manipulate the population. This effort to forcibly sterilize women without their knowledge is an egregious affront to human rights and a crime against humanity,” said Father Peter West, vice president for missions at Human Life International, in response to the story. “Civil and political leaders in Uzbekistan and other nations, including President Obama, need to strongly and very publicly condemn these attacks on the women of Uzbekistan and pressure government officials to bring an end to this human rights crisis.”
Obama and the feminists always seem to be distracted by their own red herrings. 80% of Uzbek babies are delivered by Caesarian so that the government can interfere with their fertility? To women who are probably strong, healthy, and otherwise need no such interventions? In settings where health care may be substandard and risky?
Leave it to the Church to point out real injustices against women--and to work for the good.
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.