Activism – Page 10 – Feminism and Religion

From the Archives: The Way We Are Created: Eco-feminist Explorations of Bodily Hair by Tallessyn Grenfell-Lee

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted May 29, 2012. You can visit it here to see the original comments.

In the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about hair. It’s hard to avoid thinking about it when you are the greyest, hairiest woman in your suburban, north shore town. Myself and the other two ‘all natural’ women in town stand out like beacons among a sea of smooth, streaked, glossy manes of gorgeously cut and styled hair. And each spring, I stare at my shorts and tank top a little longer before wearing them around town. I’ll be perfectly honest – I don’t blame those slaves to fashion one bit. Although I try to avoid what I call the ‘crazy witch woman’ look, there’s no getting around it – smooth legs look slick, and dye smooths out those grey frizzies and takes a good ten years off your age!

From the Archives: Does the Term “Women of Color” Bother You? By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted August 11, 2015. You can visit it here to see the original comments.

I recently came back from a weeklong camping retreat for Christian faculty and their families in beautiful Catalina (an island an hour’s boat ride away from the Southern Californian mainland). This year’s conference theme was “Power Revealed: Gifts, Dangers, and Possibilities.” Not surprisingly, the topics of race, race relations, and institutional racism came-up repeatedly in sessions and informal conversations.

Slaying Dragons Our Own Way, Part II by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm is a Scottish dragon-slayer folk tale with many enticing details linking it to elements of an older culture centering the Earth with a reverence for female spiritual power. You can read a summary of the story and these clues in Part I.

While the tale was obviously not originally meant to reflect the 21st century, it has echoes of our own society’s challenges today, including inequality, injustice, violence, and ecological disaster. It may be a revision of an older story but, not knowing what that story was, we can perhaps re-envision the story to be meaningful for our own time with the characters and practices hinted at in the details. Maybe something like this (I’ve named Assipattle’s unnamed sister Morag) …

Slaying Dragons Our Own Way, Part I by Carolyn Lee Boyd

In winter people traditionally gather around the fire to enjoy stories as the stormy winds thunder outside. Come closer to the hearth as I regale you with Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm, a centuries-old dragon-slayer folk story from Scotland’s Orkney Islands with many Norse elements. On the surface, it is a fairy tale about a village threatened by a gigantic sea serpent and how they responded to this existential threat. Though meant to entertain with its adventure and romance, it also has many details that perhaps link it to older roots of a culture that centered the Earth and healing and revered female spiritual power, all of which are profoundly needed in our own time. If we re-envision the tale through the lens of these clues, we may be able to find guidance for how our own communities — local, national, and global — can more successfully confront profound challenges.

Here is the summarized original tale:

From the Archives:“Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted June 19, 2012. You can visit it to see the original comments here.

I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall. However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it. I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it. He is now long gone; the vagina is now out and proud.

I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology. One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message. I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina. I found myself caught up in its beauty. Its gaze had mesmerized me. The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes. While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary. At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.

Hope Lives in the Twinkling of the Stars by Carolyn Lee Boyd

For millennia, we humans have found hope in the dark of winter through holidays featuring lights or the sun such as the Winter Solstice, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Soyal, Christmas, and others. As the people of our beautiful, fragile planet celebrate these traditions in these perilous and momentous times, I have been wondering what fresh perspectives on hope our global goddess myths and stories can offer.

Let’s start with the Greek goddess of hope, Elpis. In the Greek Pandora’s story as usually told, Elpis/hope is all that is left for humanity after Pandora lets misery escape into the world by opening her box, However, according to Patricia Monaghan in her New Book of Goddesses and Heroines, originally Pandora was the ever-abundant Earth goddess and her box was a pithos, a clay jar used to store food, but also remains of the dead awaiting rebirth. In her Roman incarnation as Spes, the goddess of hope also served Fortuna, the goddess of destiny who brings people together to create life. Finally, She is associated with Salus, the goddess of health.

Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: Susan B. Anthony’s Bargain with the Devil

Moderator’s Note: We at FAR have been so fortunate to work along side Carol Christ for many years. She died in July this year from cancer. To honor her legacy as well as allow as many people as possible to read her thought-provoking and important blogs we are pleased to offer this new column to highlight her work. We will be picking out special blogs for reposting. This blog was originally posted November 25, 2019. You can find the original post here to see the original comments along with her responses.

[T]he most grievous wrong ever inflicted on woman has been in the Christian teaching that she was not created equal to man, and the consequent denial of her rightful place in Church and State. –Matilda Joslyn Gage, Woman, Church, and State, 1893, page 1

I do not approve of their [referring to Gage and Stanton] system of fighting the religious dogmas of people I am trying to convert to my doctrine of equal rights to women. –Susan B. Anthony to Olympia Brown, following the disputed merger of the radical National Women’s Suffrage Association with the conservative American Women’s Suffrage Association in 1889

Join the Resistance by Mary Sharratt

“Rest is resistance,” journalist Cassady Rosenblum wrote in her recent essay in the New York Times , entitled “Work is a False Idol.”

This statement completely undermines our American work ethic that elevates productivity to the highest altar. Rosenblum, a journalist who left a high stress job, wrote lyrically of the happiness she discovered just sitting on her parents’ porch in West Virginia. Some of her readers were up in arms—how dare she hang out on a porch when she could be working? Who does she think she is? Rosenblum received such a bashing in the comments section, you’d think she was Marie Antoinette torturing puppies.

Rest is a four-letter word, as un-American as Communists were in the 1950s. If you want to provoke the rage of strangers on the internet, publicly praise the joys of taking a sabbatical.

The Return of the Exile by Mary Gelfand

A few years ago I encountered a Norwegian folktale titled “Prince Lindworm.” This tale was completely new to me and aspects of it have lingered as I contemplate the future of my country.

In “Prince Lindworm,” a childless Queen wants an heir and follows the advice of the Wise Woman she meets in her garden. The Wise Woman tells the Queen where to find two magical roses, instructs her to eat only one, and warns that she “will be sorry” if she eats both. The Queen, of course, eats both and gives birth to twin boys. The elder child emerges as a serpent or lindworm and immediately disappears into the forest. Only the Queen witnesses this birth and, as this is not the child she wants to parent, she remains silent. The second boy is beautiful and healthy and grows into a fine young man. When he is of age to seek a wife, his path is blocked by his unknown exiled brother, Prince Lindworm, who has grown into a massive, repulsive serpent and claims his right to have a bride first. The Queen admits her failure to follow the Wise Woman’s advice and the kingdom must cope with the knowledge that the heir to the throne is an exile.

The Tree of Equality in the Forest of Harmony by Carolyn Lee Boyd

For millennia, people have struggled for gender and many other kinds of equality, with progress achingly slow and sometimes regressing. Egalitarian societies have existed and do exist, such as those described by Marija Gimbutas and Heide Goettner-Abendroth and others. So why does a 21st century egalitarian world seem so far away? Sometimes looking at challenges from a fresh perspective can be illuminating as well as inspiring for the long journey ahead. So, what if we envision equality as a tree, those wondrous beings that make life on earth possible and symbolize our world in so many cultures? What are the roots, the source truths which lead to all forms of equality and, if embraced by everyone, would make equality an assumed fact of life? What is the trunk where the roots manifest as positive supports for equality work? What are the branches, our acts reaching up towards our greatest aspirations for a truly equal society?

Let’s start with the roots, the basic statement from which all forms of equality grow. To me it is “All participate in the essential life force of the universe and are therefore inherently, completely, and infinitely valuable.” “Essential life force of the universal” may or may not refer to a deity, depending on individual beliefs, but it does have a spiritual element in that it relates our individual existence to that universal essence which gave us life, connects us to all other beings, and is beyond any personal characteristics. You may have a different root statement but I think that any root statement is more powerful with a spiritual element.