Feminism – Page 117 – Feminism and Religion

Women as Stairways to Heaven by Jameelah X. Medina

In mainstream Islam, the ways and sayings of Prophet Muhammad are second in importance only to the Qur’an. There are two prophetic sayings pften quoted when speaking about the high status of women in Islam: 1) “Whoever has two daughters and treats them kindly, they will be a protection for him against the Fire;” and “Paradise lies beneath her [the mother’s] feet.” These sayings influenced a growingly famous Islamic scholar who stated, “When she is a daughter, she opens a door to jannah [paradise/heaven] for her father. When she is a wife, she completes half of the deen [religion/way of life] of her husband. When she is a mother, jannah lies under her feet. If everyone knew the true status of a Muslim woman in Islam, even the men would want to be women.” This quote is being reposted all over social media sites by both Muslim men and women.

On the surface, the quote is lovely. It works to combat the stereotype of the lowly Muslim woman who has no standing in her religious community. It is posted as proof that women have great status in Islam. However, this quote and the prophetic sayings also have a problematic implication. When I read these quotes, I don’t see them talking about the status of Muslim women. The quotes are very specific and apply ONLY to women who are daughters, women who are wives, and women who are mothers. The implication is that, even though Muslim women and men are from a single soul and have the same essence (the Islamic perspective), women still are not sufficient enough for praise, reverence, and respect just by virtue of being women. They must be some man’s daughter, wife, or mother in order to enjoy elevated status. What does this say to women without fathers, women without husbands, and women without children? It tells them that they have not yet arrived; they are goals yet unrealized. Simply put, they are not enough. Continue reading “Women as Stairways to Heaven by Jameelah X. Medina”

Are Buddhist Women Happy? by Oxana Poberejnaia

The basic question is the same as in a “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” sketch about a sour-faced champion car racer: “Are you happy?” Are we, Buddhist women, happy with Buddhism? Are Buddhist men happy with the position of Buddhist women? Are we happy with the legacy we are leaving for future generations of Buddhist men and women?

This question can be re-phrased as: Are we happy because we should be happy? Because if we are unhappy it is our failure as women? Or as Buddhist practitioners? Are we happy to keep other people happy?

Do these questions sound familiar? – Are these the same questions that women have to deal with anyway, in this patriarchal society we live in? Continue reading “Are Buddhist Women Happy? by Oxana Poberejnaia”

I Dream of Pope Francis by Gina Messina-Dysert

It was just last week that I received an email from Pope Francis. He wrote me having seen my interview with Tavis Smiley and said he sympathized with my appeal for a Church that serves the needs of the people. Pope Francis requested that I come to the Vatican to meet with him to discuss the papacy and his efforts to redirect the Church’s attention. Of course, I immediately accepted and began to create my agenda for our meeting: women’s ordination, same-sex marriage, reproductive justice, and…my alarm went off. It was just a dream. Sigh…

Totally disappointed at the realization of its ridiculousness, I wondered why Pope Francis had invaded my dreams. Could it have been prophetic as my good friend and colleague (jokingly) suggested? Or perhaps I’m narcissistic enough to fantasize that I have such wisdom to share. Either way, no other pope has ever occupied my thoughts in such a way. Continue reading “I Dream of Pope Francis by Gina Messina-Dysert”

The Roman Catholic Theology of Womanhood by Ivy Helman

The Vatican has created an entire theology of womanhood without the input of a single woman! Searching the Vatican archives reveals a wide range of documents pertaining to women, some of which mention women tersely only in their capacity as workers needing protection (Rerum novarum, 1891) and others are fully dedicated to describing the status, role and mission of women in the family, society and the world (Mulieris dignitatem, 1988). Within the documents, as time passes, women become their own category of theological importance. This is due to the influence of feminism on the status and roles of women across the globe. Yet, there is vehement anti-feminism in the documents as well.

I searched the documents myself, curious as to what the Vatican had to say about womanhood and wrote a book on the topic published by Orbis in Febrary 2012 entitled, Women and the Vatican: An Explanation of Official Documents. I would like to lay out that theology now. Continue reading “The Roman Catholic Theology of Womanhood by Ivy Helman”

Orientations: Body, Space, Authority by Linn Marie Tonstad

In her book Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed investigates how we orient ourselves in space with respect to tables – the tables around which we sit, at which we eat with friends and families of choice and birth, and at which we write. She describes moving into a new place and arranging the furniture. “After the kitchen, the room I hope to inhabit is always the study. Or the place that I have decided is the place where I will write. There, that will be my desk. Or it could just be the writing table. It is here that I will gather my thoughts. It is here that I will write, and even write about writing. … Making a place feel like home, or becoming at home in a space, is for me about being at my table. I think fondly of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. How important it is, especially for women, to claim that space, to take up that space through what one does with one’s body. And so when I am at my table, I am also claiming that space, I am becoming a writer by taking up that space.” (11) Ahmed goes on to discuss how certain possibilities are opened up, and others foreclosed, by the way we orient ourselves (or find ourselves oriented) to others and to objects. She describes the bodily postures that result from orienting oneself to the writing table – the way one might hunch over one’s computer, or find oneself with ink-stained fingers.

