Feminism and Religion

November 2025 Report: Under the Clerical Regime, Nowhere Is Safe for Women in Iran, part 1

Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking this link. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post.

Women Are Killed in Iran with Complete Impunity

November 2025 Report: Under the Clerical Regime, Nowhere Is Safe for Women in Iran

Under the rule of Iran’s misogynistic clerical regime, Iranian women, from childhood to old age, are unsafe in all spaces and circumstances. If they manage to escape the brutality of security forces in the streets, they may still fall victim in their homes to so-called “honor suspicions,” resisting forced marriage, requesting a divorce, or even attempting to defend their own rights. Many of these killings take place in front of children or other family members, feeding a cycle of violence across generations. Among the victims are pregnant women or mothers killed alongside their children.

Monthly November 2025_EN Download

Beatings and torture of women in prisons, firing pellets into the eyes of protesting women, sexual assault in detention centers, and the attacks by morality police patrols enforcing compulsory hijab in public all legitimize and encourage violence against women inside the home and within families.

Ozymandias and Other Patriarchal Ego-isms by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822

There has been discussion of what to name Trump’s ever-expanding ballroom. Some have suggested naming it after Epstein. I would suggest naming it after Ozymandias from Shelley’s poem.

There is something about building projects that feed to the patriarchal ego. The Patriarchal ego stands on permanence, largess and if that involves crushing those “below” them, that is just how it is. Pre-patriarchal pagan systems focus on the cycles of life and are based on an understanding that impermanence is what life is all about. Life works on cyclic movement. The seasons, the moon, the sun, the stars, all is in motion and all presages different aspects of the wheel of life.

Caravanserai and Other Poems by Annelinde Metzner

This set of poems reflects on ways we humans have responded creatively, expansively and artistically to the challenges of our times. Of course, two of the poems center upon music, one of the strongest themes of my own life. The first and last poems are ways that the natural world is always knocking at the door, saying, “pay attention.”

Like this

“Like this,” says the titmouse,
hanging upside down to get at the suet.
“If you really want it, there it is.”
“Like this,” says the January sun,
one day icing us to our bones,
and today like Spring,
warm enough for rides
on little boys’ new scooters.
“Like this,” say the squirrels,
entranced with each other,
whirling ’round the branches,
twining fluffy tails,
intent on making new Squirrel babies.
“Like this,” says the chickadee,
landing near my toe,
tiny and brave, ready to eat,
scolding me to get out of the way.
“You are here to live,
so live.”

The Littlest Balsam by Sara Wright

Five years ago
I dug a seedling
in protest
ki’s deep green
needles
slender trunk
and roots
yielded
to sweet
spring earth
with prayers.

I believed.

One winter night
I will celebrate
your life
the lives of
thousands
with a
candlelit
spiral
of tiny white lights.

Tonight
white flames
adorn you
old longings
and heartbreak
we share the same
root
stilled by
simple beauty
a single
reflection
of Love.

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: “Oh For a Pair of Clean Dry Warm Socks”

This was originally posted on Jan. 15, 2018

Stories about refugees in the island of Lesbos (where I live) are no longer front page news. Yet according the United Nations Refugee Agency, 12, 742 refugees arrived here in 2017. This number is equivalent to 15% of the year-around population of the island. Though this number is huge, it does not compare to the estimated 91,506 arrivals in Lesbos in 2016. In January 2018, 7572 refugees are estimated to be stranded in the island waiting for their applications for asylum to be processed. The government-controlled reception center has a capacity of 2000, but up to three times that number are being housed there at any one time, in conditions that must be described as inhumane. It is suspected that “someone” in Greece or the European Union is slowing the asylum process in order to discourage refugees from attempting to enter the EU via Lesbos.

Recently I have begun to work with the Starfish Foundation, a local non-profit helping refugees on the island, using my skills as a writer to help with outreach. Today I share with the FAR community a blog I wrote to contextualize the desperation of the situation the refugees find themselves in.

A Celebration of Gender Studies for the First Night of Ḥanukah.

