must be election time: the values argument. again.

here's a novel idea for democrats: how about actually DOING something, instead of just worrying about the frame for your message.

as a progressive woman of faith, i'm getting just a little tired (yes, tired of even beloved obama) trotting out the tired 'we have to compete in the churches with the religious right.' my advice to the dems is a bit more...feisty. as a progressive woman of faith i'd like to see my fellow democrats stand in front of something without flinching when the crap starts to fly. as a progressive woman of faith i'd like to see some policies on the ground that demonstrate our progressive policies are the best for us and this country.

(hello, paid family & medical leave; hello, increasing the eitc; hello, increasing the minimum wage; hello, broadening access to higher education.)

unfortunately, we don't see too much of that when we're too busy watching our politicians genuflect and share their conversion experiences. thanks very much but i remember my own conversion experience; i was thirteen, brushing my teeth one sunday morning. i didn't feel anything so i accepted jesus a few more times that day, just to make sure. (ah, the joys of growing up baptist.)

and i'm reminded of my baptist childhood watching the dems 'try on' faith just to rack up some votes with the same awkward earnestness that's really just a fear of going to hell.

not to say that the democratic party should ignore issues of faith; rather, they should realize that having faith doesn't make you an easy mark for a con. and that's what this feels like to me - a con. it's great that suddenly everyone wants to talk about jesus, but i'd rather see you manifest jesus in what you do rather than trundling down to some black church on the south side and clap on the 1 and 3 instead of the 2 and 4. (y'all know what i'm talking about.) those of us in those churches know exactly what those visits mean and for any politician, black or white, that kind of hospitality is eventually going to dry up. you are pimping us out.

eventually the whore gets tired, you know?

this is what's disappointing about obama's speech; he gets awfully close but fails to put his finger on the pulse of the problem: the left can't make much ingress into these communities of faith now because, at last, folks are waking up to the fact that they've been played. after two election cycles and the dems still haven't brought home any of their promises, who's going to look better? the people who say what they mean and act on it. sure, their message is narrow and awful and retro and won't look after the interests of regular folk, but it feels right. it has the feeling their conversions didn't. instead of talking about the discourse of faith, obama needs to say how faith is about how you WALK - and then tell the dems they need to start walking if they want to see anything fruitful.

if the left really wants to be the party of change, then BE the effing party of change.
fracking grow a set and be like jesus: walk into the temple and raise some hell.

Obama urges Democrats to embrace faith Chicago Tribune

dangit! timing is everything!

aargh!
too bad this isn't going to be the same weekend as my trip to newark in august!!

but if you're in the area, you should go.
and then write me an email and tell me how great it was. (sigh)

enough about you.

you may already know i work for a women's organization, a moderately-progressive and feminist organization. while many different people work for us, our staff is a rather self-selecting lot. we've been around for over 100 years, we all know what our mission is and we all like that over 80% of the staff have ovaries. contrary to stereotype, ours is a surprisingly even-keeled environment* and the team i work with is a good one - it's high performing and we're particularly mission-focused. so it was a surprise when, during a meeting yesterday, the only male staffer on the team got his Hanes in a bunch and just walked out.

context: we were discussing the idea of instituting a series of feminist salons, home-based discussion groups, and one of us was in the middle of explaining the history of the salon.

staffergirl: during the 18th and 19th centuries, prominent women opened their homes to artists, politicians, thinkers, writers to discuss current events. it was a way for women to enter the public sphere, become politicized, and it would be a good idea for us to engage people now -

stafferguy: excuse me, what people? (cupping his ear with his hand)
staffergirl: uh, young women. we think it would be a good idea to engage young women in these discussions and -
stafferguy: which people? (the cupping thing again)
staffergirl: women.
stafferguy: i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i just don't like it when you forget that not all of us are women. (bundles up his lunch and starts to walk out)

staffergirl: i'm sorry, but - don't go - this is what those groups were! i'm sorry, i didn't mean to offend -
stafferguy: but you did, staffergirl. you did. (door firmly shuts and stafferguy is gone.)

the rest of us sit there a little abashed and stunned.
into the silence, i say, 'i'm sorry. we are a feminist organization. we are a women's organization. hegemony is tough.' i shrug and sip my diet pepsi. after a few seconds, our discussion continues without stafferguy. but at the end the manager wants to talk about it.

