Feminist Ethics – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

What’s Changed? by Elise M. Edwards

Friends, it has been a few months since I’ve posted in this community. I’m amazed at how much our world has changed since then. Here in the northern hemisphere, spring came and went. It felt like a tide of turmoil rolled in, leaving debris all along the shore and now we are trying to clean it up while keeping our eyes on the sea for more dangerous waves that are coming.

The issues we now face began before March, but for many of us, that was when the COVID-19 pandemic began to alter our patterns of daily existence. In-person instruction at my university and most schools was suspended and spring semester courses shifted online. In March and April, we quarantined, self-isolated, and sheltered in place. While a gradual re-opening of businesses and services has occurred in the months since then, I don’t know anyone who has resumed daily life as it was before. The virus continues to spread and the death toll rises.

Continue reading “What’s Changed? by Elise M. Edwards”

Pandemic Grace: A FAR Message from Xochitl Alvizo

Xochitl with hair Hello FAR friends,

I hope you are each doing well – that you are holding up ok during these trying times. It’s Xochitl here. I’m the behind-the-scenes co-weaver keeping things afloat (to varying degrees!) on this collaborative endeavor we call Feminism and Religion.

You may have noticed some gaps in our postings these last couple of months; I want to reassure you that it’s all ok. The gaps are an indication that we are giving one another a lot of pandemic grace. These are tough times and we are all doing what we can to make it through.

FAR will keep publishing as our contributors are able to submit their pieces. We always also welcome new voices and contributions to join in. I will do my best to keep up with the correspondence, but I do appreciate your patience. We are an all-volunteer project and everything we do is done out of our heartfelt commitment. And for all of it, I am grateful.

May we all be well, may we be safe, and may we find our peace.

Rage on, friends!

~ Xochitl

P.S. I’m growing my hair out! I figured quarantine time was a good time to experiment…we’ll see how it goes :)

“Side of the Angels Statement” by Natalie Weaver

As a feminist, I have learned how important it is to limit the scope of my claims to a reasonable space, demarcated by some genuine historical or current investment, connection, or participation. There are many things in this world about which I passingly feel or think something. And, even if I think about something quite a bit, if I have nothing but opinion, even an informed one, I find it best to keep to myself. I therefore tread lightly here. Nevertheless, I do have some opinions born out of years of studying the relationship between Christianity and slavery, professional risk in dealing with these subjects, and my own different, but very real, history of abuse by which I analogically understand some measure of pain and exploitation.

I am dismayed by the overuse of written, right-side statements of position in times of crisis. I really feel as though they serve to say something like, “Hey, Everyone, We, the __________ (Church, School, Charity, Business), are on the side of the angels. We have the right attitude about this thing, and we’re putting it out there publicly so that everyone knows we’re legitimate. Keep trusting us.” Continue reading ““Side of the Angels Statement” by Natalie Weaver”

Poem: In These United States is a Woman Electable? by Marie Cartier

In these United States we are wondering
if a woman is electable.
Is she likeable enough?

I donate to a woman candidate and I have put a sign
on my front lawn with a woman’s name on it.
I’m a woman. My wife is a woman.
Over half of my students are women. I teach over two hundred
students a semester. I see that women can.
We do and we can. But…

Can a woman lead? A headline asks.
Is she likeable enough to get elected? Another asks.
I was born from a woman.
All of us get here through the legs of a woman.
Women hold up half the sky. Continue reading “Poem: In These United States is a Woman Electable? by Marie Cartier”

The Storyteller by Sara Wright

When I walked into the space a bolt of light shot across the room and struck me so forcibly that it felt like it shattered the cells beneath my skin. Did this occur before I glimpsed her bronzed moon shaped face? I will never know. I sat down almost in front of her, sizzling with the uncomfortable buzz that seizes my nervous system when what I call, the Powers of Nature, have taken over my body/mind. I gazed at her in a dazed sort of way. She wore silver and white, and the two sharply contrasting hues shone so brilliantly my eyes ached…

As she began to speak about the Navajo Blessingway, I drifted effortlessly into a light trance in spite of the static. Honeyed words poured out of her mouth as she slipped from her Native Dine’ language into English and back again; creating a profound musical intonation that made it difficult for me to concentrate on the stories. Initially. All that music. Layers upon layers. I had entered the Forest of Enchantment. Continue reading “The Storyteller by Sara Wright”

Productive Confusion by Sara Frykenberg

My experience of productive confusion, alternatively, shuffles categories. It breaks apart. It is life giving chaos; but god/dess does it FEEL loud (even though it often requires quiet). If I’m not surfing the internet, while watching a show, while having a glass of wine, I might have to hear my own thoughts. I might notice that my internal loudness is also a symptom of the institutionalized trauma, violence and oppression that works to keep me externally quiet.

