Feminism – Page 68 – Feminism and Religion

The Protest Goddess by Angela Yarber

I’ve long held that feminism, in order to be true and engaged and practical, must be intersectional. The work of justice for women must also include justice for other marginalized groups. Because many women are also LGBTQ, people of color, people with disabilities, Muslims, immigrants, and others marginalized for identities other than their gender. Paying attention to these intersections—of sexuality, gender, race, class, ability, religion—and acknowledging that many people have multiple intersecting identities for which they are oppressed is vital to the work of justice.

These thoughts remained at the forefront of my mind as I recently marched in one of the sister marches of the Women’s March in my home of Hilo, Hawaii. I heard many straight, white, cisgender women claim that women are not oppressed while mocking the march as irrelevant. I heard some gay men purport that such a march was unnecessary. And I wondered. Are not women of color also women? Muslim women? Immigrant women? Women with disabilities? Queer women? Trans women? Are not our quests for liberation and rights and legal validity interrelated, mutually dependent, might I even say, intersectional? Continue reading “The Protest Goddess by Angela Yarber”

Questions that Matter: What is Feminism? by Elise M. Edwards

It certainly is a busy time of year for me, but I’m fortunate that many of the events I am participating in offer a chance to share what is important to me. Next week, I’ll be speaking to a group of students in one of my campus’ residence halls about feminism and Christianity. For this informal setting, I was allowed to choose my own topic under the broad heading of “Questions That Matter.” I’ve decided to take on the f-word in religion and attempt to explain why it’s important to me and how it relates to my religious identity. Although I’m still trying to figure out what to say, I’d like to share my thoughts so far and get some insight from you. Continue reading “Questions that Matter: What is Feminism? by Elise M. Edwards”

My Journey to Define Libyan Feminism by Samah Elbelazi

Before coming to the U.S., I felt disconnected from feminist theory. I thought this framework labels women as haters of men and seekers of obscure rights. I was not sure who could identify with it or belong to it. For me, it was just a scholarly concept women used to justify their rights. I could not perceive it as an empowering tool, even if it is being so popular. While there is no problem having the concept to be loud and popular, this loud voice did not speak for me. I could not let it represent me or speak on my behalf. Every time I google it, I see angry faces, naked women, people yelling, women in chains, and much more. Instead of accepting it, I resisted it.

At that time, my understanding of feminism was associated with women’s liberation outside the circle of culture and religion. It scared me since I am who I am because of my culture, my community, and my religion. This feminism has my respect, but it is alien and does not call for my needs. For a long time, I resisted feminist discourse or, to be clear, white western feminism. Its discussion about equality, oppression, and marginalization is different from mine. I knew that as a Muslim woman, I had no room in this discourse.

Until one day, things started to change. Continue reading “My Journey to Define Libyan Feminism by Samah Elbelazi”

Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ

The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with birds or snakes and only rarely portrayed as mother. Yet we tend to equate the Goddess with the Mother Goddess. I suspect that images of the Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap and prayers to God as Father have fused in our minds, leading us to think that the Goddess must be a Mother Goddess and primarily a Mother.

In a recent blog, Christy Croft reminded us that in our culture, women’s experiences of mothering and motherhood are not always positive:

[The mother] doesn’t always appear in our stories in simple or easy ways. Some of us mother children we did not or could not grow in our bodies; some of us birth babies who are now mothered by others. Some of us are not mothers at all. Some of us had mothers who could not love us unconditionally, or did not have mothers in our lives, or had mothers who brought us more pain and humiliation than comfort, from whose effects we are still recovering, are still healing.

Women who have had negative or painful experiences of motherhood or mothering may find the symbol of the Mother Goddess off-putting. Continue reading “Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ”

In Light of Women by Mary Jane Miller

Why are so few women mentioned in the great feast days like Pentecost, the Last Supper, the Baptism of Christ, etc.? God made no commandment that they not be included.

Inquisitive women like myself have always been around Christ listening to His message. There they were, cooking and cleaning at the Last Supper, at the wedding at Canon and when He fed the five thousand. When Christ invited the children to come to him, you can be sure the mothers were there, too.

Beginning as early as the fourth century the dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to thwart the ascendant positions for women within the religious hierarchy and in christian societies in general. Yet, the underlying teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, – all call for the proper and equitable treatment of God’s children. Without a doubt, God and Christ love all of humankind with no gender bias. When women listen to scripture we naturally fill in the gap, or adjust the gap knowing in our hearts and souls, we are not inferior to men.

