Hating the bitches

So no one calls me a bitch. Armanda Marcotte of Pandagon asks why so many women shun feminism and reproductive control. She finds it reflects directly back to organized religion:

One of the conundrums of fighting for reproductive justice is that so many women are anti-choice. Now, anyone who looks into the issues realizes that female misogyny is nothing to sneeze at—there’s a real “hate the bitches so no one calls me a bitch” thing going on that has a lot of power—but just on its surface it makes no sense that women are anti-choice in the same numbers men are. Until you look at the churches. Women are the mainstay of churches, the support system, and they have to buy into the B.S. in order to run the picnics and the bake sales and the anti-choice protests. But what happens when women have other options for fulfillment other than contributing unpaid, underthanked labor to religious organizations? They apparently start dropping out and those religions lose their power.

It’s an interesting example of how ideology is intertwined with systems to create oppression.

Amen.