In a very different context, the queer theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid describes a scene from her childhood in Argentina. She kneels in front of a priest for confession. But instead of kneeling to the side, aslant, as she ‘ought’ to have done, being a girl, she kneels directly in front of the priest, as if she were a boy. Kneeling here too is a form of orientation, a form of direction, a bodily habit of becoming. “Kneeling is troublesome and it has a theological referent in the church’s also troubled waters of sexuality and power. A whole symbolic sexual order is obviously manifested in kneelings as positions of subordination and sites of possible homo- and hetero- seductions, because these are theologically distributed around the axis of the priesthood’s male genitalia. The priest’s penis carries the sacred connotations of the phallus as a transcendental signifier of the theological discourses to everyday Christianity, and kneeling is a liturgical positing designed to centralise and highlight this.” (The Queer God, 11) To kneel in the right (gendered) position in relation to the priest is also to kneel in the right relation to God. Continue reading “Orientations: Body, Space, Authority by Linn Marie Tonstad”

The Feminist Influence by Elise M. Edwards

In these past few months, as I’ve been finishing my dissertation about a theological and ethical perspective on architecture, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking often about my work. In March, I was invited to give a talk at a symposium titled “On Christ and Architecture” at Judson University. As they introduced me, the speakers noted that I am a black feminist. Because of the brevity of my presentation, I didn’t speak about things that most people associate with feminism. So I was especially excited when at the end, one of the organizers complimented me by saying, “I really see the feminist influence in your work and I thank you for bringing that to us.” So exactly what does a feminist perspective bring to a theological study of architecture?

Perhaps first I should explain what my theological study of architecture is. The purpose of architecture is sometimes understood as aesthetic or functional—to either make buildings that look nice or serve their purposes well (or both). However, I discuss an ethical approach that expands this common understanding of architecture. Grounding my research in philosopher Karsten Harries’ The Ethical Function of Architecture and theologian Timothy Gorringe’s A Theology of the Built Environment, I argue that architecture presents interpretations of a community ethos, or way of life, for its specific time and place. These representations can either promote or inhibit human flourishing, and therefore, are the proper concern of Christian theology and ethics, which is concerned with questions about how Christians and those in the broader society are to live rightly in the world. Continue reading “The Feminist Influence by Elise M. Edwards”

Women’s Ordination and the Mormon Church by Margaret Toscano

Caroline Kline’s March 26 post, “Mormons Who Advocate Women’s Ordination,” marks a new direction in the Mormon feminist movement. As she describes, the website Ordain Women was launched on March 17 by a few dozen Mormon women and men who state: “As a group we intend to put ourselves in the public eye and call attention to the need for the ordination of Mormon women to the priesthood.” By the end of March, 44 people (37 women and 7 men, including a Mormon bishop) have posted profiles with photos where they describe their relationship to Mormonism and why they think women should be ordained. I understand from the organizers of this site that a number of others have submitted profiles for posting and that the site has had close to 100,000 hits. On the corresponding Facebook page, however, only 363 people have given Ordain Women a “Like” sign.

While supporters may appear to be a small group in comparison to the 14 million Mormon (aka LDS) church members worldwide, it is a significant number for a grassroots movement like this. As a Mormon feminist who has publicly advocated for the ordination of women since 1984, this is the first time I have seen more than a handful of people willing to state publicly their belief that women should be ordained. In the past, women’s ordination has always been the dividing issue among Mormon feminists. All Mormon feminists want women to have more voice in the Church, more decision-making power, more visible authority and equality. Very few have wanted to be ordained into the male-priesthood structure of the Church, though more have claimed a private, spiritual priesthood.

