To See Ourselves in Others: Part Two by Beth Bartlett

Part 1 was posted yesterday. You can read it here.

Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.[i] – Carol Christ

In Part I, I urged against the distancing that intellectual analysis can bring to situations that require us to respond from the depths of our being, and yet, how can one be a reader of this blog and not examine the intertwining strands of patriarchy, religion, women, and war in this current conflict.

These “holy” lands have been fought over for millennia.  Their history is that of continual conquest, occupation, displacement, and war waged by kingdoms and nation-states ancient and modern – from the Canaanites, Hebrews, and Assyrians to the Romans, Turks, European Crusaders, British, and Egyptians – most often in the name of religion – whether Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. We see the persistence of patriarchal militarism in contemporary conceptions of nation as militarized ‘manhood,’ expectations that women will breed soldiers and citizens for the nation, and the heightened toll of war for women.[ii] One would think that rule of war and warrior gods was as inevitable as the rule of men over women.  But that is the fallacy that has limited the possibility of peace and justice.  We have been too steeped, too well-trained in patriarchal systems of thought even to question this inevitability. 

Historian Gerda Lerner has argued that long immersion in patriarchal thought and symbol systems has limited our ability to conceive of alternatives. However, “to step outside of patriarchal thought means: Being skeptical toward every known system of thought; being critical of all assumptions, ordering values and definitions.”[iii] This is exactly what she did in challenging the accepted views of historians, showing through her research that another way was and is possible.  While the archeological and historical evidence bear out Christ’s definition of patriarchy — showing the concurrent rise of organized warfare, hierarchical governing and class structures with certain men at the top, and the institution of slavery; societal change from matrilineal and matrifocal to patrilineal and patrilocal; the institution of laws controlling female sexuality; and the displacement of goddess religions by male warrior gods; it also shows that before the rise of patriarchal-warrior societies, this war-torn region was home to egalitarian, peaceful, creative goddess-worshipping societies.[iv] As Christ concludes in her series on patriarchy, “Patriarchy arose in history. This means it is neither natural nor inevitable.”[v]

Ecofeminist Susan Griffin also stepped outside patriarchal systems by inquiring into the inevitability of war, the shaping of men to militarism, the bombing of civilians, and the amassing of ever-more destructive weaponry.[vi]  She demonstrates how these outcomes are the accumulation  of small decisions – each of which could have been decided differently if we could but lift the curtain on the secrets and silences that have shaped our inability or unwillingness to challenge the Western habit of mind.

Carol Christ stepped outside the patriarchal box in her proposition of an alternative theology and ethic to the one shaped by patriarchal notions of a divinity separate and apart from the rest of creation.  This ethic,[vii] that recognizes the essential valuing of all beings, in her words, “calls into question much of modern life that is based on the acceptance of the inevitability of war, and on the exploitation of other people, of plants, animals, the rest of nature.”[viii]

Calling into question the inevitability of war, Palestinian and Israeli women worked out detailed treaties for peace between their countries decades ago. Yet, in the official of the 1995 Oslo peace accords, women were mostly absent. One must wonder, if the women’s resolutions had been implemented instead, might the region have found a more lasting and just peace?

Women have largely been left out of all peace processes. According to the UN Secretary-General’s 2021 Women and Peace and Security Report, “between 1992 and 2019, women were, on average, 13% of negotiators, 6% mediators, and 6% of signatories in major peace processes worldwide. About seven out of every ten peace processes did not include any women mediators or women signatories.“[ix]  It is possible that women’s perspectives are so steeped in patriarchal thought that had they been included, the outcome  would be no different, but perhaps these were women who had broken free of patriarchal mindbindings.[x]

Feminist peace advocate Jo Velacott has written, “I am a member of an oppressed minority; I have no way of making you listen to me; I turn to terrorism. I am a dictator, yet I cannot force you to think as I want you to; I fling you in jail, starve your children, . . . Or I am the President of the United States; with all the force at my command I know of no way to make sure that developing nations . . . will dance to my tune; so I turn to the use of food as a political weapon, as well as building ever more armaments. Violence is resourcelessness.”[xi]  

Perhaps the resource most missing is that of voices willing to challenge the status quo; or the valuing of characteristics of “care, love, and generosity,” often dismissed as too soft, too feminine;[xii]  or the capacity to question, to think another way is possible. Or perhaps it is our ability to see ourselves in others. To think that we have such capacities may seem naïve at best, impossible at worst. But as Christ wrote, “. . . the difficulty of comprehending how to implement an ethic based upon reverence and respect for all life forms within the web of life should not lead us to dismiss it as romantic or impractical.”[xiii] Indeed, we may well find therein the very thing necessary to bring healing peace and justice.

References

Birth control, contraception and abortion in Gaza (newarab.com)

Christ, Carol. 2013. Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War by Carol P. Christ (feminismandreligion.com)

Christ, Carol. 1989. “Rethinking Theology and Nature.” In Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality.  Ed. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 314-325.

Daly, Mary. 1978. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press.

Griffin, Susan. 1992. A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War. New York: Doubleday.

