100 Years After Women’s Right to Vote, Our Feminist Struggle Continues by Gina Messina

The first time I called myself a feminist, I think I was twelve years old. Growing up in a traditional Sicilian Catholic household, misogyny was ever-present. There were clear expectations of me and my brother based on our gender and these ideas were grounded in our religion. I didn’t realize how problematic this was until much later; but by age twelve I was asking questions and knew that it wasn’t fair that my brother could be an altar server and I couldn’t…because I was a girl. 

A few years ago, I experienced a shift in my life. I am not sure how to explain it. Some might call it a midlife crisis; but I’m inclined to define it as an awakening, at least a partial awakening. I won’t foolishly claim that I am suddenly enlightened; however I began to question my own identity as a feminist. Continue reading “100 Years After Women’s Right to Vote, Our Feminist Struggle Continues by Gina Messina”

What’s Changed? by Elise M. Edwards

An image of Elise Edwards smiling outdoorsFriends, 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”

In Search of Insight by Gina Messina

A conversation I often have with students is focused on the ways mission and purpose are inextricably linked with our roles as human beings. Understanding what it means to say that human beings have a specific purpose can feel overwhelming and spiral us into an existential crisis; a hallmark of a “Messina class,” according to one of my students. 

Regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs, we must know that we are called to a particular mission within our lives. We are gifted with knowledge and abilities that contribute to a greater whole. And when we are willing to see our own missions through, we become part of a collective effort that honors the humanity of all. 

For many of us, we have a mission; an understanding of our purpose and how we can engage our communities to work toward positive social change. But as time passes, we grow, our circumstances shift, and we gain insight; as a result, our missions need to reshape.

For women, and particularly women of color, our ability to understand and engage our missions have been bogged down with oppressive structures that devalue our contributions. Dualism has forced women into roles of passive care takers who always put themselves last. Acknowledging the critique of white feminism, women of color experience such roles in a far more damaging way, expected to not only care for their own families; but also serve those who society has claimed to have a higher status based on race and wealth. Although we too are made in the image of God, our full humanity is often denied, with intersecting identities determining our level of worthiness in this broken world.  Continue reading “In Search of Insight by Gina Messina”

Mary of Magdala and Intersectionality by Gina Messina

We recently celebrated the feast day of St. Mary of Magdala, a woman who is responsible for the founding of the Christian tradition and a model of what it means to live up to the role and expectation of being a human being. 

Committed to Jesus’ message of love, inclusion, liberation, and social justice, she funded his ministry and in his darkest hour, when the male apostles had abandoned him, Mary of Magdala stood at the foot of the cross. 

The Gospels honor her as the person Jesus chose to reveal his resurrected self to – and the first person to preach the message of the Risen Christ — a message initially met with utter disbelief by the male apostles. This male dominated book was careful to ensure that the world knew that Mary of Magdala — a woman — had a primary role in Jesus’ ministry and the establishing of Christianity. Without her – we would not know the message of Jesus as we do today. 

We see how she has been punished for this.  The shifting of her identity dictated by the patriarchal structures of the Church is well demonstrated through art history. Early on her image was shared as a woman who was respected – her head covered and wearing colors that signified her position of importance. Following the not so accidental interpretation of Mary of Magdala as a prostitute in 591 CE by Pope Gregory I, suddenly the imagery changes to a woman with red hair, long and flowing, often nude, begging to be forgiven. What better way to silence a woman than call her a whore? Continue reading “Mary of Magdala and Intersectionality by Gina Messina”

When “Interfaith” Started Losing its Luster for Me by Valentina Khan

Interfaith, a wonderful term that brings only happiness to my mind. So many days spent sitting and planning out events at the local coffee shop (shout out to The Lost Bean in Tustin, CA. which was one of the first small businesses to support “interfaith work”)  and attending many meetings at various houses of worship. We worked year after year to promote one another. To get to know each other, to promote peace, and community building. I sat in living rooms, hearing different faith perspectives from many voices, from the young up to the old and wise. Each time it was refreshing to see the dedication and respect the participants had.

