abuse – Page 17 – Feminism and Religion

Dandelion Warriors, Incest Survival and An Artist Statement on That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier

I have blogged excerpts from my novel That Christmas Morning Feeling in progress previously—the first excerpt here and additional ones here and here. This blog serves as an “artist statement” regarding the novel in progress.

I want to discuss in this blog thoughts on my own creative process—how a project can percolate for years (this one for well over ten years) and be in pieces in several places (handwritten, hard drives, on a laptop, here in FAR) and then some magical “tipping point” comes that creates the necessary conditions to put other things aside and work on that project, birthing it forward.

Certainly the death of both my parents in one year, and the resulting fallout in the last two years, complicated relationship struggles both to be sure, prompted me to want to write this novel and put it out into the world in a finished form, which is what I’m trying to accomplish now.

This book is not an autobiography…it’s not “my story.” But, to be sure, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and the feelings and experiences from that time have been published in autobiographical form in my poetry book, I Am Your Daughter, Not Your Lover, a play (of the same title, while much of this dramatic work is out of print, my work is catalogued at UCLA; here is the finding aid) based on the book produced in Los Angeles, and a one woman show I did entitled Blessed Virgin. I also created the activism project, Dandelion Warrior, which awarded medals to survivors who came to my numerous readings in the nineties who were willing to give up the option of suicide. To date I awarded well over a thousand buttons/medals to survivors in the States and internationally. When the buttons ran out I simply shook hands with the survivors who were willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with me and make the commitment to stay on the planet.

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I was the first artist the state of California awarded an Artist in Residence grant to, to work specifically with incest survivors, and I worked also with women from forced marriages, and also prostitutes, creating dialogues with them and with survivors of childhood sexual abuse and created projects that showcased their voices coming together in the struggle for survival. I performed slam poetry about incest survival when it was just called reading poetry in bars; I did one woman shows and got flack in my reviews, as well as praise. For instance, one reviewer simply said “Speak Repressed Memory,” as he went on to say he didn’t believe survivors’ stories coming forward and did not at all review my play or performance except to say I was an “accomplished actress.” The rest of his review was about how he hated incest survival stories, and therefore the reader was to assume also my play.

I continued with my work. Continue reading “Dandelion Warriors, Incest Survival and An Artist Statement on That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier”

Toxic Masculinity: “Masculinity Must Be Killed” by Carol P. Christ

Carol Molivos by Andrea Sarris 2 A few days ago I watched the movie An Unfinished Life starring Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford, and Jennifer Lopez. Though it was recommended as a sensitive psychological drama, and though on the surface level it criticizes (male) violence against women and animals, on a deeper level, it confirms the association of masculinity with violence, suggesting that violence is the way men resolve their problems with each other.

At the beginning of the film, Robert Redford, who lives on a ranch in Montana, picks up his rifle with the intention of shooting a bear who mauled his friend Morgan Freeman. This act of violence is stopped by local authorities who arrive to capture the bear. However, the bear is not removed to a more remote area, but rather is given to a local make-shift zoo where it is kept in a small cage. At the end of the movie, Redford frees the bear after Freeman realizes that it should not be punished for injuring him. The bear is last seen crossing a mountain ridge in the distance.

Redford is grieving the death of his only son who died in an automobile accident while his son’s wife (played by Jennifer Lopez) was driving. After being beaten by her current boyfriend, Jennifer Lopez escapes with her daughter and ends up on Redford’s doorstep, announcing that her daughter is Redford’s granddaughter. Redford, who believes Lopez is responsible for his son’s death, grudgingly allows them to stay.

When Lopez’s boyfriend tracks her down in Montana, Redford drives him out of town, threatening to kill him with his rifle. When the boyfriend comes back, Redford shoots out the tires of his car, smashes the car’s windows with his rifle, and beats the boyfriend bloody before putting him on a bus out of town.

The movie asks us to condemn the boyfriend’s violence against Lopez and Redford’s desire to kill the bear, but it also asks us to condone and even to celebrate Redford’s violent acts against the boyfriend. After all, in this case, justice is done. Right? Continue reading “Toxic Masculinity: “Masculinity Must Be Killed” by Carol P. Christ”

What Traci West Taught Me about Dominant and Excluded Voices by Elise M. Edwards

In my previous post, I mentioned a book I am writing about how theological and ethical considerations in architectural design can define good architecture. In that post and in ones to follow, I am acknowledging the feminists and womanists and mujeristas who have influenced me while also opening up the dialogue to the feminists in this community who continue to inspire and guide me to do my best work.

