General – Page 300 – Feminism and Religion

Our Sisters’ Feminisms by Xochitl Alvizo

We live in a very small and connected world that at the same time is a very large and disparate one. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by all the news available of the things that occur all over the world, to which I have such quick and easy access online. It makes everything feel so close and connected. At the same time, I also experience a huge disconnect between my very particular and local context and that of others around the globe; women whose reality and life experience I know little about. Even as news about them flash before my eyes, it’s not possible to reduce them to those brief flashes of information or claim to know something substantive about them. In reality, how much am I even able to say about the woman who lives across the street from me, much less women who I only know about online? And yet, my feminism compels me to call them my sisters.

Continue reading “Our Sisters’ Feminisms by Xochitl Alvizo”

Longing for Hermitage by Elizabeth Cunningham

At least since the days of the Desert Mothers in the 4^th and 5^th centuries CE, there have been women in the Christian tradition (and doubtless other traditions) who have lived lives in religious solitude, whether by choice or circumstance. In Medieval Europe many churches had anchorholds, small enclosures inhabited by men or women dedicated to a life of solitude and prayer. The word anchorhold implies that the presence of the anchoress or anchorite grounded the church community, but the word derives from the ancient Greek verb (pronounced anachōreō) for to retire or withdraw. Anchoress Julian of Norwich is still revered as the author Revelations of Divine Love, possibly the earliest surviving book written by a woman in the English language. Six centuries after her death, her vision of Jesus our Mother continues to challenge, comfort, and inspire.

I grew up in an Episcopal rectory, daughter of a secretly agnostic mother who loathed being a minister’s wife (living in a fishbowl, she said) and a father who preached and practiced the social gospel as had his father before him. If you weren’t directly feeding, clothing, visiting “the least of these my brethren,” your pieties (as my father dismissed them) were worthless. At every meal we prayed, “make us always mindful of the needs of others.” Selfishness and individualism were synonymous. The pronoun “I” was frowned upon. The only route to salvation was social and/or political activism. My father walked his talk, literally, taking part in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.

Continue reading “Longing for Hermitage by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Hajar: of the desert by amina wadud

This week the Islamic pilgrimage or Hajj was completed. For those not gathering on the dusty plains of the desert in Arabia, we have the celebration of the Feast of the Sacrifice, commemorating the exchange of a lamb for the blood of the son of Abraham. This story is coated with patriarchy, and so it is with some fascination that Hajar (biblical Hagar) configures so significantly in the Islamic telling of it.

According to the same patriarchal twist, it is Abraham’s first son that is pivotal to the story’s continuation and the salvation of a people, yet to be born. That his first son, Ishmael, was born of a slave woman—some say of African origins—is not without extreme symbolism for African-American women, mostly Christian. That she is the mother of the tribes of Arabs is also not without some extreme genealogy along with that symbolism. But that she a single female head of household, whose sojourn in the desert still, has a central ritual re-enactment in the Hajj, that I turn to here. Continue reading “Hajar: of the desert by amina wadud”

The Little Words by Kelly Brown Douglas

As I contemplate the state of our world from the rhetoric of shut-downs to stand your ground, from the self-righteousness of political discourse to the dogma of ecclesiastic pronouncements, and from the justifications for political inequality to the explanations for ecological disregard, I wonder what has happen to all of our little words?

What has happen to our little words of gratitude? These are words like “thank you,” or “I appreciate that,” or “that is kind of you.” Have you ever noticed how in our world today people rush through it without stopping to say thank you? We have become a taken-for-granted people in a taken-for-granted world. We act as if we are entitled to certain things because of who we are or simply because we are. But here is the thing, that which we take for granted we tend to squander, to abuse, and to easily discard—like our natural and human resources. We take for granted our relationships to the earth as well as to one another. We take for granted our life on this planet and our life in community. It is time that we recover our little words. We must learn once again to speak little words of gratitude, for such little words go a long way in changing our world and to transforming a people from being wasteful, excessive and warring to being conserving, non-indulging, and peaceable. Continue reading “The Little Words by Kelly Brown Douglas”

