ANOTHER VIEW FROM THE INSIDE

From Maureen Dowd at the New York Times:

When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

I may have to reverse my opinion of Maureen Dowd's writing in the NYT. For some time, I haven't liked a good many of her columns because her writing had become too flip, glib, and shallow to suit me, but this is the second excellent column in only a couple of weeks. Read the entire column. Maureen scores as she points out how the exclusion of women from the highest levels of authority causes dysfunction in the very structure of the Roman Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, I will no longer be able to read Maureen Dowd, when the NYT begins to levy a charge to read their online version.

Thanks to Ellie for the link.