On the 21st of November, I took part in a faculty panel as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the Gender Studies Master’s Program, the program in which I teach, at the Faculty of Humanities (FHS) at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. The event featured the afore-mentioned faculty panel, a panel of program graduates, and an invited lecture entitled “Care as Taking Part,” by Prof. Estelle Ferrarese of the Institut Universitaire de France, organized in cooperation with CEFRES and CETE-P. After the formal part of the program, we all enjoyed refreshments and socializing with current and former students, faculty, and staff.

Perhaps the reader of this blog has not heard about the existence of a Gender Studies Master’s Program in the heart of Central Europe. I would like to take some time in my post this month to explain what we do and why we are, in the spirit of Ḥanukah, bringing more light into the world.

Hanukah and Enough Already by Winifred Nathan

As I prepare for the Hanukah celebration this year, the word that resonates with me is “enough.” I will light candles for eight nights, recalling that in the beginning, there was not enough oil to rededicate the temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, but then there was enough.

How much is enough? The dictionary tells us that enough means having as much or as many of something as required.

During the government shutdown when SNAP was at risk, we learned that one in eight Americans qualify for the program, revealing how many people are food-insecure in our country. The one in eight includes the working poor, disabled, and children. Their issue is quantitative: the amount of food they can afford does not provide adequate nourishment. On the spectrum of enough, they are on the shortage end. Just as the temple needed more oil to be rededicated, they need more food to sustain themselves.

The Perfection of Our Imperfection by Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks. Heyoka

Prufrock Again

In this our divine
Comedy of delight
Of destruction
Troubled waters
Calm. Quenching
Us yet again
For in
Our penchant
For beauty
We remake
Over and over again
The tale that tries to
Tame us. Gathering
In circles of hope
Once more we remember
How we remember

From the Archives: New and Old Queer Frontiers – Redefining Sacred Space by John Erickson

This was originally posted January 31, 2012

Queer. Sacred. Profane. Bar Culture.

One might not easily associate all four of those words in the same category, but Dr. Marie Cartier, a Professor at California State University Northridge, has crossed numerous boundaries in her search for the sacred in the pre-Stonewall Butch-Femme/Gay Women’s bar culture in twentieth century America.

A radical queer pioneer in the fields of both Women’s and Queer Studies in Religion, Marie has become a hero of mine during my time at Claremont Graduate University and in my personal journey as a male queer scholar in these fields.

As an activist, Marie has concentrated a majority of her work on activism and its involvement in shaping one’s identity as well as the world in which we occupy. Although the majority of Marie’s work concentrated on her personal interactions with butch, femme, and gay women, her interactions are transcending from being strictly personal to digital. Continue reading “From the Archives: New and Old Queer Frontiers – Redefining Sacred Space by John Erickson”

Winter Lessons, by Molly M. Remer

Yes, it is December
already and again.
Let yourself notice the milkweed pods,
how they have split their sides
and are sending silky white seed fluffs
into the waiting air.
Witness the trees,
bare and gray and patient.
Watch the squirrels,
tails puffed against the chill,
stored nuts in their cheeks.
Listen to the wind
how it whispers and rattles
through the empty branches.
Watch the clouds,
slow-moving white billows
in a pale blue sky.
Be patient with yourself.
Grant yourself grace.
Remember the three invitations
of the solstice season:
to listen,
to wonder,
to be content.
Remember your promise
to keep company with joy.
Remember your vow
to be in devotion
to your own life.
Think about everything
there is to do.
Open your hands.
Feel that thin, whispering
winter wind
skim over your palms.
Take a deep breath.
Allow yourself to marvel
at all this year
has held.
Bless it.
Thank it.
Cup your hands
around your own face.
Say: thank you.
Here you are in the center
of your own life’s unfolding.
There is nowhere else to be.
Be gentle with yourself.
Invite the winter crone to tea.
Look into her eyes.
See yourself reflected there,
your own winter eyes open
to the possibility
of both clarity and delight.

I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. In the summer, I compiled a post with 13 summer lessons from 13 years of posts here at FAR. I decided to bookend that post with a Winter Lessons post as well. Here are thirteen lessons to share from past winter posts: