Women Bishops

This whole debate about women as Bishops has got me to thinking to when I was a kid. I went to church, and Sunday school, I've been christened and had my communion and possibly done other ceremonies that i can't quite remember. My mum is from Dublin so is Catholic. Whenever we went to stay with her family we'd get taken to Church, which I mostly remember as being incredibly incredibly dull.
But you know, my mum tried to bring us up Catholic. It was an abject failure, possibly not helped by my dad being the most sceptical person alive when it comes to religion.

What I mostly remember about my reasons for not believing, as a kid, and a pretty young kid at that, was that I was utterly astonished that someone would be asking me to worship a man. It did not compute. What did men have to do with me and why should I be so grateful and prostrate myself before one? I lived in a predominately female household (mum, sister and my dad. even the pets were female). And my mum has always always been an ardent feminist.
Worshipping a goddess, that would make far more sense, and from there was spawned my interest in the norse, greek and celtic pantheon.

And as I got older I realised that being Christian made absolutely no sense given that they do not allow women to hold positions within the church. Cos we're, y'know, dirty and that.
There was a great debate on radio 4 yesterday morning - the traditionalist guy opposing the ordination of women bishops gave a couple of absolutely rubbish arguments as to why women shouldn't be ordained:
1) There are lots of women who also oppose it. (Yep, the vagina hive mind strikes again)
2) It's not sexism, it's theology.

Wtf? Anyway, I say bring on the women bishops, bring on a female pope. I don't think religion is an inherently bad thing, and allowing women to hold positions of power is not a bad thing. I don't think including women will lead to a more natural, less aggressive, less dictatorial religion, but it's gotta open up more kids eyes to the idea of a god or goddess. I'm liking Alanis Morrisette as God in Dogma. Awesome movie, go rent it out now if you haven't seen it.

And on another note, I'm about to start reading Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti of Feministing fame. I"m very excited about this. Anyone else read it and care to share their thoughts?