In our patriarchal world, we are all taught - whether we like to think we are or not - that God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness... that in order to propitiate God, women must propitiate men.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the patriarchal system that equates divinity with masculinity, suggesting that this belief undermines women's value and reinforces gender inequality.
Sonia Johnson's quote highlights the deep-seated beliefs in a patriarchal society where the divine is perceived as male, leading to the notion that women's worth is diminished in comparison to men's. This reflection calls attention to how religious and societal structures often compel women to seek validation through men, suggesting that the root of gender inequity is intertwined with spiritual and cultural perceptions of gender roles.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about gender roles in religious contexts.
There has been only one war fought literally worldwide, affecting every living thing, and that has been men's all-out, non-stop, millennia-long war against women, a war that not only continues to this moment without the slightest abatement but intensifies hourly.
Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.
No man is so great as mankind.
I think that if it is - has to do with global warming, or if it has to do with raising the minimum wage, or if it has to do with lowering prescription drugs for vulnerable citizens - all of those things are people issues, not Democratic issues or Republican issues.
Awareness is everything. Hallie once pointed out to me that people worry a lot more about the eternity *after* their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born. But it's the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand.
I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and look into their eyes and ask, “Are we free?” I have thought that if we are free, the answer cannot hurt us. And if we are not free, must we not hear the answer?
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