An Ethics of Anger by Ivy Helman

Sometimes I feel angry. I would say that more often I’m upset, disappointed, annoyed or just plain frustrated. These are easier emotions for me to handle because I tend to shy away from confrontation and conflict. Of course, when they come up I can deal with them but I’d rather put time and energy into fruitful communication before difficult conflicts erupt. Nevertheless, this doesn’t always work and other people handle situations and communication differently than I do. So how does one approach anger? The anger inside one’s self? Another’s anger? What about when two individuals are angry with each other? I would like to spend a little bit of time treating each one of these scenarios separately and then conclude with a few general remarks about the importance of empathic feelings of anger over the situations of others.

First of all, everyone handles anger differently. I’m not sure that there is only one correct way to approach it. Personally, I use anger as a reflective tool. Why am I angry? What happened or didn’t happen to provoke my anger? Is my anger an appropriate response to the situation in which I find myself? Are there some concrete actions I can do to right the situation? These questions allow space for me to not only explore my feelings and ground myself, but more importantly they give me some space between what made me angry and whatever action or inaction I take toward that feeling of anger. Continue reading “An Ethics of Anger by Ivy Helman”

Painting Holy Women By Angela Yarber

Each month, I focus on one of my Holy Woman Icons with a folk feminist twist, highlighting the often unsung stories of feminism’s heroines: Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, and many others who will be featured in the months to come. While some of these holy women may not be incredibly famous to the wider public, most of their names and stories are familiar to the readers of Feminism and Religion. They are goddesses, saints, artists, dancers, scholars, clergy, and pillars of the faith. We tell their stories in our classrooms. Their stories embolden us to stand tall, stay strong, and continue working for justice and equality. But what of the women whose songs really are unsung, whose stories never grace the pages of our textbooks? What about the women who have, indeed, emboldened us, paved the way for us to be who we are, but who our readers have never heard of? This month I would like to focus on one of these women. You’ve probably never heard her name, but I know her very well. It is her courage that has given me strength, her compassion that has taught me to love. Her name is Mary Harrell and she is my mother.

In her seminal work that highlights the importance of telling women’s stories, FAR’s own Carol Christ begins by saying:

Women’s stories have not been told. And without stories there is no articulation of experience. Without stories a woman is lost when she comes to make the important decisions of her life. She does not learn to value her struggles, to celebrate her strengths, to comprehend her pain. Without stories she cannot understand herself. Without stories she is alienated from those experiences of self and world that have been called spiritual or religious. She is closed in silence. The expression of women’s spiritual quest is integrally related to the telling of women’s stories. If women’s stories are not told, the depth of women’s souls will not be known. (Carol Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980) Continue reading “Painting Holy Women By Angela Yarber”

Rebranding Feminism by Linn Marie Tonstad

Feminism has a “brand”? A recent contest – still running, if you want to get in on it! – asks for suggestions about how to “rebrand feminism.” The contest has corporate sponsors. Saying that although feminism “has brought us the right to vote, drive and have our own bank accounts,” it is nonetheless the case that “Feminism has been given a bad rap, and gotten a bad rep.” Elle UK’s November issue does the same, claiming to rebrand “a term that many feel has become burdened with complications and negativity.”

I suspect that most readers here at Feminism and Religion will have similar reactions to this development: disgust and distaste. Why do feminists need to overcome the negative stereotypes and reactions that are used to dismiss them by anti-feminists? Most of us have heard the usual derisive responses, I suspect, and are tired of being instructed that it is our responsibility to overcome stereotypes we have done nothing to earn. I once wrote the words “feminist” and “Christian” on the board in an introductory theology class, and asked students what the first word that came to mind was in each case. Predictably, the first response for “feminist” was “femi-Nazi.” The student wasn’t intending to imply that such a designation was fair, but the immediacy of the reaction was telling. So why should feminists subordinate our political and social aims to corporate self-promotion? And is feminism really just about getting the vote, being able to drive, and having bank accounts? This list of issues brings together the trivial (when were women unable to drive in the UK or USA?), the liberal status quo (voting), and the assumption that feminism means the full ability to participate in the capitalist system. That’s not to suggest that these concerns are unimportant. But all of them involve acceding to an already-constituted public, financial, political, and social space. Is feminism simply about, as so many popular invocations have it these days, equality and giving women the same opportunities as men? Continue reading “Rebranding Feminism by Linn Marie Tonstad”