But, after 10 years of advocating for interfaith work, my light dimmed. For me in particular, Islamaphobia was on the rise. Terrorist attacks were plentiful, and I was out of excuses. How many times could I say “this isn’t Islam. These aren’t Muslims, this is not what the religion teaches, I would not be a part of a religion that promoted violence.” I was getting tired of showing up, explaining, defending, and leaving wondering if I made a difference or if another terrorist attack would simply negate everything I just said?  Eventually, I retreated into the cocoon of motherhood, and building my career. My days of community service within the interfaith context were done. I had no more mojo, encouragement or inspiration. I really didn’t. I was just done. My last speaking engagement was over a year ago to a group of Catholic moms, such a great talk but I didn’t feel the urge to go back and talk more. It’s like a flower that wilted. Petals fell off, and nothing was left to blossom.

Continue reading “When “Interfaith” Started Losing its Luster for Me by Valentina Khan”

Celtic Myth, Moon Blood, and the White Beauty Standard by Marisa Goudy

My woman’s body is entering the dark time of the moon, even with blinding white snow lashing the windows, even with a full moon tracing its way far above thick clouds. My mood is black and soon I’ll be flowing red, and the snow will just drive on white, white, white.

In The White Goddess, Robert Graves tells us: “…the New Moon is the white goddess of birth and growth; the Full Moon, the red goddess of love and battle; the Old Moon, the black goddess of death and divination.”

The Celt in me feels cradled by this imagery, even if, as Judith Shaw and Carol P. Christ have pointed out elsewhere on this site, the idea of maid, mother, and crone is a modern invention, not gift from the past. I agree with Christ:  “My suggestion is that we give up the idea that the details of contemporary Goddess Spirituality are rooted in and authorized by tradition. We can instead acknowledge that though we are inspired by the past, we are the ones who are creating contemporary Goddess Spirituality.”

Continue reading “Celtic Myth, Moon Blood, and the White Beauty Standard by Marisa Goudy”

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”

An Algorithm for Capturing White Heteropatriarchy: The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Failure of the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements to Embrace Intersectionality by Blanche Cook

 

The church occasioned one of my first conscious experiences with inequality — Sunday school to be exact. I was nine and bedecked in black platform shoes and a bright pink polyester suit.  It was the 70s, a moment in fashion history never to be revisited.  My Sunday school teacher, a spiritually angelic woman, was explaining the demise of the Woman Caught in Adultery. According to the story, the leaders of law and religion wanted to stone the woman to death for having intercourse with a man that was not her husband.  Although she was vulnerable to the death penalty, the man was not exposed to any punishment.  This lopsided sanctioning plagued my young mind.  Little did I know, I would spend my legal career, as a federal sex trafficking prosecutor and as a legal scholar, trying to vindicate the Woman Caught in Adultery.

Continue reading “An Algorithm for Capturing White Heteropatriarchy: The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Failure of the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements to Embrace Intersectionality by Blanche Cook”

Painting the Mother of Exiles by Angela Yarber

angelaLast month, my column focused on the importance of intersectionality within the feminist movement by highlighting the revolutionary work of Sojourner Truth, an escaped slave, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist. I’d like to continue to press the importance of intersectionality, particularly given our current political state. Of late, I’ve received a little criticism that some of my recent Holy Women Icons are too political, particularly with reference to Mothers of Black Lives Matter, Dolores Huerta, and the Midwives of Standing Rock. As a woman artist, and particularly a queer woman artist, the personal is always political. Feminists taught us this decades ago. Since the lives, loves, and bodies of LGBTQs, women, refugees, immigrants, people of color, Muslims, Jews, those who are differently abled, and the poor continue to be legislated, violated, excluded, and oppressed, I’d contend that writing about, painting about, and working for liberation for all of these intersectional identities is paramount, especially for those who profess faith in a homeless refugee liberator from the Middle East (that would be Jesus, of course). Needless to say, I believe these recent works in the Holy Women Icons Project fit in quite nicely with the over seventy revolutionaries—political and otherwise—that I’ve painted and written about in the past.

