Church attacked for sexist attitudes

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 6

Church attacked for sexist attitudes

Churches should examine the way their own institutions treated women before becoming seifrighteous about pornography, said the Justice and Peace church group in its submission to the Committee of Inquiry into Pornography yesterday.

The Justice and Peace group represented a small sub-committee made up of members from St Peter’s Catholic, and St Saviour’s Anglican churches in Christchurch.

The group attacked the Church as part of its wider approach to reeducation in attitudes towards sexuality and sensuality which it said was necessary to combat pornography. “The Church defines the role of women as almost subhuman, yet on the other hand takes a very strict moralistic stand on pornography which is the symptom of its sexist institution,” said one of the spokesmen for the group, Mr Andrew Dakers.

Another member of the

group, Mrs Pat Matheson, said social attitudes needed to change before pornography could be dealt with effectively. To do this education must become one of the main thrusts.

“In spite of the sex education they have brought into schools, they teach it completely out of context of the human, sensual relationship that should go with it. “Sex is not just contraception and biology. Until they teach sex education within the context of human relationships, it will always be distorted,” Mrs Matheson said.

The group said pornography stemmed from the attitudes towards sexuality that took the natural sensual relationship between a man and woman and turned it into a meaningless “flesh” relationship.

“The Church needs to address sexuality and sexism in order to help change these attitudes,” said Mrs Matheson. The Justice and Peace group urged men to look

at their attitudes towards women and their expectations of themselves. Their submission said today’s society encouraged males to regard violence and, sexual prowess as socially acceptable and this had to change.

"Our dream is that pornography and distorted sexuality will become socially unacceptable. If it can be achieved for smoking, it can be achieved for pornography,” said Mr Dakers.

The group’s submission said pornography had a desensitising effect which deemed it necessary to present more and more perversion of human sexuality in order to hold audience attention. Child pornography and sexual violence were quoted as the greatest areas of concern.

Ways in which people could lodge complaints about pornography needed to be reviewed by the committee so that the public could participate in eliminating pornography, the group said.