everyone is silent. then i and a recovered staffergirl say that, sometimes, a person who enjoys a certain amount of class and gender privilege has to acknowledge that it's not all about him all the time. if he is going to be a feminist man, then he has to recognize that sometimes that requires him to not be the center. sometimes, there are limits.

i said we see this limit in other political groups; while there are alliances between feminists of color and not, at some point there has to be a recognition that sometimes our interests divide and sometimes, we brown feminists aren't going to be thinking about what our white sisters might feel or want. in another instance, while we progressive straights can certainly be allies with our gay friends, we have to take a back seat when it comes to that community defining what's best for their interests. sometimes, the dominant discourse has to learn when to shut up.

in other words, sometimes the Other doesn't want the Master around.


[*this is not to say our workplace is perfect. some women have sniffed that it could be 'more woman-supportive' but for me, having come from at least two corporate, testosterone-heavy firms, working in an all-female office is like running on the beach during one of those 1970s kotex commercials. it's that refreshing.]

staying the course, even if it kills us. literally.

Rallied by Bush, Skittish G.O.P. Now Embraces War as Issue - New York Times

resolve for the sake of being resolute is not necessarily an admirable quality. it just means you're either too dumb or too slow to know when to change directions or reevaluate your situation. if we believe in human fallibility we must believe at some point that not all decisions will always be correct, for the context surrounding those decisions (both at the time and afterward) will change.

but here we are, at the mercy of an administration that will create:

'a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.'

i guess some GOP self-awareness would be a little too much to ask. perhaps it is entirely outside the realm of reality that someone on their side stand up, raise their hand and say, 'hey, guys. guess what? these thousands of troops have died for nothing - really. and it's funny you mention vietnam...'

but i guess what we're seeing is the power of mythology - the mythology of democracy (apparently, we, the most democratic of nations just can't fuck up the course of democracy faster), the mythology of american moral superiority and even the myth of american strategery. in religious parlance i guess you could describe this historical moment as The Moment Our Government Began to Name it & Claim it. if you're not familiar, name it & claim it is the spiritual voodoo that says the reality you create is the reality on the ground; name your desire, claim it in the name of jesus and see your blessings follow. to my non-theological brain, it's the low-rent version of Providence.

it's also a neat religious trick but when you're actually naming/claiming off the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians, it's just a little gross.
...
a couple of nights ago, on the daily show, they showed a clip from the debates on the non-binding resolution to 'support our troops.' i remember most clearly a representative saying that he was glad that Murtha hadn't been involved in the vote to intervene in the second world war or we'd all be speaking german or japanese right now.

these are the people who are making global, life/death decisions for us, the american people. these are the ignorant blowhards who have the power to make this 'war' on terror a perpetual state of existence for us, until it no longer registers and becomes a low hum in the background of our lives. (it already has become so, hasn't it?)

at least they have family values.

i knew stress was good for something...

we were told to be fruitful and multiply but clearly, post-lapserian peoplekind didn't know about stress back then or there'd have been a caveat: 'be fruitful, but only with therapy.'

Stress can make women infertile

[h/t feministing - check out their rather good paranoiac reading of future research]

pitch call: holy muse

i know you're out there: budding writers, impassioned essayists. if you want to write but have no idea where to submit, here's a place: Holy Muse

it's a digital magazine that just launched and they're looking for contributors.
pitch call below (if you're interested, just go to the site and contact the editors):

If you're interested in any of the themes below, we'd love if it you could send
us a quick line or two summary of the idea by June 21st (for August Issue) and
July 21st (for September Issue). We'll let everyone know the next day who should
proceed. We are only trying to be organized so three of you aren't writing on
the same topic and it ends up that we can't use two of them after you've taken
the time to write.

We'd love to have finished pieces for the August 1 release by July 15 and pieces for the September release by August 15.
...
August In the middle of hurricane season, we're talking about what else... the environment. Big oil, global warming, stewards of the planet, that whole deal... you know it well. Green peace vs green paper. Main articles(where you really tell us how you feel - 1500-2000 words). Bush bashing is easy -feel free to bash but at least have some good substance as well - what we as "truth seekers" are to do in regards to our decaying planet. If it's even decaying...