These critiques combined with the current climate of the United States, new legislation passed, proposed, and promised that attacks the lives of the aforementioned marginalized groups. So, I took to canvas and, for the first time, I did not pen the poetry scrawled across the holy woman’s heart. Instead, I relied on the words of Jewish American poet, Emma Lazarus (1849-1877). Most famous for the portion of her sonnet, “The New Colossus,” that graces the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, I wanted Lady Liberty and Lazarus’ timely words to become my newest Holy Woman Icon. In its entirety, “The New Colossus” reads: Continue reading “Painting the Mother of Exiles by Angela Yarber”

The Need for Intersectionality: Repainting Sojourner Truth by AngelaYarber

angelaI’ve long held that feminism, in order to be true and engaged and practical, must be intersectional. Such is also the case, I believe, for LGBTQ rights. The work of justice for women and LGBTQs people must also include justice for other marginalized groups. Because many LGBTQ people are also women, people of color, people with disabilities, Muslims, immigrants, and others marginalized for identities other than their sexuality. 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? Further, are not women also part of LGBTQs? Are not there LGBTQ people of color? LGBTQs who are Muslim? LGBTQs who are immigrants? LGBTQs with disabilities? Of course there are. And even if there are not, are not our quests for liberation and rights and legal validity interrelated, mutually dependent, might I even say intersectional? Continue reading “The Need for Intersectionality: Repainting Sojourner Truth by AngelaYarber”

I Never Thought That I Would Need to Be a Part of History by K.M. Deaver

Suffragists parade down Fifth Avenue, 1917 -- The New York Times Photo Archives
Suffragists parade down Fifth Avenue, 1917 — The New York Times Photo Archives

I never thought that I would need to be a part of history.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that each generation does indeed end up in a history book for a handful of headlining events that mark the course of their lifetimes, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined that the women in those old black and white photos, the women marching in the streets, the women burned at the stake might actually need to be me.  

There were a few brief months where I truly believed that I would see the election of the first female President of the United States, but as we continue to be horrifyingly reminded each day, that version of history did not come to be.  In connection with many of the articles from the last few weeks I continue to be perplexed and deeply concerned by the response of white Christians to the events of the last few months.   Continue reading “I Never Thought That I Would Need to Be a Part of History by K.M. Deaver”

Religion, Dissent and Decolonial Approach in Latin America by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente and Juan F. Caraballo Resto

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Talking of decoloniality in religion and theology is today a fashionable stance that has been adopted even by the academic and political mainstream. As Latin Americans, decolonial perspectives affect us firsthandedly. For the last 500 years, our continent has nurtured resistance struggles against the racial, sexual, economic, ethnic and religious violences that emerge from the numerous process of colonization we have endured. With this in mind, in this article we contribute to the debate on decolonization of our religious phenomena.

Decolonizing is to Assume that all Religion can Operate as a Colonizing Agent

The expansion of European colonialism in Latin America transpired through all aspects of social existence and gave rise to new social and geocultural identifications (e.g. “European”, “American”, “Indian”, “African”, etc). The consequences of this domination reverberate to this day.

In this regard, we should not loose track of the fact that all abrahamic religions had their genesis within Latin America in the form of colonial presence. In other words, most of our religious expressions are the product of colonial forms of governance, which benefited from an exclusionary instrumentalization of the religious narratives as a tool to ‘dignify’ and ‘enhance’ the population as ‘colonial subjects’.

This was the case of Christianity. The mission carried out by the first European conquistadores in the Americas was characterized by the drawing of exclusionary theological lines that legitimized some, questioned others, and condemned many. Colonization thus manifested itself in part through spiritual violence on native populations. Evangelization, in this regard, was biopolitical in nature; it entailed the pushing of non-European bodies (and souls) into ‘Otherness’.

This illuminates unto why, for example, nowadays interfaith relations have become a problem, rather than a resource for many Latin American Christian congregations. It is often assumed that to establish lasting links of solidarity with religious ‘Others’ puts at risk the core elements which have been taught to enhance our population by the different metropoles that have governed and preached in our midst.

