My grandparents, mother, father, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, godparents, a good many teachers, childhood friends, a former therapist, myriad internet strangers who felt compelled to try to divert the flames approaching my immortal soul, an astrologer I met once, innumerable people encountered on public transportation and sidewalks, all of my exes’ parents, and, of course, the Roman Catholic Church — an institution of such enormous weight as to have crushed frames far sturdier than my own.
I am less concerned with the legitimacy or morality of public breast-feeding . . . rather I am asking what contributes to this strange binary of, on the one hand, social acceptability of near-porn-like images of breast used in advertising, i.e. Victoria Secret, while on the other hand, internal conflicts some feel when viewing a baby/child feeding at the breast?
Beyond the “war on women” initiated by the Republican party on women’s reproductive rights, the issue of women’s breast, or more specifically, the nursing breast, has been making itself know in the media. The recent Time magazine cover of Jamie Lynne Grumet breast-feeding her three-year-old son produced a flood of controversy centering on “attachment parenting,” which promotes, among other things, breast-feeding beyond infancy. Parent magazine recently profiled two military mothers breastfeeding in public while in uniform. For some, this perceived breach in social decorum is akin to urinating and defecating openly while wearing your uniform. Responding to the outcry, Air Force spokesperson Captain Rose Richeson states, “Airmen (sic) should be mindful of their dress and appearance and present a professional image at all times while in uniform.” In other words, it is suggested nursing military mothers pump and bottle-feed their babies when wearing their uniform in public spaces. And finally, Hadley Barrows of Minnesota was asked to leave the library by a security guard because her nursing in public was a form of “indecent exposure.” In this post I am less concerned with the legitimacy or morality of public nursing (although I have no issue with it), instead I am asking what contributes to this strange binary of, on the one hand, social acceptability of near-porn-like images of breast used in advertising, i.e. Victoria Secret, while on the other hand, internal conflicts some feel when viewing a baby/child feeding at the breast? Drawing from the work of Margaret Miles and her text, A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750, social attitudes and the public display of women’s breast can best be understood when the breast is viewed as a coded symbol that informs, through artistic representation, complex patterns of discourse.
This was originally posted on September 10, 2014. It seems relevant to me these days as I continue to develop practices for my groundedness, community, and well-being.
Recently, in response to the excellent conversation following Nancy Vedder-Shults’ post on the goddess Kali, Carol Christ commented to Nancy, “I too love our conversations, wish there was more in depth talk on our blog [FAR], maybe there will be.” Carol’s comment* struck a deep chord within me. One of the main objectives that the FAR co-founders had in creating Feminism and Religion was that it be a place where we could and would engage with one another across a diversity of feminist issues and the broad range of feminist passions and work – where we could discuss, critique, and build upon on each other’s efforts.
So two things came to mind as I reflected on Carol’s comment. The first was my personal lament that I have not been as actively participating in the discussions that follow the FAR blog posts as I did when we first started Feminism and Religion. FAR has such rich and valuable material – it really does provide a great opportunity for conversation and dialogue – and sadly I have been a passive participant as of late. I read and learn from the discussions, but I have not been joining in. I lament that. FAR is definitely a place where I could engage with others in deep conversations, but how actively am I actually doing this? Continue reading “Archives from the FAR Founders: We are Worth the Time it Takes to Create a Practice by Xochitl Alvizo”
This was originally posted on September 10, 2012. Moderator’s Note: While Mitt Romney is not running for office at this time, there are many politicians, of varying religions, who are and who deserve to be questioned in this manner.
Why has Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith mostly been a non-question in his political life? John Kennedy was asked if he would obey the Pope or make his own decisions, Jimmy Carter was asked how his Baptist faith would affect his Presidency, and Barack Obama was asked if he agreed with the sermons of his preacher. Why is the press afraid to ask Mitt Romney if he agrees with the patriarchal teachings of his church and if so, if this affects his views on the rights of women?
I’ve been fortunate in my life to have friends, to be a friend, though I’ve also had periods of drought without the nourishing stream of friendship in my life. The nature of my friendships have changed over time – with friends in childhood being primarily playmates, in adolescence – friends traveling in packs – gangs of girls; in grad school, mostly my colleagues. And then I discovered feminism.