But today, instead of talking about creativity or architecture, I want to discuss how I arrived at the conviction that community decisions about how we ought to live—whether those are decisions about laws, institutional policies, religious practices or architectural buildings—need to include the voices of the diverse people they directly and indirectly influence. Continue reading “What Traci West Taught Me about Dominant and Excluded Voices by Elise M. Edwards”

Human Trafficking by Valentina Khan

Recently I saw SOLD, a movie based on human trafficking taking place in Nepal and India. Within the first thirty minutes of the movie I was cringing, holding my hands, shrinking into my chair. Naively, I begged the question how families could sell their innocent children to strangers, even if they are fed the lies of working for pay? I am a mother of two children, who are my heart and soul. Deep inside I feel that if we as a family were in desperate times, I would rather sell myself than my children, or I would escape with them, and if we die, we die together. Yes. So extreme. But I can’t fathom letting my children go. Not for any amount of money, no matter how dire times were. I wouldn’t be able to live not knowing where they were, what they were doing, and with who. Just writing this or thinking about it, churns my stomach inside out.

I feel bad to make such statements and appear as if I am passing judgment on these mothers and fathers, who are living in desperate conditions, not knowing what else to do but to sell their flesh and blood to this multi-billion dollar industry. Many are not even aware and might truly believe that their children will go off to earn money for the family. As I write this I have a more informed position, because human trafficking is not a problem concentrated in a certain area of the world, this is a world wide epidemic with mostly women and children being bought and sold not just far away but here in my backyard, Los Angeles, California. Continue reading “Human Trafficking by Valentina Khan”

Novel Excerpt III: That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier

I have posted selections from my novel in progress before here and here and here…I am again. My last post here at FAR was about women and silence. Silencing women—from the powerful (Hillary Clinton) to the obscure (this girl that in this novel excerpt is now a teenager) women are silenced.

In this novel, as you can read from the previous excerpts a journal is found by a brother who is twin to his sister. The journals he finds are addressed to him after his parents’ house sells. Upon reading them he begins to discover that they are written by his sister when she was younger and in all likelihood she does not now as an adult remember having written them. She does not remember what it looks like happened to her. Incest. What must he do? This grown up person that he now is finding this information out? She has been silenced and he is holding the key to the only voice she had at the time. I have been working on this novel for over ten years and am currently immersed in trying to pull together all of the pieces I have written over the years. What I have posted so far is excerpts from the journals he, Chris, finds. This excerpt continues that story line. Continue reading “Novel Excerpt III: That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier”

Women First, Rivals Later by Vibha Shetiya

Vibah Sita, as many know, is the tragic heroine of the Ramayana who gets discarded by her husband Rama because he doubted she had remained chaste while in his arch enemy Ravana’s captivity. Moreover, she is the “ideal Indian woman” in popular imagination because she remains loyal to Rama no matter how unfair his treatment of her. But there is another female character in the epic who meets perhaps a far more violent fate.

Unlike Sita, however, Shurpanakha gets little sympathy from the readers because she does not stick to her socially assigned roles. I would like to talk about Shurpanakha and how she comes to symbolize all women who transgress societal boundaries, while also stressing the fact that although she is often presented as Sita’s opposite, the two share far more in common as women; both Sita and Shurpanakha deserve our compassion and empathy.

In the traditional Sanskrit text, Valmiki describes Shurpanakha as “maddened with desire” when she first beholds Rama’s beauty. The poet then goes into a rather lengthy description of what she is not by comparing her “unsightly” presence with Rama’s exemplary beauty, thereby affirming the fact that she does not deserve to be visible because of the physicality of her body. Upon his enquiring, Shurpanakha tells Rama that she, who roams the forest alone and according to her own will, is the sister of Ravana (who later kidnaps Sita), and she makes it a point to add that she is more powerful than all her brothers. She then declares her undying love for Rama and asks him to be her husband, after which the two of them could seek adventure amid the forest together. Continue reading “Women First, Rivals Later by Vibha Shetiya”

Fear, Guilt, Duplicity, and Cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church by Carol P. Christ

Last week I watched Spotlight, the film about the Boston Globe‘s exposure of priests’ sexual abuse of children, and then I watched it again. There are many reasons for my fascination with this film. I almost always root for the underdog, and in this story the underdog wins. Moreover as a former Catholic (for a period of time) and as part-Irish, I relish an inside glimpse of the machinations of the all-male Church hierarchy and the all-male Irish power structure that supported it in Boston.