September It's back to school. Good stories, or opinions about homeschooling, religious schools/education, public schools - why they're good, why they suck - and of course, the whole evolution/creation debate. Should we care, why, and about what
in regards to the existence/creation of the world. Again, for the big articles
1500-2000 words but if you've got some quick thoughts, let us know.

BOTH ISSUES We're always looking for good gripe pieces, media reviews, and/or
anything else that might be on your mind. We're pretty open and you're all great
writers who have good things to say, so if you've got something brewing around,
let us know.

why never to date a pastor

this made me snort:

Where breakup books excel, however, is in detailing breakups worse than yours. In Love Hangover: Tips for Christian Singles, for example, the author describes being dumped by a pastor who explained only, "God told me to do this."

yikes.

[thanks to bookslut]

amen, brother

this post below is a truer post about prayer than i've read in a while - and it's from one who is probably what we're comfortable calling an Unbeliever. i don't know if the eventual change from 'god' to 'God' has significance, but the intellectual change (if not spiritual) within the author is more important than typography.

he writes:

I looked up prayer in the dictionary. I looked up prayer in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Interesting, but I didn't feel down with submitting myself to the will of a being I probably didn't believe in.

Finally, I decided that I would just try to say things that were true. The main problem with even this strategy is that it's just about impossible not to be disingenuous when you think you might be talking to god. It's all about making a good
impression, and it takes a while--I think it took me a good 30 or 45 minutes of trying to slyly bullshit god--to turn off the part of your brain that's always calculating, the part that makes you act humble to get more dessert, or less cancer, or whatever.

Expendable Organ: Prayer

oh, and if you can spare a prayer for him, please do.

committee of pain

as anyone who's ever worked in a church knows, com'tee work can either be an uplifting experience that makes you want to run around a grassy knoll with arms outspread OR it can be the gaping maw of hell.

guess what kind of com'tee i'm on?
oh, i'm sorry - guess what kind of com'tee i'm chairing??

(roll of eyes here)

the Person who totally guilt-tripped me into taking this position deserves flaming hot pokers to be inserted into her arse. you hear me, Person?

pokers!!
arse!
(obscene gesture with fingers here)

it's been a while...

but here are the highlights:
the guy i dumped back in january came back and, surprisingly, i rejected him again! some things are left better to die.
yes, i will be going to new york with my dad at the end of the summer. (and new jersey!)
yes, i've been working my arse off.
no, i don't think i'll ever have fun again.

and my sister, cruel cruel wench that she is, said to me recently, "You might as well get used to saying you're 37 now. It's right around the corner." Thus plunging me into a startling and deep pit of anger/depression - depranger. bitch!

off for drinks at NoMi with some presbyterians.

the obvious and the gay

over here is a study that says that poorer americans may be more stressed out than others.

really?

(h/t: Shakespeare's Sister)
...

in honor of this city's IML festival, i'll probably post something later about the FMPA again. it's time. again.

but i'll have to do it later. i need to get a mani/pedi.

just under the deadline

a while ago a friend told me he thought i wrote better when i didn't give myself a whole bunch of time to ruin it with thinking. that made sense to me, at the time. (and he was an editor, after all)

but what that really means is that i've trained myself to procrastinate till the VERY last minute.

i'm exhausticated.

but the piece for Geez mag is finished, i'm actually happy with it (until i reread it tomorrow) and if they use it, huzzah!

new planetary system: a conversation

scene: a cab, on the way home from marshall field's with the roomie.

roomie: so did you see the emails today between me and K-?
ding: no. i was busy all day. i barely checked email.
roomie: dude! you don't know about the new planets?
ding: the new what?
roomie: the new planets. dude. they discovered a new planetary system.
ding: shut up. a whole system? are you sure it just wasn't a bunch of stars or something? and how far away are they?
roomie: a whole system. behind venus or something.
ding: shut up. that close?? there was an entire planetary system within our own system, hidden behind a planet? what??
roomie: i don't know. i can't remember the details of the article. but i was saying to K- that this is how it begins - they discover a new planetary system and then, boom, Battlestar Galactica happens.

ding: (laughing) you are so crazy. but you have a point. how cool would that be? we get invaded by aliens in this new planetary system. that would change a lot.
roomie: politics, religion - everything. the fundamentalists would crap. it would blow everything out the water. everyone would have to come together to face the invasion.
ding: true. who would care about the clash of cultures, christianity versus islam, when there are aliens who want us for food?
roomie: they wouldn't necessarily be bad.
ding: it's always bad. every twilight zone episode has shown us that earthlings are terribly naive and then we get eaten by the invaders. and i could see the christian right telling us the alien invasion is actually satan.

roomie: all i'm saying is that there is a new planetary system and no one thinks this is an issue.
ding: that's ok. you'll be our chicken little.

