Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 17:00:04 -0500
From: Katha Pollitt <kpollitt-AT-thenation.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: [Fwd: NACLA: Feminism's Long March]


Dear Bill Bartlett, 
 You wonder how the Catholic Church can be so powerful in Latin America,
and also seem to distinguish Latin America from "the West" and"Western
culture."  The Catholic Church is powerful in many undeniably Western
countries --  Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the United States, not
to mention Poland, the Phillippines and many African countries. I guess
I don't understand why you are puzzled that the church has this power.
It's rich, it's politically organized, it controls many resources -- its
own school system, its own network of hospitals, its own charities --
not to mention religious salvation and the hearts of millions of
believers.  Politicians or others who publicly oppose it risk big
trouble. So although it's true that -- in all the countries I've named
-- Catholic doctrines of sexuality are unpopular, the church is often
able to throw its weight and to make  alliances that keep its laws on
the state books. (For a comparison, look at israel, where the Orthodox
control family law, even though very few Israelis are orthodox.)
  Changing these arrangements is difficult because it is not so often
that people actually get to vote them up or down. (When they do, as in
Ireland's referendum on divorce, the Church can indeed lose.)  For
instance, the Sandinistas did not put legalizing abortion to a vote, did
they? They chose to placate the church. for all the good it did them! 
Maybe if they had paid more attention to women-- illegal abortion was
one of the biggest women's health problems in Nicaragua-- they would
have won that election.
  In Mexico, polls show 80 percent of the population favors liberalizing
the laws against abortion. But so what? In this country, most people
favor gun control, nationalized health care and many other good causes.
It is not a mystery why the popular will doesn't have its way.
  As for differences between men and women on these subjects, I think it
would be amazing if Latin American (or other) men were as opposed to
patriarchy as women . After all, patriarchy is the system of giving men
privileges over women. You might as well expect to find white people as
opposed to racism as blacks. In Latin America, as in this country, the
fight against domestic violence, rape, and so forth is mostly being
fought by women. Abortion and contraception are interesting, and maybe
slightly anomalous issues, because they  benefit men in obvious ways.
But criminalizing marital rape -- a big issue in mexico just now,
because of a court ruling that declared it legal-- or improving women's
access to divorce? Or calling date rape rape? Or sexual harrassment on
the job? Or punishing wife beating as a crime?  I don't think you can
argue that men and women are identical on these issues. The church
supports the whole patriarchal psychology (women are dependent,
inferior,  made to suffer, responsible for Original Sin, defined by
motherhood, not really made in God's image etc)-- that's more important
in winning men's allegiance than the fact that men disagree with it on
abortion -- after all, men's lives and health are not imperilled by bans
on birth control and abortion! 
   But perhaps I am misunderstanding your objections to jean Franco's
essay? 

katha


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