Vatican: The washing machine liberated women

[msanthrope]

These men in dresses are out of their minds.....


Sunday, 8 March 2009

Vatican: The washing machine liberated women
By Miranda Bryant


Sunday, 8 March 2009
As International Women’s Day is celebrated, the Vatican had a novel message for the women of the world: give thanks for the washing machine. This humble domestic appliance had done more for the women’s liberation movement than the contraceptive pill or working outside the home, said the the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano.


“In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of Western women?” questioned the article. “The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine.”

The article is entitled, “The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax”, taking its name from the Washy Talky, the Electrolux bilingual-talking washing-machine launched in India seven years ago, which would|remind the absent-minded housewife how to use the appliance.

The Catholic Church was never likely to laud the pill for its transformative power on women’s lives. Since Pope Benedict became the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, he has published a religious document condemning contraception for “negating the intimate truth of conjugal love, with which the divine gift is communicated” and has urged pharmacists to refuse to dispense the morning-after pill. The Osservatore Romano held the pill responsible for polluting the environment and contributing to male infertility.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vatican-the-washing-machine-liberated-women-1640134.html

I'm kind of speechless....I think I'll go thank my appliances for my liberation....

[TahitiNut]

1. How much stock does the Vatican have in Maytag?

:dunce:

[msanthrope]

4. None---The Magdelene Laundries washed all the

dirty cassocks and the like.

Let's never forget what those women suffered.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum

[MADem]

6. That was one helluva film, that.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318411/

[leftstreet]

2. BWAHAHA makes me think of a scene in this film I once saw

never mind

[L. Coyote]

3. Wouldn't running around naked do the same thing then?

If it's all about choosing between laundry and liberation :rofl:

[MADem]

5. Fools--the PILL liberated women. It's why there aren't those pewfuls of families anymore

up in church. What, do the fools think that it's a miracle that families have shrunk in recent decades?

Cafeteria Catholicism--it's what's for dinner!

[tuvor]

7. I was expecting an Onion article.

Proof, once again, that truth is stranger than fiction.

[msanthrope]

15. Always. n/t

[geckosfeet]

8. Translation :The washing machine helps the average housewife be more productive for her family.

This is akin to genetically engineering a more productive strain of string bean and then calling the string beans liberated.

[JerseygirlCT]

26. Exactly! nt

[AyanEva]

9. *hugs her toaster*

It's really freed up hours of my day. THANK GOD. I don't know what I'd ever do without it!

:sarcasm:

[Marrah_G]

10. The Vatican is becoming more irrelavant every time it opens it's mouth

[Maine-ah]

11. heh, I was liberated on the spin cycle....

:hide:

[cali]

12. Women and like minded men allied with them, liberated women

and yes, both access to reliable b/c and technology have aided women in their battles for equality and liberation.

[carlyhippy]

13. Now if we can get the washer to put clothes in dryer, fold and put away laundry, we will be freed!

now I shall go and bow to the washer and pay homage to the dryer.

[zbdent]

14. "conjugal love" a "divine gift" ...

so divine of a gift it totally permeates every level of animals ...

[DeepBlueC]

16. assholes - before the machine laundry was sent out

I'd go back.

[Retrograde]

18. but it was a sort of trickle-down effect

the well-off sent their laundry out to others, but at the end of the line were people - usually women - heaving huge heaps of soiled clothing into steaming kettles filled with lye-based soaps, beating them to dislodge dirt. Remember the old nursery rhyme Monday wash day, etc.? It used to take the better part of a week to do all the laundry for a household by hand.

Interesting laundry fact #1: the only women allowed to (as opposed to ones who did it anyway) accompany European armies in the 17th and 18th centuries were laundresses.

Interesting laundry fact #2: Red Beans and Rice, the traditional New Orleans Monday dish, was developed as something quick and simple to make on wash day.

I'd still say reliable birth control and education were more responsible for the liberation of women, but household appliances certainly helped.

[DeepBlueC]

23. laundresses got paid - it was a job

the washing machines come with "free" labor at home. If the washing machines went to the laundries we'd be happier. I would.

So I don't think appliances liberated women at all, just the oppo.

[SmileyRose]

30. mom took in laundry, mending and ironing.

She also worked a full time job and looked after 9 kids. It was far from perfect but she did manage to keep us all alive. :)

[DeepBlueC]

32. You make my point

Women went from doing laundry as a paying job to doing it at home themselves because with the washing machine somehow it was no longer really work. I read a book a while ago that argued that in the end most of the "labor-saving devices" for home use added to the burdens of the housewife. The labor saved was in fact paid labor. Labor women had been paid to do became unpaid "housework".

[SmileyRose]

33. I think that's probably only true of rich women.

poor women were doing all their own work AND getting paid to do the work for other women who could afford to pay. And I'm thinking at the time there was not much of a middle class. Technically my family was middle class (I was born in the 50's) but we certainly could not afford anything close to what all but the absolute poorest of Americans seem to be able to afford now.

[sufrommich]

17. Which appliance should we attribute

the civil rights movement to? Anyone?

[AyanEva]

28. The blender?!

It encouraged people to "blend" together.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DS1]

20. And dry-cleaning gave them the right to vote and drink Martinis

[guitar man]

21. wrong device

I thought it was the vibrator that did that! :silly:

[defendandprotect]

22. "The finest minds of the fifth century--" still at work . . .!!!

[DeepBlueC]

24. lol

[JerseygirlCT]

25. That about sums up the level of understanding those perverse old

men in Rome have about women.

You know, if they were only still allowed to marry, I think that in itself would improve their general understanding.

Better yet, get the heck over the "he-man women-haters club" mindset and start ordaining women. Suddenly, a great many things would become clear. Like a great deal about half the human population that they currently haven't a clue about.

[marmar]

27. The Vatican's press department has become a comedy club.....

...... just when you think they can't utter any more astoundingly stupid bullshit.....

[dustbunnie]

29. I thought it was ladies' bloomers and the department store that emancipated women?

[Spike89]

31. Entire Industrial revolution had a hand in it

I think the washing machine is way too late in the cycle and really misses the point of what mechanization did to society and gender roles. Quite simply, when human muscle power was one of the primary economic engines, children were economically valuable "equipment" for the farm (or other labor-intensive business). This meant that many women were pregnant most of the time because it simply took a small army to scratch out a sustenance living. Jobs in the pre-industrial economy were basically two flavors of drudgery a) gross muscle such as plowing, quarrying, etc. and b) mind-numbing such as weaving and hand-stitching. People did not have huge broods just because there was no birth control, nor was it because of the church--many children were needed to survive on the typical family farm/business.

Without machines to change the dynamic of all work--essentially making a larger portion of it skilled, there would never have been a huge demand for the pill in the general population. Machines also made the differences in physiology between men and women almost disappear as an economic consideration. It takes a lot of muscle to guide a plow all day, but even the slightest-built, gravidly pregnant woman can handle a tractor as well as a man.

It took a long time for the gender roles of thousands of years to even begin breaking down, and we're still in the early part of coming to grips with what it means. Although the church is wrong about the washing machine, I do think they were on the right track with the idea of mechanization.