First Post - Vatican and Washing Machines

I was watching the View yesterday, God help me, and those ninnies were commenting on the recent article that a Vatican writer put out about the greatest innovation for women to come out of the last century (google it). The way the dimwits on The View saw it, it was the Pill, "Reproductive Rights" (abortion), and something about equal rights in the workplace, I think. The Vatican writer said it was the washing machine, which I have to agree with, for myself. It has certainly done more for me, as a woman and a stay at home mother, and just as a PERSON, than the pill, or abortion rights, or equal rights in the workplace and here's why.

I really think that it could be questioned by everyone, not just religious nuts like myself, that the Pill is so great. Baba Wawa said that it was great because now we "don't all have to have ten children". I know very few people with ten children, even the ones that use NFP. A LOT of the married women that I know don't take the pill, and the ones that do seem to hate it, because of the side effects, like weight gain, moodiness, etc. Also, it is amusing to me that the Pill is this great answer for women and it puts ALL the responsibility of birth control on the woman, which to my mind is the same as before the pill! HERE'S your great answer, girlies - take hormonal birth control so that YOU don't get pregnant, gain weight, don't smoke, don't be over 35, take it at the EXACT SAME TIME every day, or you might get pregnant, and if you get pregnant, the baby could be really screwed up, so you will maybe have to have an abortion. Oh yes, that sounds AWESOME. What a GREAT innovation for women! How KIND of you men folk to invent this for US. THANKS.

As far as abortion rights go, I think it's pretty much the same thing, right? Nobody thinks that abortion is a great choice, right? Even the most pro-choiciest of the choiciest? So again, here's this GREAT innovation (it's so stupid that this would even be considered an innovation, would anyone say that civil rights is an INNOVATION? Invented by someone? Duh.) that is going to HELP US poor stupid women so much. And what about women who are celibate? Or against abortion? Or only in reproductive years for like 1/3 of their life or something?

Barbara Walters did point out that the Church was hardly likely to come out and say that they thought abortion rights or the Pill was the greatest thing ever and then that NINNY Elizabeth Hasselbeck said that she didn't think the Church had any right to ever say anything about women because as far as she knew, women still couldn't be priests, right? Is that right?, she asked (someone, I guess maybe a producer?). Elizabeth said that until women can 'rank' as high in the Catholic church as men, then they should just be quiet about it. Sigh. Obviously, she knows nothing about the Catholic church and even if you are of the opinion that women should be allowed to be priests, to say that priests are 'ranked' higher than, I assume, nuns, is just ridiculous. There is no such ranking. I hate when know-nothings comment on something that is so personal to me.

Let me say some other things that I have been thinking about in the three damned days it's taken me to write this missive. If it weren't for the washing machine, no woman would have had the TIME to do anything else, like fight for equal rights or pay, because it used to take ALL DAY to do the laundry. My husband told me that a book he read on LBJ had a big account about this - LBJ was a poor person from Texas, right? I think? Anyway, they had no washing machine and his mother or whoever spent ALL DAY MOST DAYS doing laundry. Also, several years ago they had this show on PBS about this experiment that they did where several families went to live out on the Prairie as if it were the ... I forget. The late 1800's? Maybe? Anyway, the laundry and dishes were RIDICULOUS. I mean, they spent all their time cleaning that house and washing clothes. AND washing diapers, those of them that had children, AND washing home-made cloth pads, those of them who were menstruating. I can't imagine the kind of time that it took to just ... live before we had modern conveniences.

So, in short (ha, not really) I don't think that the Vatican writer was trying to degrade women or keep them in their place or anything else that the Vatican and anyone associated with them is constantly being accused of. So shove it, Elizabeth Hasselbeck. And shut up.