Feminism and Religion – Page 78 – Feminism and Religion

My Reaction to the Election Results by Elise M. Edwards

I wanted to stay in bed yesterday morning. I wanted to stay in bed for the whole day. When I heard that Trump won the US Presidential election, I didn’t know how to deal with it. How can I accept this reality? I still don’t have an adequate answer.

Turn to prayer? Yes. Do some writing? Ok. I’ll also take every hug and kind word that’s offered to me. And still, my emotions will be raw for a long time. I cry at random moments. My voice catches unexpectedly. I feel that so many Americans embraced a vision of the country that is intensely hostile to people like me (women, African-Americans, Black Lives Matter sympathizers, liberals, intellectuals). How can I not take that personally? Dismissing the harm of Trump’s open hostility or accepting it in deference to some supposedly higher goal feels like rejection too. It justifies and legitimizes his contempt and denies the seriousness of it. Do we really accept a man who speaks so openly of sexual assault because he promises to bring jobs back? That denigrates women and all assault victims. The hatred directed at immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQA persons is even more unrestrained and horrifying!

Continue reading “My Reaction to the Election Results by Elise M. Edwards”

Mother Demdike, Ancestor of My Heart, Part 2 by Mary Sharratt

Continued from Part 1. As I sought to uncover the bones of the cunning woman Mother Demdike’s story, I was drawn into a new world of mystery and magic. It was as though Pendle Hill had opened up like an enchanted mountain to reveal the treasures hidden within. Every stereotype I’d held of historical witches and cunning folk was dashed to pieces. Continue reading “Mother Demdike, Ancestor of My Heart, Part 2 by Mary Sharratt”

Sacred Marriage or Unholy Cover-up? by Carol P. Christ

carol-p-christ-photo-michael-bakas Many women are drawn to the image of the Sacred Marriage—perhaps especially those raised in Roman Catholic or Protestant traditions where sex is viewed as necessary for procreation but nothing more, and who learn that the naked female body as symbolized by Eve is the source of sin and evil. In this context, the positive valuing of sexuality and the female body found in symbols of the Sacred Marriage can feel and even be liberating.

Jungians have claimed that the Sacred Marriage is an archetype of the wedding between the “masculine” and the “feminine.” Many women have been attracted to this idea as well. It “softens” the radical feminist critique of patriarchy and male dominance. Rather than “castrating” the “phallocracy” as Mary Daly urged, we can think in terms of the “marriage” of qualities traditionally associated with male and female roles. Women, it is said, can use a good dose of ego and assertiveness traditionally associated with the masculine, while men need to have their dominating rational egos tempered by feminine qualities like care and compassion. Continue reading “Sacred Marriage or Unholy Cover-up? by Carol P. Christ”

Feminism and Religion Project Intern – Job Description

Project Summary :
Feminism and Religion (FAR), feminismandreligion.com, is a project that brings together multiple feminist voices from around the world to dialogue about the “f-word” in religion and the intersection between scholarship, activism, and community. It was established in the hope that feminist scholars of religion — and all who are interested in these issues — would utilize this forum to share their ideas, insights, and experiences, so that the community of thinkers would be nurtured as diverse and new directions are explored. The project has been incredibly successful in offering such a space and continues to act as a medium for feminist community.

Position Overview:
Feminism and Religion is seeking a creative, industrious, responsible, and highly-organized intern interested in working for a community-oriented collaborative online feminist project. Strong knowledge of the field of feminism and religion, excellent writing and editing skills, and the ability to engage WordPress and other forms of social media is desired. Responsibilities may include website support, reviewing, editing and uploading posts, responding to comments and submission inquiries, recruiting new contributions, and sharing content.
This is an unpaid internship designed to be a learning opportunity for the intern. FAR co-founders will work closely with the intern to help provide a positive learning experience. This internship is a 6 month position, with the option to renew, and will require approximately 10 hours per week.

Values and Expectations:
We work to create and maintain a positive, encouraging, and collaborative environment for Feminism and Religion and its broader community. A FAR intern is expected to value:

diversity
dialogue
collaboration
community building
gender justice

To Apply:
 Please e-mail FAR co-directors at (feminismandreligionblog@gmail.com) with:

Your resume, including 2 references who can speak to your reliability, diligence, organizational style, and responsibility (these can be professional, academic, or scholastic).
A cover letter indicating the reasons you are interested in working with FAR. Please highlight your interest and background in feminism, religion, gender justice issues, and/or gender/race/sexuality issues in religion.
A writing sample between 1000-2500 words – a blog post is ideal.

Applications are due December 15th, 2016. Candidates will be contacted for more information and to schedule interviews in January.

For more information, contact Xochitl Alvizo or Gina Messina: feminismandreligionblog@gmail.com

Turning One by Sara Frykenberg

14724657_10154061354658546_8918956387379465095_n This month I turn one as a mother. My daughter, consequently, is also turning one—a first birthday I am excitedly planning. Specifically, I want to make Hazel a rainbow cake with lots of colored layers and white frosting. I’m not even sure she’ll be able to eat the cake (avoiding lots of sugar for a one-year-old and all), but among those family pictures I treasure, my mother held a cake for her little ones. I want to be like my mother. I am going to make a cake.

But planning my daughter’s party, I realized that I am also going to have a kind of birth-day anniversary. Other moms have told me that it takes a year to really process the experience of giving birth. While I did consider the significance of my “birthing community,” in a blog last fall, I realized a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t done understanding what I, what mothers, and what life givers of all kinds go through to bring life into the world. Continue reading “Turning One by Sara Frykenberg”

Are White Women Voters (As a Group) Waking Up? by Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ by Michael Bakas high resoultion I have been following the statistics on the gender gap in voting patterns for many years, often patting myself on the back for belonging to a group that on the whole votes Democratic or breathing a sigh of relief that I am not part of a group that votes Republican. Imagine my dismay when in 2012 I read that though the gender gap exists, I belong to a group—white women—that is likely to vote Republican. Since 1972 only Bill Clinton in 1996 took a majority of the white women’s vote.

