Vatican: Washing Machine More Liberating Than The Pill

The Independent:

As International Women's Day is celebrated, the Vatican had a novel message for the women of the world: give thanks for the washing machine. This humble domestic appliance had done more for the women's liberation movement than the contraceptive pill or working outside the home, said the the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano.

"In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of Western women?" questioned the article. "The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine."

Read the whole story: The Independent

Comments

[miamia]

07:13 PM on 03/09/2009

This is wrong on so many different levels. Maybe, if they were allowed to get married, they would know more about women.

[Palemoon]

05:11 PM on 03/09/2009

The Vatican is NOT winning itself any fans with incredible statements such as this. Especially of the feminine gender. Right now I just wanna listen to certain songs by Anti-Flag, or Dada, or Slayer, Marylin Manson, Sex Pistols, etc. But no, I think I'm going to let someone else speak for me.

George Carlin "Religion Is BS"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

At 3:11, "By the way, I say 'this guy', because I firmly believe looking at these results that if there is a God, then it has to be a man. No woman could, or would, ever F things up like this!"

[arvay]

02:20 PM on 03/09/2009

The Roman Catholic Church, the last living vestigial organ of the Roman Empire, can always be relied on to flaunt its total misunderstanding of the world in which it finds itself embedded.

I remember being told in parochial school, grade 7 or 8, that parents would easily afford an additional child if they didn't buy a TV. Even in our callow youthfulness, we all eyed each other knowingly.

I do have to congratulate the Holy See on the way they generate atheists -- many other religions mix nonsense and common sense so well that people can still cling to their spiritualistic delusions.

The Catholic Church is so instinctively out of touch with reality that they make the process of god-banishing much cleaner and easier. Of course, there are competitors -- evangelical Christians are even more wacky in their beliefs, which can include infant damnation, speaking in tongues and living room exorcisms.

But for utter obliviousness and self-absorption, Catholicism has the edge. I will concede their music is vastly superior to the opposition: all the Te Deums, Masses and Requiems penned by great classical musicians clearly outclass Rock of Ages and Amazing Grace. But then the Catholics have a lot more money to pay their songwriters.

[Cheesemelt]

01:54 PM on 03/09/2009

The Vatican is so totally hip!

Next week, they declare that the Nehru shirt is THE fashion item on the decade.

[etcetc]

01:43 PM on 03/09/2009

I dunno. If I had 6 kids running around I wouldn't have time to do any laundry at all.

A washer would help, but less kids would help far more.

[Gasparilla]

02:16 PM on 03/09/2009

We had five in my family and a washing machine. Mom was always busy. The answer is birth control which the church fights tooth and nail

[Peresphone]

01:20 PM on 03/09/2009

Fraudulent hodge-podge....if you want people that think women are sex object and/or should be barefoot and pregnant vote Whig, I mean GOP

[ResistanceisFutile]

01:17 PM on 03/09/2009

No wonder the Pope is a laughing stock.

It is scientically documented that when women control their own reproduction they have more control of their lives.

The Pope needs to get in his Pope Mobile and get out to mix and mingle with women. Of course his head would probably explode from having to deal with women.

[Peresphone]

01:11 PM on 03/09/2009

Bunch of old men that can't relate to women outside of sex objects and barefoot and pregnant, we usually call that the GOP, not the Vatican...

[Peresphone]

01:09 PM on 03/09/2009

Sorry, no washing machine here.........no pills, either...

[lvdragonlady]

12:58 PM on 03/09/2009

What more could you expect from a bunch of OLD men?

[juzcuz]

12:58 PM on 03/09/2009

and the Dark Ages and all of its horribleness... is more christian than being catholic.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

12:44 PM on 03/09/2009

"Luther had said: "Moreover, I should be truly glad if kings, princes, and all the nobles would take hold, and turn the knaves from Rome out of the country, and keep the appointments to bishoprics and benefices out of their hands. How has Roman avarice come to usurp all the foundations, bishoprics and benefices of our fathers? Who has ever read or heard of such monstrous robbery? Do we not also have the people who need them, while out of our poverty we must enrich the ass-drivers and stable-boys, nay, the harlots and knaves at Rome, who look upon us as nothing else but arrant fools, and make us the objects of their vile mockery?" AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY
OF THE GERMAN NATION CONCERNING THE REFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN ESTATE, 1520

The more things change, the more some things remain the same.

[TXfemmom]

12:43 PM on 03/09/2009

After reading that the Catholic Church excommunicated the doctors and mother of a 9 year old girl who was repeatedly raped by her stepfather but did not excommunicate HIM, I have decided that my doubts about the Catholic Church have now been clarified. THEY ARE A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.

[TotoToo]

12:30 PM on 03/09/2009

The Catholic Church would rather see children die an agonizing, slow death by starvation than use common sense and encourage women to limit the size of their families through use of contraception.

The Church has always minimized women and continues to do so to this day. Churches, led by women, would be far more compassionate than the exclude whole populations based on ethnicity, color, gender and sexual preference.

[wonkguy]

12:29 PM on 03/09/2009

It's like watching a bad movie or something. I find it incredulous that there are a bunch of men sitting around in a room someplace who think that issueing these kinds of statements is good for the cause.