Israel’s abortion law now among world’s most liberal – The Times of Israel

Klein, Uta. 1998. “War and Gender: What Do We Learn from Israel?” in In The Women and War Reader. Eds. Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press. 148-154.

Lerner, Gerda. 1986. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peterson, V. Spike. 1998. “Gendered Nationalism: Reproducing ‘Us” versus ‘Them.’” In The Women and War Reader. Eds. Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press. 41 -49.

Svirsky, Gila. 1998. “The Impact of Women in Black in Israel.” In The Women and War Reader. Eds. Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press. 329-336.

United Nations (2021). Women and peace and security: Report of the Secretary-General (S/2021/827), para. 15. Data come from the Council on Foreign Relations, Women’s participation in peace processes.

Velacott, Jo. 1982. “Women, Peace, and Power.” In Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence. Ed. Pam McAllister. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers. 30-41.

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[i] Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 1 by Carol P. Christ (feminismandreligion.com).  See also Parts 2 and 3.

[ii] According to Uta Klein, the “diasporic Jew” was perceived as “passive and effeminate.” Under Zionism, it was important to image the heroes as “fighters.” She also quotes former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion as saying “women have a special mission as mothers.” In Israel, any woman seeking an abortion must seek permission from a 3-person panel, and though permission is almost always granted, she must still get approval from the state.  In defending Israel’s decision to subsidize abortion care, Dr. Yonaton Halevy, leader of the state Health Ministry was quick to add, “We want large families in Israel. We definitely encourage birth. In Palestine, Sharia law governs laws surrounding marriage – polygyny of up to four wives is allowed, sexual assault – in which until 2018 encouraged the victim of rape to marry her rapist in order not to dishonor her family in a country where honor killings still occur, and contraception and abortion are not allowed, though still practiced.  Abortion had become a particularly sensitive issue during times of increased violence, with “replacement fertility” become a common idea, in order to “compensate for the loss of martyrs.” See also the most recent updates from Human Rights Watch. view.takeaction.hrw.org/?qs=ea53ae9d4a1e554e66d32b548f3026efc1dbc7b968c3fd1e2442604e1455093ef7931cb33a52ef11cedeccb0037f15836f582c1e48f35b486061d4c877ef829d859439bb20be1b38

[iii] Creation of Patriarchy, 228.

[iv] In her The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner shows how the record points to the abduction, natal alienation, dishonoring through rape, and creating loyalties through impregnation of the female populace of peoples defeated in battle; the creation of division among women through a system of status hierarchies – whether wife, concubine, or slave — depending on one’s relationship to the male head of household.  She also argued that changes in society to kingship and military leadership led to changes in religion, with men turning to male god symbols to justify their new place in society(152).  She provides example after example of Mother-Goddesses being replaced by male gods who increasingly resemble an earthly king.  Former Earth goddesses –from the Mesopotamium Damkina and Ninlil, to the Sumerian Ki, the Babylonian Tiamat, and the Canaanite Anath — are now represented as daughters and wives of male gods. Along with religious symbology, religious and civil laws and codes were put in place to insure the control of women’s sexuality and reproduction. Of the 282 laws in Code of Hammurabi, 73 pertained on marriage and sexual matters, as do 59 of the 112 Middle Assyrian Laws.  The Hebraic laws, encoded a few centuries later, followed the model of these earlier codes. Women’s reproductive capacities become the property of men.  Wives are expected to be virgins until marriage and then owe their complete fidelity to their husbands, who have no such strictures on their behavior.  Only the wife is possible of adultery, a crime punishable by drowning or stoning. Rape is considered a property crime against the husband or father and if the woman cannot prove she resisted, her father or husband may do to her what he wishes.  In Middle Assyrian law, a virgin daughter would be expected to marry her rapist. If a woman causes her own miscarriage, “and charge and proof have been brought against her, she shall be impaled and shall not be buried” (Middle Assyrian Law). This was the most severe punishment, on the same level as treason.

[v] Patriarchy As An Integral System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 3 (feminismandreligion.com)

[vi] See her A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War.

[vii] “ . . . that our task is to love and understand, to live for a time, to contribute as much as we can to the continuation of life, to the enhancement of beauty, joy, and diversity, while recognizing inevitable death, loss, and suffering. . . . to understand and value the lives of all other beings, human and nonhuman – and to understand that we are limited by the values inherent in other beings (“Rethinking Theology, 321).

[viii] Christ, “Rethinking Theology,” 322.

[ix] United Nations (2021). Women and peace and security: Report of the Secretary-General (S/2021/827), para. 15. Data come from the Council on Foreign Relations, Women’s participation in peace processes.

[x] “Mindbindings” Mary Daly coined in her Gyn/Ecology.

[xi][xi] Velacott, 32. She was trying to make sense of a comment of a friend/Friend, Ursula Franklin, that violence is resourcelessnes. This was her reflection on that.

[xii] These are the characteristics Heidi Goettner-Abendroth identified as qualities of matriarchies, and the ones Christ suggests we need to adopt.

[xiii] “Rethinking Theology,” 322.