It is well established that for too long the bases of Christianity in the Americas were built upon imposed and/or conditioned conversions which constantly demanded and reminded people that in order to have ‘goodness’ reside in them, they had to be someone essentially different to who they were; they had to be Christian (Rivera Pagán 2013, 2014; Silva Gotay 1998, 2005). In this regard, long established religions such as Judaism, Islam, Spiritism, and Afro-Atlantic religions such as Santería or Palo have been relegated to inferior statuses in some still colonial contexts, such as Puerto Rico (Caraballo-Resto 2016; Román 2007).

A similar case, can be found within Islam. As mentioned in a previous article, many Muslim congregations in the Americas have done well in mirroring the colonial practices of Christianity. Despite common assumptions, some contemporary Muslim groups have come to our lands with the clear aim of Arabization and, again, through spiritual violence they categorize locals as “others” and, thus “subordinate” them as perpetual ‘underage believers’, who seem to need the Arab tutorial aid relentlessly. At times, their theologies are reminiscent of those expressed by Catholicism 500 years ago: A call to abandon local trajectories and spiritualities, in favor of adopting Middle Eastern names, language, arts and aesthetics, social manners, political causes and even diet. Only then, are us Latin American to be considered by some of these communities as “Noble Savages”.

Although some scholars linked to decolonial studies within Islam have difficulty accepting this, Islam has historically been instrumentalized as a colonizing agent in the Middle East, West Africa, Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

If we talk about Islam and decoloniality in the same sentence, there should be honesty on these facts.

Colonization occurs not only through the sword and war, also through trade, culture and social discourses that become hegemonic and religion. In this regard, the ‘jihad of the soul’ is seldom devoid of politics. The absence of blood is not tantamount to a lessening of colonial violence. There are many and different ways to curtail, cancel and oppress a people without resorting to their physical extermination.

Religion and the Heterosexual Regime

Colonial religions in Latin America have been characterized by an hegemonic discourse based on heterosexuality as a compulsory scheme, androcentrism, ableism and speciesism. Historically, this has entailed the exercise of a new religious taxonomy (eg. ‘Moro’, ‘Marranos’, ‘noble souls’, etc.). Yet, this also corresponded to an encompassing system of power that intersected all control of collective authority, labor, racial relations, the production of knowledge, as well as sexual access and meaning.

It is well known that many indigenous peoples of the Americas were matriarchal, recognized more than two genders, recognized homosexuality and “third” gendering positively and understood gender in much more problematized terms rather than in the binary terms of subordination monotheistic system imposed.

Such dichotomy not only found its way in Latin America. It also transpired in parts of Africa, which were later linked to our Latin-American contexts by way of slavery. This has been dealt at lengths by Nigerian feminist scholar Oyéronké Oyewùmí, in her work The Invention of Women (1997). In it she states that gender was not an organizing principle in Yoruba society prior to European colonization (idem: 31). Instead, she argues that gender has “become important in Yoruba studies not as an artifact of Yoruba life but because Yoruba life, past and present, has been translated into English to fit the Western pattern of body-reasoning” (idem: 30).

So, it becomes all the more important to consider the changes that religious colonizers have brought, as well as the lip service we’ve paid to it, in order to understand the scope of our Latin American organizations of sex and gender under colonialism.

Theology of Dissent in Response to Religious Heteropatriarchy

A decolonial theology must be one of dissidence if it is to have any liberating character. ‘Dissidence’, here, is not used as a mere label of disagreement, but rather as a situational stance from which the very bases of our legitimization as colonial subjects are constantly contested. And just as the expansion of religious colonialism in Latin America transpired through all aspects of social existence and gave rise to new social and geocultural identifications, a decolonial theology of dissidence must do the same—starting from our own gendered bodies.

In sexual terms, Latin American women and non-heterosexual people have been historically defined in relation to heterosexual men as the norm. In other words, women are those who do not have a penis, and non-heterosexual men are those who do not use their penis according to the norm (Lugones 2003). From a decolonial theology of dissidence this must be contested—placed in a situation of uncomfortable political transactions perennially.