Continue reading “In Light of Women by Mary Jane Miller”

The Feminist-O-Meter by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

Not my way to see Feminism_ then that's NOT Feminism_

Have you heard about, applied or received the Feminist-O-Meter lately?

The Feminist-O-Meter is a tool that often appears in feminisms and women rights activisms, fostering power struggles, cliques, jealousies and -if that is not enough – encouraging the reproduction of mainstream socialization that fosters competition and alienation among women.

It can be summed in the expression:

“Not my way to see Feminism? Then, that’s NOT Feminism”

I see feminisms as revolutions of subjectivities based on the radical idea that women are people … and it turns out that people are diverse, we are the result of our experience and the way we interpret them.

So, I do not understand why there is so much drama, judgment, outrage and social punishment in feminist spaces when those involved are undertaking the process of discovery, of claiming back our personhood by legitimizing our different ways of thinking, our understandings of liberation, and our acknowledgment of what makes us happy and makes us feel feminist.

Continue reading “The Feminist-O-Meter by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Run Women Run! You Can Do Better than a Mediocre White Man! by Carol P. Christ

When I was in graduate school, I learned to doubt myself. Despite having won Danforth and Woodrow Wilson graduate fellowships that paid for my tuition and living expenses, I was continually told by professors and male students alike that I would not finish my degree and that if I did I would get married, have children, and never use the degree I had earned. I tried hard to maintain my confidence in myself, but it was difficult when I was the only woman in the program. There was one other woman my first year, but she was older than I was, a nun, and I never saw her in class or at social events. My self-esteem was gradually eroded. If I had not had a fellowship, I would probably have dropped out.

Fast forward a few years. There were several more women in the program, but only one in theology, my friend Judith Plaskow, and she too struggled. I was working on my comprehensive exams and wondering if I had what it takes to pass them and then write a Ph.D. thesis. After the initial shock of being treated as if I was not the equal of the male students in the program, I began to look around me. A few of the male students seemed really bright, many of them were average, and some of them were plodders. I hate to admit it, but I looked at the least competent among them and said to myself, “If he can do it, then surely I can.” And I did. I passed my exams. A few years later my Ph.D. thesis was approved.

If contributions to the field are any indication, Judith Plaskow and I were not only as good as the most mediocre men in our graduate program, we smarter than the average ones, and at least as smart as the smartest ones. But we didn’t know that then. Men have been getting degrees and being promoted and moved up that ladder because other men like them, identify with them, feel sorry for them, and for lots of other reasons having nothing to do with excellence, and sometimes not even do do with competence.

Last week I heard Cecile Richards say something to Lawrence O’Donnell that reminded me of this. Speaking of the huge numbers of women who—inspired by the women’s marches–will be voting, registering voters, campaigning, and running for office in 2018 and beyond, she said women “totally understand that they can do better than who’s in office now.”

For far too many years women have been held back by lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. We didn’t think we could and we didn’t. We don’t think we can and we don’t. We thought men were smarter than us or had more time or more drive. The founder of the Society of Women Engineers at San Jose State told my classes that women who got even one B+ in an engineering class were likely to drop out of the program, while men graduated who graduated with C averages went on to get great jobs. Now we see truly mediocre white men holding public office all across the country and in its highest offices. The harm they are doing to women, to children, to the elderly, to people of color, to the environment has been a wake-up call for all of us. There are so many mediocre white men in office that women–of all colors and ethnicities–are realizing that we can do better than that! Once we begin to see what we can do when there are large numbers of us holding office all across the country, there will be no stopping us!

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer and educator living in Molivos, Lesbos, who volunteers with Starfish Foundation that helps refugees, assisting with writing and outreach. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Join Carol on the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger.

Photo Report from the 2nd Women’s March, January 20, 2018 by Marie Cartier

You can see my photo report from the last Women’s March 2017 here.

And you can see more of my photos from this 2018 march here, here, and here.

Please enjoy these radical feminist images from 2018! Yours in the struggle FAR family!

All photos by Marie Cartier

Continue reading “Photo Report from the 2nd Women’s March, January 20, 2018 by Marie Cartier”

The Beauty Way by Carol P. Christ

When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path was called the “Beauty Way.” As a young woman, I knew that my worth was defined by many in terms of my ability to conform to ideals of female beauty promulgated in movies, tv, and advertising. I didn’t believe the Navajos were talking about beauty in that sense, but because of my conditioning, I was not yet able to fully grasp what they might mean by beauty. I would have called the way they were describing a “Way of Harmony” or a “Way of Respect for Life.”