And yet, as I have always argued, there is no way that Mormon women can be equal to Mormon men as long as they are denied access to priesthood ordination and offices because the priesthood structure controls all resources, discourses, and practices. In some ways this issue is even more crucial in the LDS Church than in other religious traditions because the Mormon organization is based on a lay priesthood where all active boys and men have priesthood. What this means is that grown women have less practical and religious authority than their 12-year old sons. Continue reading “Women’s Ordination and the Mormon Church by Margaret Toscano”

Gender in Kabbalah by Judith Laura

I first started delving into both Jewish Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah in the 1990s, after friends told me these forms of mysticism included both female and male representations of divinity and therefore were gender equitable. They were right about the first part: Kabbalah/Qabalah contain both divine masculine and feminine imaging and male and female images. But as far as gender equity goes, to use today’s slang, not so much!

tree of life kabbalah

Though they are both transliterations of the same Hebrew word, as is common I use “Kabbalah” for the Jewish versions, and “Qabalah” for the Hermetic version, best known through its association with the British Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which began in the 19^th Century. The word means “that which is received,” with the understanding that it was “received” from ancient times. Though there is one tradition that says Adam was given Kabbalah in the Garden of Eden, the first written material for Kabbalah, Sefir Yetsirah (Book of Creation), is dated to between 200 and 500 C.E. Kabbalistic concepts changed over the centuries, with writings becoming more significant in the 13^th century and even more popular in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Beginning with the Sefir Bahir (Bright Book) in late 12^th century France, Kabbalah is represented by the Tree of Life, which has round areas transliterated sefirot (Heb. pl.; sing. sefirah) that I think of as fruit and others call “spheres,” but which in the Bahir, are more accurately translated “sapphires.”* These “divine emanations,” as they are often called in English, are gendered. How equal is the gender representation? Continue reading “Gender in Kabbalah by Judith Laura”

Cosplay and Choice by Sara Frykenberg

Cosplay is often a deliberate, interpretive and self-chosen performance of gender and power. Like drag performers, cosplayers put on a show of the characters they represent; and in my experience, they often do so within diverse, supportive and principally, inclusive communities.

This week my husband sent me a great blog post he found about cosplay and one woman’s determination that she would no longer tolerate being demeaned, objectified or trivialized because of what she chooses to wear. Blogger Megan Marie’s post, entitled “What would you do if you weren’t afraid,” inspires me. She points out and refuses the trappings of rape culture: victim blaming, assumed male control over female sexuality and shame; and claims her right to be who she is. I, as fellow (what is the female equivalent for fellow???) cosplayer, was also moved by her defense of this creative art. I have been cosplaying a long time, but I have been too afraid to speak much about this or to directly protest the rejection of these fantasy images within some feminist communities. So to answer Megan Marie’s question* in her own words, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid? My answer. I’d write this blog.”

Coplay = costume + play! It is the recreation of popular characters from video games, comic books, anime, scifi series, fantasy literature or the like. Cosplayers do this for the fun of it, the craft involved, to express one’s fandom and sometimes, professionally, usually within an arena where fans can enjoy one another’s recreations. The attempt to embody these characters involves a great deal of work and artistic expression. Many conventions, like Fanime Con in San Jose, CA, host panels in which fans can learn cosplay skills, such as armor construction, wig making and costume design. I have cosplayed the following characters: Sailor Star Healer, Eudial and Sailor Iron Mouse from the anime Sailor Moon, Misa

Death Note Cosplay: Misa and Light are in the center, flanked by their respective "Shinigami," or the death gods they are working with — Death Note Cosplay: Misa and Light are in the center, flanked by their respective “Shinigami,” or the death gods they are working with

from the manga Death Note, the Sorceress from He-man, a Star Fleet officer from Star Trek: The Original Series, and most recently, a giant “Angel,” Sachiel from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Sachiel from Neon Genesis Evangelion: I am trying on my almost finished costume here!

I am currently planning a to make a Metroid out of an umbrella and to cosplay Nyan-kitty at the May conference that my husband (who will be playing Tac-nyan), my sister and many of my friends attend.

So, why the feminist-anxiety? Continue reading “Cosplay and Choice by Sara Frykenberg”

Your Body is the Body of the Goddess by Marie Cartier

My body is the body of the goddess—witches and shamans and other magical beings (including humans) chant this in spring ritual …and other times of the year as well.

But as we prepare for spring equinox, I thought I would use my blog this March to give the Feminism and Religion community a chakra mediation for spring ritual and renewal. Spring is here. Your body is the body of the goddess. If desired, please say the following aloud or silently, participate in the suggested breathing exercise and allow yourself to sink deeply into the body that is yours and is part of the season– the awakening of spring.

Breathe deeply: in and out; in and out; and in and out. Continue reading “Your Body is the Body of the Goddess by Marie Cartier”