From this point of view, a decolonial theology of dissent is much more than a body of intellectual writings. It is a daily practice—a quotidian mode of resistance—that involves people at the grassroots where the challenges of exclusion are negotiated. Yet, something is to be said for the epistemological zones of privilege where colonialism is also instantiated. There is no decoloniality without resistance, and there can be no resistance against the traditional hegemonic enclaves where colonialism is legitimized, as long as the centers where knowledge is produced conceive people in resistance as “objects of study”, rather than “fellows in knowledge-building”.

Up to this day, ‘Otherness’ is one of the most deeply rooted archaeological legacies left by our colonial religiosities. Upon its finding, some people of faith in Latin America are now left to determine how best to deal with religion(s) in an inclusive, liberating and welcoming way, so that our social contexts become ones where religious, gendered, ethnic, linguistic, racial, and able diversities are not thought of as problems, but a resources to strengthen ties. Only then can we help truly shift this time of instability for our region.

Decolonizing religion in Latin America entails understanding that the religious question is always political, and as such must be contested. If there is any liberating potential in the religious phenomena, this is due to a lucid dissidence that eludes colonial privilege and embraces an ethical compromise beyond religious labels.

 

Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente is a social communicator, writer, mentor in digital activism and community educator in gender and capacity development. She has led initiatives for grass roots female leaders’s empowerment in Latin America and Africa. She is an intersectional latin muslim feminist in the crossroads between Religion, Power and Sexuality. Her academic work addresses Feminist Hermeneutics in Islam, Muslim Women Representations, Queer Identities and Movement Building. Vanessa is the founder of Mezquita de Mujeres (A Mosque for Women), a social media and educational project based in ICT that aims to explore the links between feminism, knowledge and activism and highlights the voices and perspectives of women from the global south as change makers in their communities.

Juan F. Caraballo Resto is professor of Sociology and Anthropology of University of Puerto Rico Reinto Cayey. PhD in Social Anthropology from University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Featured Image: Indigenous woman in Chiapas, Mexico, part of the Islamic mission of Dawa in the area, wearing a hiyab and showing a Qur’an in Spanish,

Latin Identities and Muslim Malinches by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente and Sumayah Soler

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The myth says that Malinche, an Aztec princess, betrayed her people, her culture and faith, for the love and the desire to be loved and accepted by the foreign Spanish conquer, colonialist and exploiter. Her name, said with contempt, is used in Latin America to point those who sacrifice their identity and tradition in order to please foreigners over their own people and family.

Latin America has experienced in recent years an increase in the presence of Islam on the continent. As Muslims, we support and promote freedom of conscience that leads to our brothers and sisters to embrace Islam as their spiritual journey, as we did ourselves. However, we also know, because we have lived and learned from other latin muslims, that converting to Islam for Latinamericans means assuming the position of Malinche; this means to undertake a violent process of detachment and alienation of everything that identifies them as Latin, to prove their love and desire to be recognized as part of Islam. Continue reading “Latin Identities and Muslim Malinches by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente and Sumayah Soler”

What Will the Faith Response to Zika Be? by Katey Zeh

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In the face of the Zika epidemic the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new recommendations for individuals at risk of contracting the virus either through mosquito bites or through sexual contact with an infected person. If someone has traveled to an area where Zika is present, the WHO recommends abstinence or consistent condom use for at least eight weeks or up to six months if a partner shows symptoms. (Only 20% of people infected with the virus are symptomatic.) But for women of childbearing age living in areas affected by the virus, the WHO urges them to speak with their health providers about possibly delaying pregnancy, presumably indefinitely. The Zika virus has been linked to devastating birth defects including microcephaly.

After issuing the revised guidelines Nyka Alexander, spokesperson for the WHO, clarified that the purpose of them was not to discourage all at-risk couples from conceiving, but rather to ensure that they consider the Zika virus and its potential impacts on the timing of pregnancy. “Whether and when to become pregnant should be a personal choice made on the basis of information and access to affordable, quality health services,” said Alexander.

