The Church of England is considering how to introduce women bishops. The decision has been already made, but that leaves the pesky problem of how to be nice to the men who refuse to have a woman lord over them:
The Synod decided last summer to press ahead with the ordination of women bishops, angering traditionalists by denying them the legal right to opt out of the control of a woman bishop and into special dioceses headed by male alternatives.
However, a draft law to be discussed this week would provide for male "complementary" bishops, to look after parishes unwilling to accept a woman.
Some traditionalist clergy say they will join the Catholic Church if they are not given sufficient exemptions from serving under women bishops.
I've come to the conclusion that much of the discrimination against women is caused by women being too nice to yell in everybody's face about it. Instead of that we just let the bigots have their own "No Girls Allowed" tree houses, and hope that they will come around in time.
Is thirty years long enough a time? Actually, when it comes to women's rights 300 years is about the right time frame. The Iranian revolution is thirty years old and women were participants in it. But as usual, they got the short end of the stick:
Giti Pourfazel, a lawyer and female activist, believes those liberty-seeking women who supported the Islamic revolution were unaware of the true nature of a religious state.
"Some women felt they would stand a better chance of achieving their demands if they could emancipate themselves from political entanglements, but it was too late when they realised that a religious regime, due to its boundaries, could hardly deal with women's issues intellectually.
"Women had already hit home some of their demands but lost them after the revolution, such as the Family Law, which was annulled immediately after the revolution. The reason was women were rallying under a religious flag, which had other priorities and ignored female rights."
But the huge turnout of women during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 encouraged many of them to engage in social activity for the very first time. Studies by sociologists in recent years show that women are becoming increasingly aware of how the law discriminates against them.
Yah. I have always found religions to be one of the legs on which the stool of women's oppression sits. It may not have to be that way, but it mostly is.