My head is a little bit too full lately. My classes begin in two weeks and I am determined to create an “Intro to Christian Ethics” class that offers my students at least an idea about hope that resonates with them, if not with me. Trauma is both a daily reality for far too many of us, and the headline or undercurrent of nearly every news report. Images from popular media play against my desires, my training in feminist analysis and ideas about power and empowerment in endless abundance. And I am mothering a joyful three-and-a-half-year-old whose need for liveliness both challenges and taxes me, pushing me and putting me face to face with my own hopes and doubts.

I feel pulled in so many directions, so I get confused about where to start, what to write, or what to do. I am awash in input, goals, and distractions.

Yet, I have also been challenged lately to see my confusion as a retreat from responsibility. Continue reading “Productive Confusion by Sara Frykenberg”

We Won’t Go Back by John Erickson

Bottom line: abortion is healthcare. Nearly a fourth of women in America will have an abortion by age 45. Every day, people across the United States make deeply personal decisions about their pregnancies. Those decisions deserve respect.

Someone once asked me: John, why are you a feminist? It is always a jarring question because I believe all people should be feminists and we should all fight for gender equality no matter what. I’ve been drawn to Martin Niemöller’s prolific quote:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Right now, it seems like a full on frontal assault against all of us. No matter what community you’re in, you can draw back to an instance of discrimination you’ve faced both pre-2016 as well as after the election of President Trump. Continue reading “We Won’t Go Back by John Erickson”

Raising (Dis)respectful Sons by Esther Nelson

I recently spoke with a female relative (I’ll call her Sylvia), the mother of two teenage sons. The eldest just completed his first year of college. During our conversation, Sylvia mentioned she was not looking forward to him coming home for the summer, saying that “something” happens to sons as they grow older. She called him a “troll.” I looked up the word online.

“In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion, whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain” (Wikipedia). Continue reading “Raising (Dis)respectful Sons by Esther Nelson”

Marianne Williamson. . . I’m Sacredly Smitten by Elisabeth Schilling

I caution myself to be critical and nuanced. I’m sorry, folks. I just haven’t had such dazzling hope or remote interest in politics since. . . well, since I was a puppet junior high evangelist for an independent candidate my Dad liked, and I don’t want to try to remember who it was. But I was 13. And I’m 38 now. What hath made this cold, indifferent, anxious millennial’s soul to warm?

I am into mindfulness, contemplative studies, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Nhat Thich Hanh, the kind of comparative religious studies scholar who has eastern spirituality leanings, so when I heard Marianne Williamson was a presidential candidate, I got curious. I’ve not read A Course in Miracles (although I think I’ve avoided it for the same assumptions Williamson says she initially made) or actually any of her books. Williamson is Jewish and has a pluralistic perspective when it comes to noting the basic underlying wisdom of all religious and spiritual beliefs (I realize we have discussed this before when I called them “wisdom traditions” – is any tradition actually wise/can you separate the violence, oppressions, and misogynies of them?).

She speaks in cool, rushing waters and has a platform that still sounds “political”/political (she breaks down what this word actually means in her latest CNN Town Hall) and is spiritual and based in a rhetoric of love. After the complete loss of hope in what [T . .] represents, and the not-yet healed wounds from [B. . .], she sounds like a reasonable adult, much like Obama did during his years. I wonder if they are friends? They should be.

Continue reading “Marianne Williamson. . . I’m Sacredly Smitten by Elisabeth Schilling”

Raven’s Cry by Sara Wright

Fake coyote calls split
a moon cracked sky in two.
False ‘Indian’ hoots and drums
stunned sleeping birds –
Why do ‘whites’
insist upon using Indigenous ways,
to make a point?
Coyotes know.

Did they think that she was blind
or that her dreaming body,
a roiling belly
wouldn’t warn her?
Deception is a ruse
to twist and hide from truth
even when La Llarona’s river
becomes a mirror
shivering under
winter solstice flight. Continue reading “Raven’s Cry by Sara Wright”