I bonded with people with whom I shared a passion, a cause, and the work to bring our vision into being. We gathered in consciousness-raising groups where, in Nelle Morton’s phrase, we heard each other into speech. We helped each other discover ourselves by sharing our truths out loud – without criticism, argument, interruption, advice – simply being heard. The self-discovery in sharing the truths we had not even been willing to tell ourselves was powerful. Most importantly for me was the feminist theorists I was reading – Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Susan Griffin – who challenged me to be my authentic self, honest, open, no longer hiding behind the façade of being someone I thought others wanted me to be – myself.[i]
This was originally posted on June 26, 2013and continues to be a story I love retelling!
“I did not know to recognize you as individuals when I bought you, but I know to recognize you as individuals now…”
I had been a vegetarian, and sometimes pescatarian, for more than 10 years before becoming vegan. Despite the length of my vegetarianism, in all that time I had not been inclined to go vegan. First, I really didn’t know too much about veganism and only began meeting a few vegans about five or six years ago here in Boston, none of whom had shared a compelling enough reason for their choice (at least not compelling to me). Further, I had no imagination for life without cheese or Cherry Garcia ice cream(!), and so I happily continued with my vegetarian ways. Then enters Carol Adams…
I was recently asked: Who is a theologian you admire? Since I’ve been deeply steeped in the Christian tradition, plenty of Christian theologians could come to mind—Christian theologians, that is, in the sense of humans educated in the Christian theological academy with the theology PhDs to prove it.
But when I think of theology, these days, I find myself thinking more broadly. Like Kat Armas, who wrote Abuelita Faith as a way of reflecting on and honoring the theological contributions of marginalized women, rather than men who sit in the seats of academic power—and like Sarah Bessey, who writes that theology, at its best, is a field where “everyone gets to play”[1]—I am skeptical of the assumptions Christians often make about who is or isn’t a theologian. And so, when I thought of theologians I look to for wisdom, I thought outside the box. I thought of writer and activist bell hooks.
“Instead of looking to the male world for approval, I had to learn to rely on my own instincts. In some strange way, the rejections I faced strengthened me, but only because they forced me to learn to live as I saw fit and to use my values and judgment as my guides.” The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago
Janet: I live near New York City and am fortunate to be close to many museums. The New Museum has been showing an exhibit by Judy Chicago that takes up the entire facility of four floors. And it is remarkable. Not only is the breadth of her work astounding but so are the stories of how she has had to fight to be accepted in a man’s world of art. Joyce Zonana first recommended that I go. This blogpost came about as part of a discussion between the two of us.
I would like to introduce this community to Gender a výzkum(in Czech) orGender and Research (in English), a transdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal founded in the year 2000 and dedicated to research in Feminist and Gender Studies in the Czech Republic. While the journal’s main focus is work pertaining to Central and Eastern Europe, it is open to a wide range of geographical locations and topics. The journal, which publishes articles in Czech and English, often puts out calls for individuals or groups of people to edit monothematic issues. Past monothematic issues include feminist reflections on Covid, an issue on the use of language concerning sex and gender, gender in popular culture, children, adolescence and sexuality, feminist interpretations of Islam, and postcolonial and decolonial thinking in feminist theory to name just some. If you would like to read them, the journal is available online as well as in print.
I recently reread the essay titled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” by late poet and essayist Adrienne Rich, with my students this semester. Published in the summer of 1980, on the heels of the Women’s Liberation Movement, I found that the essay still maintains its relevance and challenges us to remember that feminism is a political movement that itself must be continually interrogated.
The essay (which you can read here, with a foreword from Rich published 23 years after the original) has four sections which are titled only with the roman numbers I-IV. I labeled these sections for my students to try and capture the focus of each: I. Compulsory Heterosexuality – The Groundwork; II. Male Power and the Inequality of the Sexes; III. Lesbian Existence as Political Identity; and IV. Woman-Identification as Source of Power and Energy.
This was originally posted on September 10, 2014. It seems relevant to me these days as I continue to develop practices for my groundedness, community, and well-being. 
Feminism and Religion 