Activism – Page 26 – Feminism and Religion

Looking for a Mouth to Tell the Story by Esther Nelson

In Chinua Achebe’s novel, THINGS FALL APART, Okonkwo, a proud, hard-working, albeit quick-tempered tribesman living in the village of Umuofia, fires a gun at Ekwefi, one of his three wives, almost killing her. Chielo, a widow with two children, who also serves as the priestess of Agbala, Oracle of the Hills and Caves, asks Ekwefi, “Is it true that Okonkwo nearly killed you with his gun?”

Ekwefi replies, “It is true indeed, my dear friend. I cannot yet find a mouth with which to tell the story.”

I love Ekwefi’s turn of phrase as she responds to Chielo. Shaken, distraught, and outraged over being shot at by her fiery husband, she “cannot yet find a mouth with which to tell the story.” That’s exactly how I feel these days.

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Faith in Action by Lisa Kloskin

Nearly a month ago, American voters showed up at the polls and delivered some big wins: the first openly transgender person was elected to a statehouse—Danica Roem in Virginia. Roem defeated an incumbent candidate who authored an anti-trans bathroom bill. Also in Virginia: the boyfriend of a reporter shot and killed on live TV, Chris Hurst, won a seat to the statehouse on a gun-control platform, defeating the three-term NRA-backed incumbent. And Hoboken, New Jersey, got its first Sikh mayor: Ravi Bhalla. These and others are encouraging signs that love and tolerance are gaining ground in the public sphere. But there’s still so much work to do. White Supremacists and Nazis still walk boldly in the streets, LGBTQIA teens still face bullying and higher rates of self-harm, women are still paid less for equal work and harassed in every arena, sea levels are rising at faster rates than we previously thought, people of color are still being killed by police, mass shootings are still a regular part of our news cycle, refugees are still waiting in camps around the world for a chance at a better, safer life.

Activists and advocates have been working for justice in these and other areas for decades. In the last year, spurred on by events like the Women’s March, a growing group of would-be activists has emerged. These allies are a welcome addition to the justice movement, but many worry they won’t do or say the right things, and want to have their perspectives deepened on important issues. They need guides and resources to give them the knowledge, tools, and confidence to make a real impact.

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Small Business Saturday: Feminist Gift Guide for the Holidays by Angela Yarber

Wondering what to give the revolutionaries in your life for the holidays? Want to support feminist small businesses as you shop? Need some creative ideas with powerful feminist history and theory embedded in each purchase? Would it help if the gifts fused together feminism and religion? The Holy Women Icons Project, Lagusta Luscious, and Bloodroot Feminist Vegetarian Restaurant has plenty of ways for you to celebrate the holidays with empowering gifts to please feminist in your life.

The feminist non-profit Holy Women Icons Project seeks to empower marginalized women by telling the stories of revolutionary holy women through art, writing, and special events. For over five years, a different holy woman has been featured each month on Feminism and Religion; we became an official non-profit earlier this year; and we have some beautiful, creative, and empowering offerings suitable for the holidays.

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Freedom and Speech by Sara Frykenberg

Feminist theories and theo/alogies are often concerned with voice, naming and re-membering. Many feminists do this work, again and again, because of persistent silence and silencing, invisibility, erasure of stories, desires, religions and ways of being, because of missing histories, and a dominating culture’s inability and unwillingness to hear those they marginalize. We “hear each other into speech,” to counteract and recreate, to find power in ourselves and with those whom we share common cause.

We hear each other into ….speech.

Speech is treated as a sacred thing; and certainly, I hold the stories and voices of those with whom I’ve shared parts of my own feminist journey very sacred. I find the ability ‘to voice’ sacred. But I am also aware that as a citizen of the United States, “speech” or more specifically, “freedom of speech,” is sacralized as a part of my national mythology.

It is an implicit myth: all one needs to do is utter the word “speech” in the United States to conjure images of protest, civil rights, the free press, revolution, etc. There are many heroes in this mythology, most of whom “spoke truth to power,” rebuffing domination for the “common good.” The ‘free speaker,’ is often cast as the subjugated “everyman” (sic) whose autonomy and purpose drive society towards greater freedom. “He” and “his” subjugation, real or “alternative fact,” are then made to serve the larger myth of the American Dream. There is a major problem here: “the American Dream” is about freedom and independence for the white, Western male. So is it any wonder, then, that the myths surrounding “freedom of speech,” are so easily turned around to villianize those who might challenge this hegemonic power? Continue reading “Freedom and Speech by Sara Frykenberg”

“We Say the Silence Has Been Broken” by Carol P. Christ

We treat the physical assault and the silencing after as two separate things, but they are the same, both bent on annihilation. Rebecca Solnit

When I was in my twenties and in therapy I had a recurrent dream in which a strange man was chasing me and caught up with me and started to strangle me and I could not scream. I was asked to act this dream out by my therapist, who told me that this time I would scream. I could not. She got up and came over and put her hands around my neck and started to squeeze. I still could not scream.

