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.
Choosing one path means abandoning others - if you try to follow every possible path you will end up following none.
There is a very real relationship, both quantitatively and qualitatively, between what you contribute and what you get out of this world.
If we examine every stage of our lives, we find that from our first breath to our last we are under the constraint of circumstances. And yet we still possess the greatest of all freedoms, the power of developing our innermost selves in harmony with the moral order of the universe, and so winning peace of heart whatever obstacles we meet.
Stormy skies, says Ernesto. He grieved for them. Summer rain. Childhood.
How often it consoles me to think of barbarism once more flooding the world, and real feelings and passions, however rudimentary, taking the place of our wretched hypocrisies.
It was a good thing to have a couple of thousand people all rigid and frozen together, in the palm of one's hand.
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