Feminist Fumes Over 'Purity Balls'
by Lee Duigon
"The press... just doesn't get religion." --William Schneider, CNN
Only a women's studies professor would find it "profoundly disturbing" when fathers and daughters try to promote chastity; and only the out-of-touch media would think of hiring a women's studies prof to analyze a religious issue.
Writing for USA Today, Mary Zeiss Stange, a professor of women's studies and religion at Skidmore College, New York, discussed the growing popularity of "purity balls" (see "A dance for chastity," http://www.blogs.usatoday.com/...).
The point of a "purity ball" is to celebrate the father-daughter bond and try to strengthen it so that the girl will be better able to resist the temptation of premarital sex. While acknowledging that "girls benefit in their mental and emotional development in direct proportion to quality time spent with their fathers," Prof. Stange nevertheless finds that these dances smack of "the most pernicious aspects of patriarchal religion." Far more valuable than chastity, she says, is a girls' "sexual self-agency," by which she means a girl's freedom to be promiscuous, if she so chooses.
Stange also protests that the girls' mothers are "irrelevant" to these chastity commitments, and sees in it all an insidious process that "puts women and girls in their place." But this is like complaining that celebrating the Fourth of July slights Christmas. Why should building up the bond between father and daughter be seen as a zero-sum game for the mother? Only a feminist would see it so.
Professor Stange is a member of USA Today's board of contributors, and often publishes her musings on a religion which neither she nor her editors understand. But then the media always go to unbelievers when they wish to discuss religion. William Schneider was right.
Can anyone in his right mind argue that de-emphasizing fatherhood and encouraging girls to be promiscuous have done good things for our society? But that's feminism for you.