The gender gap in 2008 and 2012 was created by the fact that over 96 percent of African-American women and over 2/3 of Hispanic women voted for Obama. In contrast, white women voted for McCain by a 7 percent margin and for Mitt Romney by 14 percent.

Breaking these statistics down further, I could consider myself “home free.” Continue reading “Are White Women Voters (As a Group) Waking Up? by Carol P. Christ”

Sex, Death and the Gods (Part II) by Vibha Shetiya

IMG_20160112_101035 This continues my reflections on the Devidasis in Part 1.

The overall picture that emerged from the documentary “Sex, Death and the Gods” was that, in its current form, there were many layers to the Devadasi system. For one, the most heartbreaking of all, there were the helpless, underage girls protesting such an existence, pleading that they would rather be in school, instead of being trapped in what was essentially a form of sexual slavery. But then we also see the older Devadasis, women who had been dedicated as children themselves.

Within this latter bracket, there were two groups.Those that viewed the practice as evil, and those that saw it as empowering – they earned their own income and they didn’t have a man or mother-in-law to lord over them; in short, they were in-charge of their own households. To them, married life was akin to a life of servitude, sex was something they enjoyed, and they may have shared a more or less equal relationship with the men who were their customers, men who enjoyed their company and preferred being with a Devadasi rather than with spouses they never chose or couldn’t get along with. In the words of one Devadasi – “I am the boss.” Continue reading “Sex, Death and the Gods (Part II) by Vibha Shetiya”

The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov by Ani Tuzman – Reviewed by Joyce Zonana

jz-headshot Never has it been more difficult for me to affirm that “love trumps hate” as during this unprecedented United States election season. After watching the Republican Convention last July in mute horror, I took to bed for several days, overwhelmed by the presentiment that everyone–blacks, women, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, queers– other than a certain breed of white American males was doomed to shameless malignment and persecution. The palpable hatred in Donald Trump’s acceptance speech seared me, arousing my ancestral memory of various persecutions of Jews, Muslims, and others–not something I usually think about or choose to foreground. For several months now, I have been haunted (and almost paralyzed) by fear.

tremble-of-love-cover-3d-for-web Hence Ani Tuzman’s The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov has come as an especially welcome, healing antidote, affirming as it does the power of “unshakeable faith even in the presence of inhumanity” (473). I cannot say that I fully have such faith, but this novel, if anything can, leads me towards it. Page after page is filled with compelling examples of love’s power to disarm hatred and assuage pain.

Early on, a tale is told of a young man fearlessly facing three would-be highwaymen who have stopped the wagon in which he is riding with a rabbi’s wife and her three children, one of whom is disabled:

Continue reading “The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov by Ani Tuzman – Reviewed by Joyce Zonana”

Nominating Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber

Who is your Holy Woman Icon?

When I began the academic study of religion in 1999, I was struck by the pantheon of male saints, venerated, honored, painted, adored, perhaps even worshipped. From virtually every tradition, men reigned supreme—in leadership, iconography, decision-making, worship—which is one of the myriad reasons groups like Feminism and Religion must exist. To combat this oppressive supremacy.

In 2010, I decided to put my wonder and this patriarchal dis-ease on canvas. I painted a triptych of Sophia, the feminine Greek word for wisdom often understood as the feminine face of Jesus, for a group triptych exhibition. Inspired stylistically by the art of Shiloh Sophia McCloud and He Qi, I endeavored to give traditional iconography a folk twist in an attempt to make it more accessible, perhaps a bit less brooding and intimidating. Emboldened by the works of womanist and feminist scholars in religion, my icons aim to subvert traditional—and often patriarchal—depictions of a virtually all-male sainthood. Though there are surely some women depicted Catholic and Orthodox iconography, and a robust number of women and goddesses in Hindu iconography, I found myself at a loss when it came to positive, affirming, and empowering icons of women across the vast spectrum of religious and spiritual traditions. Continue reading “Nominating Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber”

Prayers to Black Madonna and Kali Rising by Natalie Weaver

Natalie Weaver edited This past Saturday, I had an opportunity to sweat in a traditional Lakota sweat lodge for the first time. It was, above all, an interesting cognitive experience for me. I found myself sort of shaking hands with the ritual, the heat, the stones, the songs, and so on, saying, “Hi, I’m Natalie. I have an open mind. I am excited to know about you. Thanks for letting me see what you are all about.” I didn’t know whether I would pass out, have visions, or learn something new and wonderful about myself or the others. I was curious, still, and grateful for the opportunity. I was gifted by generous people, good fellowship, and new ideas. I will go back, even though I didn’t exactly find some thing… or maybe I did. Maybe, I found someone, or, better, maybe someone found me.

Two days before the sweat, I received an email from one of my companions on the journey, saying something I still do not understand about the Constellation Sagittarius, the Galactic Center, and the Rising of the Black Madonna. Although I did not understand the astronomy, I was intrigued by the call to recognize and confirm the Black Madonna. For, without particular reason or impetus that I could identify in myself, I had been dreaming of a Black Madonna statue for some time. After trying to find out what it was, I was able to identify it as the Black Madonna of Prague. I have never been to Prague and was basically unaware of the rich tradition of Black Madonnas in Europe, despite four semesters of art history in college. So, I made note of my dreams, with a promise to myself to seek them out whenever and wherever I travel. I also purchased little trinket at a Canadian gift shop, which sits on my desk as a guide and companion.
Continue reading “Prayers to Black Madonna and Kali Rising by Natalie Weaver”