The Age of Women

  

Almost as if it were a response to my blog This is a Man's World [1] on September 6, ZDF showed a three-part documentary by Collien Ulmen-Fernandes starting on September 27 entitled laut. stark. gleich. berechtigt. Zeit der Frauen.[2]

The shows were entertaining and historical, and very relatable to women of my age. The point was to ask questions. How has the image of women changed since the 1950s, when women were still expected to take care of children, cooking, and church by themselves? What rights did women fight for in the 1960s and 1970s? And finally, it was also about what still prevents women from advancing today. The differences between women in East and West Germany were also portrayed.

 It documentary also showed how difficult it was for women in politics to be taken seriously in this male domain. What annoys me most is how the men showed their supposed superiority by laughing at women and making sexist jokes and showing a lack of understanding for women taking their equal place, in whatever area. But really, we shouldn't be surprised by this, because it has always been this way. Even Marcus Porcius Cato Censorius, called Cato the Elder[3], saw women's equality as a threat to male power. He is quoted in a speech as saying, "Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein […] Women want total freedom or rather - to call things by their names - total license. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters …“[4]

Men apparently already had this fear more than 2000 years ago, and it is still present. Why else would men try to preserve their power? Are they really afraid of women? Why is it still not possible for men and women, in general, to treat each other with equality and respect? And why am I writing men first, and then women? Because I'm used to it that way, and because 'women and men' sounds kind of weird? We are just used to men having more weight, and not just in kilograms, but also in terms of power.

The documentary also showed what advertising looked like in the 1950s. In an advert, a woman with a child is kneeling in front of the stove, while the man comes home from the office and expects dinner to be on the table on time. With the help of the advertised product, "it works like clockwork." Collien Fernandes recreated the image with reversed roles. Is that what Cato was afraid of? That the woman comes with the raised forefinger, as men have done since times immemorial? No, we don't need the age of women who exalt themselves over men. We need equal treatment and partnership in life, where women and men support each other, as God intended at the very beginning of human history. A life in which each partner can develop according to the gifts and abilities that God has given her and him.

Nevertheless, I can recommend this documentary to everyone. To the younger ones who may not know this history and to the older ones who have experienced it.

 

Images: Screenshots from the ZDF documentary


[1] https://womansoutlook.blogspot.com/2022/09/this-is-mans-world-james-brown-was-right.html

[2] https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-laut-stark-gleich-berechtigt-100.html

[3] * 234 BC in Tusculum; † 149 BC in Rome

[4] This is composed of excerpts (with some paraphrasing) from a speech of Cato as reported in Livy's History of Rome, book 34, sections 2-4 http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy34.html.

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1823193-cato-the-elder-woman-is-a-violent-and-uncontrolled-animal-and-it/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Have Messed Up the Earth

Image
Living in a temperate climate, I have been used to having cold winters and warm summers. We never thought we would need air conditioning. But things have changed. We are in the middle of climate change and scientists are saying that we have almost passed the point of no return. The last two summers were extremely dry and hot. This summer we are having a mixture of heat and thunderstorms causing vast amounts of rain, and flooding. Hail is clogging the sewers and destroying crops. Streets are transformed into fast-flowing rivers, houses are flooded and even collapsing. Rivers and lakes overflow their banks. Rescue services are working at capacity and still, we hear of people drowning or not being accounted for. I am shocked at the news reports of calamities from all over. Many have lost everything to the flood. Even in areas that are used to flooding, people say that they have never experienced anything like this. In other parts of the world, the problem is extreme heat. When polar regi...
Read more

Adventist Women Missionaries

Image
 Women’s History Month 2024 As I was browsing through the Adventist Encyclopedia, looking for women to be presented during Women’s History Month 2024, concentrating on missionaries, I found many women who had accompanied their husbands to foreign lands. Most of these women were mentioned as being part of a missionary team, working together to bring the Advent message to the area they were sent to. Both, husband and wife, were important, and both gave their all to serve God and the church they loved. Many even gave their health and life in the process. I also found single women who pioneered in unentered areas, reaching out, particularly to the women in these countries who would otherwise not have been reached. They were intrepid women who showed courage and initiative in bringing the message of salvation to the people they served. Then there were the women whose efforts were listed first, although they had a husband because their work seemed to merit special mention, lik...
Read more

What Feminism is about for me (7) What about the Apostle Paul?

Image
So what about Paul? Why do so many people consider Paul a misogynist? As women we tend to cringe when they hear his name, but should we really? Maybe we should study the bulk of Paul’s writings and not just a few verses that have been used for women’s subordination. Could it be that those verses have been interpreted in a way Paul never intended? The life of Paul is recorded in the New Testament and we can see how his encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus changed him completely. He experienced a complete change of perspective that he would include in his testimony during the rest of his life. The strict follower of Jewish laws became a follower of Jesus. We see him working closely with Priscilla and Aquila not only in their tent-making business but also in proclaiming and teaching the gospel. In Philippi, his first converts were women he met at a women’s prayer meeting, who formed the first house church in Europe. This, to me, proves that Paul was by no way a misogynist. He follo...
Read more