For pregnancy to be a personal choice, women and men must have access to the tools, information, and resources they need to prevent, delay, or plan it. Worldwide more than 220 million women want to avoid pregnancy but have an unmet need for reliable, safe contraceptive methods. The Zika virus has brought significant attention to what has been a public health crisis and an ethical tragedy for decades: that despite modern medical advances 85 million women experience unintended pregnancies each year. Continue reading “What Will the Faith Response to Zika Be? by Katey Zeh”

Education as Resistance by Dawn Morais Webster

Dawn Morais Webster, the Pope off to his summer palace, Castel Gandolfo. He tells the world he will now become just a “humble pilgrim.”Ivy Helman’s recent commentary (((Israel))) criticizes what she sees as “a new form of anti-Semitism” from organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace in their advocacy of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. So I begin this account of a recent visit by two Palestinian students to Hawaii with a reminder that the BDS movement is simply using the tools of nonviolent resistance to pressure Israel into giving Arab-Palestinians what Israel insists on for itself: equality, freedom, peace, justice and access to their homes and properties as stipulated by UN Resolution 194. Israel’s continuing  land grabs speak to Israel’s sense of impunity. The two Birzeit University students provided a first hand account of what life under Israeli control means to them and their families. It was the kind of  opportunity “to share and learn” that Helman says is necessary. And it only reinforced the importance of the BDS effort.

Mai Hasan and Noor Daghlas, students participating in Birzeit University’s Right to Education (R2E) Tour of American universities have stories to tell that are chilling. Stories that make you wonder why you are still in your seat, instead of running out screaming for someone to do something. To stop the madness that is the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet both students speak of their experiences with the matter-of-fact intensity of activists who have come to terms with the fact that their journey is long, and that they have survived, while many have not.

“I am here, not to speak about myself, but to speak for those who are no longer with us,” said Mai Hasan when asked whether she herself might face “administrative detention” after the tour. Since the year 2000, the Israeli government has imprisoned over 7,000 Palestinian youth, many for asserting their right to education. Mai, who graduated shortly after her return home, said without hesitation: “If I am arrested because of the truths I tell about the occupation, I will accept it proudly.”

Both students bear witness to the truth that Freedom is a Constant Struggle, the title of Angela Davis’ latest book. They were at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa recently, with the renowned scholar at the same table, speaking to a packed room. The panel discussion took place just a few hours before Davis delivered her keynote address as the spring 2016 Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals to an overflow crowd at the Kennedy Theater. The two young Palestinian undergraduates talking about their life under siege in their own homeland, in conversation with the lifelong activist in front of an audience in Hawaiʻi, one of the places made American by occupation, was a statement of what Davis calls the “intersectionality of struggles.” As Cynthia Franklin, professor in the English department at UH Mānoa and organizer of the visit, said in introducing the panel, the event could be viewed through the lens of Davis’ own words that “It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.” Continue reading “Education as Resistance by Dawn Morais Webster”

What’s Essential by Esther Nelson

esther-nelsonAfter reading my essay (4-15-16) on this Feminism and Religion site, one of my male colleagues (also a good friend) pushed back at me.  “Seems to me,” he said, “that the issue in any oppression is power and power structures are fluid.”  He went on to say that men don’t always exercise power over women and then cited his less-than-satisfactory experience with a female dean who tried to unfairly eradicate an academic program he initiated.  He reminded me that in bygone times, there were queens who ruled empires–sometimes harshly.  Currently, there are women with a certain amount of power who control (to some extent) the lives of their housekeepers (usually women) and gardeners (usually men).  Often these housekeepers and gardeners are women and men of color who inhabit a lower social strata.

“Yes,” I noted, “there’s that whole intersectionality thing of race, class, and gender.  The contours of oppression shift, but the essay I wrote focused on showing how our society is built and structured, at least partially, upon gender inequality.”  He wasn’t convinced that all women in our society inhabit a space where structured gender inequality affects all women, coming back to his argument that power structures shift and we all find ourselves caught somewhere in that web at one time or another. Continue reading “What’s Essential by Esther Nelson”

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