“Stand Up Straight” by Kelly Brown Douglas

When I was little my mother use to always tell me to “stand up straight.” It is probably because of my mother’s plea that one particular bible story became one of my favorites. It is a story that comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 13. In this story Jesus heals a woman who had been crippled and bent over for 18 years. As he does so he tells her “to stand up straight.” For me, these are some of the most powerful words that Jesus could have spoken to this woman. For not only did they signal that he had freed her from whatever the burden was that kept her hunched over, but they also restored her to a sense of dignity. These are simple, yet powerful words, for the many women in our midst who have for so long have not been able to stand up straight.

I think of the Sarah Baartmans of our world, like a Rachel Jeantel, who are made into a circus act because of their appearance. What happened to Sarah Baartman in 1810 as she was paraded across Europe so that people could examine her buttocks and genitalia—deeming her exotic and erotic, happened to Rachel in 2013 as she gave testimony in an American courtroom while people decried her appearance and mocked her speech—deeming her ignorant and illiterate. Continue reading ““Stand Up Straight” by Kelly Brown Douglas”

Muslim Feminism: On Finding Meaning in the Struggle by Jennifer Zobair

painted hands, Jennifer Zobair — Photo Credit: Brian Ziska

I threw Catholics under the bus at a book reading.

I didn’t mean to and, as a former Catholic, I felt awful about it. I was promoting my novel, Painted Hands, about dynamic, successful Muslim women in Boston. During the Q&A, someone asked why I’d converted to Islam. Pressed for time, I explained that I’d tried hard to be a Catholic feminist, referenced the fact that there was no Original Sin imputed to Eve in Islam, and admitted I’d struggled with the Trinity and welcomed a religion where Jesus was revered but not divine.

Afterwards, I fretted about the comparisons. “That was bad, wasn’t it?” I asked my husband. “Maybe,” he said gently, “stop at the fact that there are feminist interpretations of Islam. Maybe don’t say anything about other religions.”

When you’ve left one religion for another, the implication is that you did find something better. Continue reading “Muslim Feminism: On Finding Meaning in the Struggle by Jennifer Zobair”

Sappho & Early Christianity by Stuart Dean

Given modern perceptions of Sappho it is, I am sure, going to seem at a minimum counterintuitive that early Christians would have had an interest in Sappho. The issue is not helped by the fact that a story about Saint Gregory of Nazianzus ordering the burning of Sappho’s poetry has been frequently repeated both in print and online. There is no basis for it in any reliable historical source. Mention is first made of it in the Renaissance, possibly as the result of confusing attitudes and policies of later times with those of Gregory’s time. Whatever the explanation, it is ironic any credence was given to such a story, for not only was Gregory very interested in Sappho in particular, but he was also a keen advocate for appreciating the relevance to Christianity of art and literature generally. A prominent figure in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Gregory is not well known to ‘Western’ Christianity, especially among English speaking Christians. An excellent place to familiarize yourself with him is a brief talk given by John McGuckin, who is a priest, poet and scholar at Columbia University, available on youtube here.

There are a variety of possible explanations for Gregory’s interest in Sappho that relate to both his personal circumstances as well as how Sappho had been received within the Judaeo-Christian tradition in ancient times. It is worth noting that Gregory was from what is today a region of Turkey occupied by Hittites in very ancient times. That happens to be an area that Sappho may have had some cultural connection with, for modern linguistic analysis suggests that her name, which does not mean anything in Greek, derives from Hittite or a related ancient Turkish language. What did ‘Sappho’ mean in Hittite? ‘Holy one.’ I am basing this on an article by Edwin Brown that is available online here for those who want more granularity. Continue reading “Sappho & Early Christianity by Stuart Dean”