Two decades later I had a dream in which I was a baby and suffocating in my crib. I asked my current therapist if she thought someone had tried to suffocate me when I was an infant. Her answer was simple: “There is no need to think about this happening when you were an infant. You have been silenced all your life.” Continue reading ““We Say the Silence Has Been Broken” by Carol P. Christ”

Academics and Activism by Ivy Helman

unnamed Two weeks ago, I spoke at a conference entitled “The Role of Academia and Religious Leaders in Relation to Refugees and the ‘Refugee Crisis,’” in Bratislava, Slovakia. One of the main questions of the conference was: what role do academics play in the refugee crisis? Are academics activists? Many conference presenters and attendees directly linked the two ideas. However, there were some who voiced their concern as to how in-touch academics actually are with reality and surmised that because of this academics probably weren’t activists. Wait! What? How can we not be activists?

On the way to the first night’s dinner, I had a conversation with someone who did not see academics as activists. Why? The response I got was that academic research functioned in a way that was largely inaccessible to the public and therefore academic work, academic participation in conferences as well as publishing was, for lack of a better word, unrealistic and impractical. It would seem that some people are quite convinced that most academics are quite content being situated in that proverbial ivory tower. Continue reading “Academics and Activism by Ivy Helman”

The Feminine Mystique and Marx by Elisabeth Schilling

Betty Friedan interviewed the unhappy housewives, their human potential unfulfilled by a lack of vocation outside the home. I wonder if her claim was just a premise of the lawn being more manicured on the other side. The book received criticism by reviewers asking who was really oppressed and what perspectives were ignored. I’ve been on a few lawns, and I am here to confirm there is no true green grass anywhere. Mostly it’s either covered with the blood of women who die in the Global South because of the poor working conditions that pay them too little to support their families or laced with pesticides for profit or sheets of concrete to the dismay of our feet. I suppose there might green grass somewhere, but it costs more than some of us can afford, meaning a woman would have to earn more than what is only enough to rent a room in someone else’s house, an apartment of her own being too expensive much less any sort of fund for a cabin in the woods.

I also want to talk about the middle class. Work is important. I agree with Friedan to the extent that we need something to do that inspires us, that gives us purpose. Marx liked work too. But he critiqued the capitalist tendency to cause an imbalance in the lives of the working classes. In The Grundrisse, he says, “The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power.” Continue reading “The Feminine Mystique and Marx by Elisabeth Schilling”

How Do We Heal Rape Culture? Part 2: How to Help Men Become Safer by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

In Part 1, I presented a spectrum of male behaviors and attitudes, from violently misogynistic to safe ally. Next it is time to think about how we – as women, male allies, and society – can help men move up that scale to become increasingly safer for women. The strategies will differ depending on where a man starts out. However, using current research about change theory, we can find some concrete strategies to help us start to make progress.

The Research

Social scientists have conducted many studies about persuasion and social change, and I encourage everyone to follow these research trends. For this piece, I will focus on a few simple ideas about what works. I’m gearing this advice mainly toward men who want to become safer and to help other men become safer, but some of it applies to women as well. It also applies to religious communities – if they prioritize this issue, the men who attend will learn to be safer.

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At the Altar of the Muses by Natalie Weaver

I was asked by my sculpture teacher to make a monument. “A monument to what,” I asked? “Anything,” he answered. The only parameter seemed to be that the work was produced in wood. Having seen some interesting stone and marbleizing paints, I had the immediate idea to transform the wood into a marble-like appearance. Marble, for some reason, probably because it is the cemetery standard, seemed like the right medium for a monument to me.

All the students in the class intuitively thought of death-related concepts. A monument to death itself was suggested. A monument to failed works of art, another student offered. A monument to broken tools. Several students suggested something like coffins, since, well, they are made of wood. I thought of death too at first. I asked myself whom was I wanting to pedestalize, monumentalize, and memorialize.

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