Better the Disaster You Can See that the One You Can't
The Vatican Pontifical Council for Culture is putting together a program entitled "Women's Culture: Equality and Difference." To kick-off that project, they chose the following image for the cover for their program: I cannot fathom why they thought this was a good idea. The argument half-heartedly offered by the Vatican --that this represents "woman as a subjugated sex object, but also as a creature who rises above men’s depictions" only makes the situation worse, insofar as the actual decision-making of the conference will reside entirely with men. So, I suppose one could argue the description is on-point, though not in a manner the Vatican would celebrate. This is only the latest of a series of farcical missteps associated with this conference. The spokeswoman for the conference, an Italian actress named Nancy Brilli, was used in a promotional video so strange and tone-deaf that the English version was officially removed due to protests. You ...