8 - Catholic housework

Summary

The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ

(Eph. 5:23-32).

Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church.

(Catholic Answers 1996)

This chapter opens Part III, in which I discuss the broad structural features that perpetuate Catholic subordinate/dominant relations. To highlight the ways the gender order is kept in place I consider Catholics' different uses of time and how they inscribe gender/power patternings. Finally, in Chapter 9, I portray contemporary Catholics' realities as they have learned to manage religious lives that are both enabled and constrained in those structures.

I have been examining Catholics' reported experiences of conflict with Church teachings and practices as a means of understanding related power structures. Experience was described as involving five dimensions: the body; feelings/sensations; perceptions; dispositions; and volitions/motivations. I have noted the ways all of these features informed a person's knowledge of a situation. The same five aspects of experience were used to typify eight types of power relations called situation movement states. To illustrate the ways personal experiences may challenge unjust social practices and the particular teachings that support them, I discussed them by using a framework that outlines four interdependent types of relations constituting the Catholic gender regime.