Having dealt with child sexual abuse on an almost daily basis while I was teaching women’s studies, I also have a very personal and emotionally-charged relationship to the subject. I was pleased that victims of child sexual abuse were able—after great struggle—to get a hearing. But this I already knew. Continue reading “Fear, Guilt, Duplicity, and Cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church by Carol P. Christ”

Forgiveness is a choice by Vibha Shetiya

Vibah Someone I dearly love recently lent me a very sensible piece of advice: “You should forgive.” I know he resorted to these words out of love because he didn’t like seeing me in pain, a sentiment for which I was and remain grateful. I also know he wasn’t judging me when he brought it up, nor was he pressuring me into doing something I wasn’t ready for.

I truly understand how forgiving someone who has deeply hurt you can set you on the path to freedom. In the sense that forgiveness can loosen the chains that bind you to the past, the anger, the deep sense of betrayal, helping you learn to live again; that forgiveness is not so much about the other person but about the self. I have watched shows in which victims of horrific crimes or their family members have chosen to forgive, not always out of a sense of human bonding towards the aggressor, but because they could not live with the debilitating anger and hatred festering inside, and so chose to forgive to set themselves free. Continue reading “Forgiveness is a *choice* by Vibha Shetiya”

“Spotlight” and the Recovery of a Lost Faith by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

cynthia garrity bond Last week I was finally able to see “Spotlight“, the recent movie depicting the true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation into the priest pedophilia abuses. What makes “Spotlight” so compelling is the shared burden of culpability by those outside the organized Catholic Church. While hunting down the priestly offenders, including Cardinal Bernard Law, “Spotlight” also takes calculated aim at those official offices and individuals that turned a blind eye from the sexual abuse of children. In his NCR review, film critic Steven D. Greydanus praises the film for its ability to include such collaborators as “Lawyers, law enforcement, family members and friends, and pointedly and repeatedly, the fourth estate itself—the press and specifically the Globe – are all implicated.” Which is to say, the sin of silence through a misguided sense of protection of the institution is as damaging as the act itself.

In the Globe’s investigative work, a team of four reporters begins the difficult work of interviewing survivors of sexual abuse. What moved me deeply was the recurrent syllogism expressed by each in their retelling of the abuse at the hands of their parish priest. In the first statement of a syllogism, the major premise is the articulating of the moral principle. Step two, the minor premise, is the particular act to be judged. Step three is the logical conclusion inferred between the major and minor statements. With regard to the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the priesthood and views expressed by survivors, the syllogism looks like this:

Step 1: “By ordination one is enabled to act as a representative of Christ, Head of the Church in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 1581)

Step 2: All priest (as males) reflect Jesus Christ in word and deed.

Step 3: When a priest abuses children it is as if Jesus Christ is also the abuser.

For those survivors interviewed by the Globe, their early religious teaching of the priest as Jesus made Jesus as God a participant in the abuse. Cries of anger over the abuse at the hands of priest who stood in the place of God turned to lament at the losing of ones faith and belief in a benevolent God. Continue reading ““Spotlight” and the Recovery of a Lost Faith by Cynthia Garrity-Bond”

Wisdom Fiction (Part 1) by Elise M. Edwards

“I was born in a strange little country town that may be like all other country towns, but I do not know. It was the world I was born to. The world is such a place that you need special things to understand it. I do not think I am a fool, but I do not understand life. It is like I am always standing in the dark somewhere. It could be on the edge of a cliff by a deep ravine… Or on a flat piece of all the land in the world… and I would not know. I would not know whether to step stand still. Either one could be a danger… When I am alone. Some lives are like that. Depending on the kindness of everybody.”

-from “Feeling for Life “ in Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper

In my previous post, I wrote about the truths we learn from black women’s literary tradition and from listening to the stories of those we too often ignore. Continuing that reflection over the next few months, I’d like to share some of the lessons from J. California Cooper’s short stories. The quote above is taken from the opening paragraph of one of her works.

Continue reading “Wisdom Fiction (Part 1) by Elise M. Edwards”