Mar 07, 2025
1975 was designated International Women’s Year by the United Nations. Canada jumped on board with their own promo campaign: a red circle emblazoned with the slogan ‘Why Not?’. Over 50,000 Canadians wrote in asking for the poster and buttons.
I was one of them. It’s there, in the photo, tacked up on my door.
a feminist then
Fifty years ago – that’s a long time. And quite the milestone. But if recent events are any indication, celebration feels like an unlikely response.
It is hard to see the progress, hard too to stomach the emboldened misogyny swaggering around out there. It is dangerous, yes, but also just so distastefully meagre and small. Which I suppose is an important thing to keep in mind, that at the core of the patriarchy lurks fear.
Also, it bears mentioning that not all anniversaries are about celebration. Sometimes they are about remembering, offering an opportunity for fortifying oneself, a time for the steeling of the will.
So, on this fifty-year anniversary of International Women’s Year – as we challenge, confront, show courage – let’s give them something to really be afraid of – why not?
a feminist now
@amirattaran.bsky.social:
Gee, who’d have guessed that God would pick a white man?
The Myth of Pope Joan, Sorry, but there was never a female pope by James Fell, May 08, 2025, Sweary History with James Fell
Conclave is over, and once again a man sits the papal throne. The sequestered cardinals have chosen the next pope as American Robert Prevost, a centrist, who shall reign as Leo XIV.
It’s a certainty that all the most recent candidates considered for the papacy have a penis, but according to Church rules such an appendage is strictly to be used for the connecting of one’s bladder to the outside world.
Many believe, however, that once upon a time in the ninth century, a woman ruled the Catholic Church as pope. So the story goes, Popess Joan was an educated woman who disguised herself as a man to follow her male lover into the Church so they could be together. It is said she so impressed the leadership she eventually attained the highest position in the Church.
It’s worth noting that celibacy didn’t become mandatory in the priesthood until the eleventh century, done for political reasons because the Church wanted to maintain control of choosing leadership for its bishoprics and abbeys, and there was a problem of bishops and abbots passing these titles to their offspring. Anyfuckingway, back at the time of the alleged female pope, fucking was still allowed.
Pope Benedict III served as head of the Church from 855 to 858 and was succeeded by Pope Nicholas I who reigned as pontiff from 858 to 867. However, it is alleged that Benedict’s reign was far shorter, and Joan snuck in there to rule for a time between the two. It is said by some that her reign came to an untimely end when, during a procession she went into labor and gave birth right there in front of God and everybody. She either died during said birth, which was totally plausible considering the shit state of medical technology, or the shock of seeing the pope squeeze a human out of their body caused the assembled to commit murder via stoning, which was also plausible due to the shit state of women’s equality.
What’s not plausible is that any of this actually happened. It’s a myth with evidence so scant it’s on par with belief in the Loch Ness Monster.
It was four centuries after the alleged Popess Joan, who supposedly used the name John VIII, that the myth of a female pope began. The real John VIII ruled from 872 to 882, and was the first pope to be assassinated, not for being female, but mostly for sucking at money management. Anyway, the fact that it was such a long time afterward that this tall tale finally began is the biggest of the red flags regarding the veracity of a female pope. It’s a glaring statement that the entire story falls under “shit some people made up.” The Church always had enemies, and if there had been a female pope, it would not have taken 400 years for people to start using that fact to talk shit about them. There is simply no way it took almost half a millennium for such a secret to be uncovered, because there was no secret to uncover.
Alas, once the tale finally did begin, it was popefuckery that people believed for several more centuries, often used to criticize the Church; the Protestant Reformation helped perpetuate it. It was largely debunked as having originated as satire in the seventeenth century. And yet, just like with the denial of climate change and the claims that Jesus never existed, there are a small minority of investigators who proclaim Popess Joan to have been real.
Those who cannot remember the past … need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.
@redsnoopy69:
Pope Francis is considered the most progressive leader in the Catholic Church’s history.
Being the most ‘progressive’ leader in the world’s most conservative organization is rather relative.
He didn’t call for homosexuals to burn for eternity in hell but nor did he welcome…
women into the church. If you want progressiveness in the Catholic Church, how about allowing priests to marry. Expecting Priests to be true to God and God alone has been a complete failure for 2000 years. ‘Here is a great job it includes lodging and food but don’t have sex’..
But, nudge nudge, wink wink, we’ll give you unlimited access to vulnerable kids and babies to rape, and we’ll protect and help you move to keep raping more kids if you get caught
It is an unreasonable expectation born from an unreasonable organization. Priests, whether male or female, should be allowed to marry and have families it will attract normality. How many men or women don’t go into the church because they want to marry and have a family?
Demanding purity delivered the Church many Puritan Priests that were anything but pure.
Birth Control this is another unreasonable carryover from an unreasonable time. ‘More babies = more Catholics = more Tithes’. The church should distribute condoms instead of piousness…Notably as it has been proven we are billions too many humans and our gross grredy over population is destroying earth’s livability. popes need to promote birth control, and that abortion is health care, and must needed earth and other species care.
Having celibate priests and nuns participating with the sexual education of our children is ultimately not very pragmatic. I still remember my teacher a nun in sex-ed gr ≈7 when masterbation was mentioned: ‘Jesus is always watching, always. If you have desires, say a rosary’
Years ago ≈20 Cobourg got an actual progressive priest. He did a sermon that suggested that the Catholic Church modernize, i.e., allow women into the church, allow priests to marry, and allow birth control…
Like most progressive Catholics, he is with a different church now.
Refer also to:
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
Trump elected to power, the fact that the Pope is still a major world figure, vaccine hesitancy leading to measles outbreaks… these are all functions of the same thing.
@nataliebrender.bsky.social:
Er…. which thing? Anti-Enlightenment?
@emmettmacfarlane.com:
That’s the diplomatic phrasing, yes.
@stephenlautens.bsky.social:
There should be no vaccine exemptions for “conscience” or “religion”. No holy book comments on vaccination, and “conscience” is in reality just ignorance. #cdnpoli #measles #TDSB
2022: True: “Statistically your child is far safer with a Drag Queen rather than a Priest.”