CNN.com - Three new planets found around sun-like star - May 18, 2006

friday is my new best friend

i have a day off today.

i so need it. the past few months at the office have been insane. phase 1 of a project just finished and i am so glad, i could do a dance (and the dance would look like that eileen dance on seinfeld - don't get me wrong. i have rhythm. but my joy requires total goofy dancing this very minute); i was taking work home, working 12 hour days and i was just exhausted.

so now i'm home, in my bedroom, emailing, reading the paper and getting ready to go outside and get some coffee and go to the bank down the street. when i get back i have to start writing that article for Geez. (bad freelancer, bad!)

isn't friday great?

this is how you evangelize: cylon fundamentalists and the coolest show ever

my roomie and i are new to 'battlestar galactica'. (she hates that i tell everyone how much we love this show.)

i mean, i remember the old show with lorne greene walking around in shiny robes and richard hatch and dirk benedicts with guns strapped to their thighs. (oh, how many pictures of those two did i have taped to the inside of my book case? i loooved apollo.) but all i really remember from the old show were the really bad firefights and, actually, i think most of my memories are mixed up with Buck Rogers.

anyway, to catch up with everyone else who loves this show, my roomie and i spent two weekends renting season one and season two (damn them for splitting up season 2!) and we've immersed ourselves in the whole mythology.

yes, we're dorks! i love science fiction! space opera is the best!

things we love:
that starbuck is a woman - this is a HUGE improvement and we love it.
the fight scenes are so much better!
lt. gaeta is hot

i'm fascinated with how BG treats religion; i sense that there's a fairly complex 'theology'/mythology behind the whole narrative and we get a glimpse of it when the President goes on one of her drug induced visions or when the really annoying blonde Cylon babe (she's SO annoying) ups her Cylon-witnessing gambit with Baltar. or when adama and the president get into one of their faith v. military maneuvering discussions. i love it.

but is this religious war supposed to be analogous to our christian/islamic clash of cultures or just a basic christian/heathen thing?

and there are other questions:
how can the cylons have religion if they're machines?
what is their religion? and how did they get it?
and the humans worship greek mythology? huh?

what's the deal with kobol, again?
can someone please explain this to me??

snob, pt. 2

and your point would be...?

this week in prebyterianism

so i'm a deacon. we have an all day retreat next weekend and i am going to need loads of patience and caffeine to get through it.

and i'm about to step into a com'tee chair position that i can just tell is going to make me lose my temper and snap in the middle of a meeting. why i agreed to this, i don't know. yes i do! as a favor to my roommate who was vacating the position! argh. i knew i should've said no. i hate meetings. and i hate meetings that last more than one hour. and all we presbyterians do is meet. about everything.

has NO ONE heard of email?
or at least meeting at a bar so i can smoke?
...
this morning (and let's not even think about why i was up at 6.45 am on a Saturday) i found an email from a guy wanting to ask me questions about feminism and blogging for some article he's writing. he's probably some undergrad who has to write a paper.

but i thought his questions were useful so i'm posting them and my answers here:

# When did you start your blog?
I started ChurchGal about 3 years ago; I’d already had another blog up and running but I really wanted a separate space to talk about religion, faith and feminism in a more specific way.

# How many visits the site every month (if you don't know, then your estimate)?
I really can’t say. I don’t have a site meter (I really should get one of those) but I’ve noticed that I am getting more unique visitors since I joined a Progressive/Moderate Christian web-ring.
Sometimes the only way I have of measuring visits is through comments – some topics get big hits (anything having to do with sex or reproductive rights) and some get nothing (feminist theory and cultural semiotics, let’s say.)

