Did the washing machine liberate women?

I hope that my women readers had a great day yesterday when we were celebrating the International Women’s Day. Unfortunately, even in our quite new 21st century women continue to suffer from inequality many of them going through terrible lives. To the point that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week that one woman in five around the globe has been a victim of rape or attempted rape, and that in some countries one woman in three has been beaten or subjected to some kind of violent act. If this was not so terrible, we could have had some fun reading an article that appeared in the official Vatican newspaper, the Osservatore Romano. For those of you who are ardent feminists, or maybe for all women, I would advise to sit down before reading about it.
In a lengthy article titled “The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax”, the Vatican was more or less asking women to give thanks for the washing machine. The novel idea behind the article was that this domestic appliance had done more for the women’s liberation movement that working outside the home or even the contraceptive pill!
Talking with some girl friends today about this, we were all wondering if it was a tongue-in cheek article, but in the Vatican newspaper? I cannot see priests, or even higher up members of the catholic church making fun about the women’s liberation. Whatever it was, while this opinion was maybe issued by the Vatican, women rallied around the world to demand equal rights and protest domestic violence, one of the scourges that women still suffer in many countries.
The article in any case provoked angry denunciations as the one from Paola Concia, an Italian MP from the Democratic Party who said: “Instead of entering into an abstract debate on gender, it would be better if L’Osservatore Romano discussed reality, such as the fear in which many women still live when they are in the streets and between the walls of their own homes.”