Still, I wondered: why the Beauty Way?

Marija Gimbutas described the societies of Old Europe as peaceful, settled, agricultural, highly artistic, matrifocal and probably matrilineal, and worshipping the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Though I am impressed with the beauty of the many small works of art Gimbutas reproduced and interpreted in The Language of the Goddess, I sometimes inadvertently omit the words “highly artistic” when repeating in her definition of the culture of Old Europe. I have tended to view the fact that Old Europe was peaceful and matrifocal as more important than the fact that it was highly artistic.Yet this judgment is wrong. In calling the cultures of Old Europe “highly artistic,” Gimbutas was trying to convey her understanding that appreciation of the beauty of life was fundamental within them.

We have been taught that “high” or “great” art is most often monumental in size. The Pyramid of Giza is over 230 meters (756 feet) tall. The Great Sphinx of Giza is 20 meters (66 feet) high. The Parthenon rose to 14 meters (45 feet) and the statue of Athena inside it was 9 to 11 meters (35-40 feet). It is telling that we use the words “high” and “great” (originally measures of size) to describe the value of artistic creations.

Statue of Athena in Parthenon reproduction in Nashville, Tennessee

The purpose of monumental works of art is to diminish the viewer, to make the her feel small, to induce her to bow down, to worship, and to obey a power or powers greater and higher than herself.

In contrast, the small scale of the art of Old Europe does not diminish anyone or anything. Its purpose is not to make anyone one want to bow down. Instead small works of art make the viewer feel comfortable, welcomed, and part of the beauty of life that is depicted.

Marija Gimbutas viewed ancient Crete in the Bronze age as the final flowering of the culture of Old Europe. In Crete too, everything is on a small scale. Though the so-called Palaces or Sacred Centers are large, the rooms within them are small. There is not a single room where crowds could have bowed down to a King or Queen. Nor are there images of deities larger than life. The famous Minoan Snake Goddesses are less than 15 inches tall and the well-known pitcher Goddesses are even smaller. Such objects would have been held in hands during rituals or set on low benches in small rooms lit by oil lamps.

Snake Goddesses of Bronze Age Crete c. 1500 BCE

When my friend’s daughter Klia was seven years old, she spent her afternoons collecting stones by the sea. One day I asked her if the stones spoke to her. “Of course,” she replied. “What do they say?” “They say, ‘we are very beautiful.’”

Klia intuited the meaning of the Beauty Way. It has nothing to do with artificial beauty standards. It has nothing to do with size. It is recognizing beauty everywhere and in everything. When we do so, we walk in beauty, in the grace and joy of life. And yes, the Beauty Way has ethical implications, for no one who truly recognizes beauty could want to harm it. This was understood by the Navajos, the Old Europeans, and the ancient Cretans, and many others. Only we seem to have forgotten. We can remember.

Happy Anniversary, Women’s March, with love from Madge by Elizabeth Cunningham

Like many in the FAR community, I participated in the world-wide 2017 Women’s March. So did Madge, the bodacious cartoon character who took me by surprise in 1990 and went on to become the narrative character of The Maeve Chronicles. Her life in print, as the first century Celtic Magdalen, satisfied her until….November 8^th, 2016 when Madge returned, mouthy as ever, to rejoin us in our own times.

On the first anniversary of the historic march, I’d like to share a little of Madge’s millennia-spanning story and a few images from her two books of cartoons, now published in one volume.

Madge first appeared to me in 1990 as a line drawing of an ample woman sitting naked at a kitchen table drinking coffee. I had recently finished writing a novel, The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy, and felt I had nothing more to say. I decided to play with magic markers for a while. Madge, as the naked woman introduced herself, was far from done with words. Fleshed out with peach magic marker, Madge told me she wanted “fiery neon orange” for her hair color. She also required speech balloons for her theological queries. (For example: If we are all members of the body of Christ, who is the twelve-year molar, the kneecap, the colon?) Enchanted with her sass, I invited her to be in my next novel. I pitched ideas to her. She rejected them all as too dull and said, “I want my own book of cartoons first.” Continue reading “Happy Anniversary, Women’s March, with love from Madge by Elizabeth Cunningham”