# Do you know how many feminists blogs are out there - how many do you know?
There are many of us. Many, many, many. There is a huge list of women, feminist bloggers over at What She Said! I read Bitch, Ph.D regularly; I Blame the Patriarchy is another must-read and Angry Black Bitch is simply phenomenal. From there, of course, I read other writers and it’s astounding how many really good, smart, intellectually fierce women are writing!

# Why do you blog?
I first began blogging to get out of writer’s block; but then, when Bush became President the first time, it became a place for me to vent my anger and frustration at the direction my country had taken. I wanted to be public in my anger, my vitriol, my contempt for this administration.

But now I blog because it’s good intellectual practice. Based on some comments, I’m realizing that there is a lot of intellectual/educational work yet to be done to raise people’s consciousness. For instance, I plan on writing soon about Oprah Winfrey’s talk-show as a skillful cover for her contempt for the suburban housewife; I can guarantee someone will ask me why I hate housewives and what I have against Oprah? Or, when I talk about ‘patriarchy’ people ask me why I have an issue with ‘men’, not realizing patriarchy is a system, not a collection of guys – though men benefit primarily from patriarchy. Blogging makes me realize that not everyone went to college or university the way I did.

Being in dialogue with people (even with people who don’t agree) forces me to really assume a strong stance on some issues and really defend that stance. It’s like being back in school with a really demanding professor.

# Why do you think these blogs have become so popular?
They’re free. Well, not all of them, but generally they’re flattening access to authorship. Instead of discourse being generated by a few culturally elite, now everyone’s creating it. It’s truly populist – from the teenage girls with their Hello, Kitty templates to the serious academics like Juan Cole or Michael Berube – and then women like me, too. My father, a Baptist minister, has a blog!

# Does "equal status" between the sexes exist?
It depends on how you define ‘equality’ and ‘status’.

# If no, is that why you blog?
I don’t blog to even a score between men and women. I blog primarily because I love writing and I write to live. If I didn’t write, I’d go insane. But there is also a part of me that blogs to give voice to the more political or academic Me. It was something that had disappeared for a while and now it’s back and it never would have reappeared if it hadn’t been for blogging.

However, there is a secret part of me that likes to think that when people ask that idiotically sexist question, ‘Where are the women bloggers?’ I can raise my hand and say ‘Over here, you idiotic sexist!’

# Is this in your opinion the revival of the third wave? (Or is it really the fourth wave?)
I don’t even know what this ‘wave’ stuff is. For me, feminist bloggers are returning to our most basic, fundamental beginnings because we have to. I love how people talk as if feminism has made huge strides forward – it hasn’t. It’s alarming how much farther we have to go. Women are still extremely vulnerable to economic upset, our decision whether to conceive or bear children are under serious attack, and the last time I checked women in the U.S. only made up 14% of our political infrastructure despite being over 50% of the population. That’s huge. In some ways, blogging by feminists is a step to galvanize women to look at those conditions and do something about it – change something. Change anything.

I was in a meeting yesterday (and I work for a feminist organization) and a coworker said this about the use of the word Feminism: “It’s about as relevant today as abolition.” I laughed my ass off, but that’s a serious statement.

# How can this "wave" reach those not fortunate enough to own or have the chance to use a computer?
That’s an excellent question. My simple and completely ill-educated answer is to make sure we get those people computers. Information and education is power and if we want to empower the disempowered we need to make sure they have the means to free themselves.

fork and spoon! fork and spoon!

pinay of the world unite - a little canadian boy is being persecuted because he used a fork and spoon at the lunch table!

down with single utensil hegemony! down with it, i say!

JP: Luc Cagadoc: The DoubleSpeak (jp is all over this like a fork over a spoon)

why fork/spoon eating is good:
it is more efficient
you don't have to chase your food around your plate
you don't have to switch hands
it's perfect for scooping the meat with the rice
my mommy taught me to eat like this

AKBAYAN!

the hypocrite housewife

i read this essay in the back of my roomie's latest Time mag while taking a morning constitutional and i had a suspicion that something was wrong.

1. the whiny victim tone. sweetie, you're not a victim. the image of ms. flanagan, homey homemaker, being marched back to the protective arms of the GOP while the mean girls of the Dem party hoot bad names and vulgar gestures because ms. flanagan is a nice girl who'd rather stay home than hold a picket sign is ridiculous. from all reports, ms. flanagan is just as privileged as her husband; she is an accomplished writer who earns money with her writing, and has a staff to help her do it. how many traditional housewives get that? (and, frankly, the notion that only SHE gets to have a dead mother whom she misses desperately is sickening and offensive.)

2. the sticking up for the white male. does the White Male (as signifier) really need another apologist? really? is it stigmatizing the WM to reveal the existence of those on the outside, rather than to always cater to those on the inside with ultimate cultural privilege? (like any other upper middle class white woman, she's uncomfortable with having privilege revealed and being called out on it.) i think it's interesting that she chooses to frame her argument like this, rather than say that the Dem party has abandoned the working man - which it hasn't and she'd be hard pressed to show that it has.

or perhaps her allegation would ring truer if she wrote that the 'beer-guzzling, union-dues paying' white guy got the shit scared out of him by the GOP when 9/11 hit. rather, flanagan makes the WM a victim like herself and we all know how much they suffer, don't we?

3. she's wrong. perhaps i'm watching the wrong Democratic party but i've always felt that the party has been abject in its pursuit of the Housewife. it's women like me the party's abandoned - single women, single women of color, single working men and women. in my particular case, the post-election backpedaling on the choice issue is one such example; discussion abounded that perhaps the language of reproductive choice was too scary for those housewives living in places like naperville; it was too angry. and where are the policies that look out for the interests of the people like me in the party - people who don't live in a subdivision, people without children, but still people who work hard and believe heartily in progressive causes? instead we watch as the party fumbles for its nerve and makes concessions to those easily upset.

so if anyone is being alienated by the Dems, it's not a housewife. and it's certainly not because of contempt. to muster contempt, a party must have vast stores of anger and the GOP spits it continuously while we swallow ours and hope no one notices.

TIME.com: We're Here, We're Square, Get Used to It -- May. 08, 2006 -- Page 1
Joan Walsh about Flanagan on the Huffington Post

icky, but interesting: Father-daughter balls, coverture, and the double standard

the incestuous overtones aside, father-daughter balls are interesting. i think hugo's comment about old english law and 'coverture' is particularly apt, because it puts the 'father owns daughter' idea front and center, despite the sweetness and light of having daughters dance with their dads.

let's be clear; i think dads should spend a lot more time with their children. i don't think teenagers should be sexually active.

but, personally, if my dad had told me we were going to some funky 'pseudo-prom' together and dance to some christian rock-lite, i would have gagged. WHO wants to be in a clinch with their dad?? when they're in junior high or high school?? totally icky. (it's weird enough there's that whole 'first dance' thing at weddings.)

but why the focus on daughters and not sons? why no mother-son proms or balls? daughters are precious, but so are sons. right?
any policy, activity or ideology that focuses solely on controlling the behavior of girls and women and not boys or men makes my anti-authoritarian hackles rise with suspicion.

anyway, the post is good and the discussion is especially good - which is why i like reading hugo. his community is really sorta cool. (except when all the MRM-ers get on it. they blow.)

Hugo Schwyzer: Father-daughter balls, coverture, and the double standard

about coverture, and the language of covering, in case you were curious:

In English and American law, coverture refers to women's legal status after marriage: legally, upon marriage, the husband and wife were treated as one entity (and not in that swoony, romantic soulmate way, either). In essence, the wife's separate legal existence disappeared as far as property rights were concerned.

Under coverture, wives could not control their own property unless specific provisions were made before marriage, they could not file lawsuits or be sued separately, nor could they execute contracts. The husband could use, sell or dispose of her property (again, unless prior provisions were made) without her permission.
(Almost as if she didn't exist!!)

Sir William Blackstone, in 1765, said this about coverture and the legal rights of married women, in Commentaries on the Laws of England:

"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very
being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at
least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose
wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called
... a feme-covert...." [emphasis mine]

um, yeah. so by borrowing heavily on this language which legally served to erase women's individual. legal rights to property (which also gave access to other public rights), this father-daughter purity movement ideologically and symbolically erases the person at the center of all this purity and family unity - the daughter.

what do we call an institutionalized web of social practices that deliberately eliminate women from visibility? patriarchy!