In my last post, “Feminism and Religion: Where Do I stand?” I talked about how I support an atheistic, secular, and liberal feminism that criticizes organized religion and certain religious beliefs. After reading the comments and responding to them, I figured that having a brief interview with a woman who holds these sorts of views would be a good way to introduce them to this blog. I met Anondah Saide at a course at Claremont Graduate University titled, “Evolution, Economics, and the Brain,” taught by the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society and Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Dr. Michael Shermer. Anondah was the TA for the course, and I found her comments in class to promote science, reason, and skepticism towards religious and spiritual claims of all kinds. So without further ado, here is the interview: Continue reading “A Pro-Science, Skeptical Woman Speaks by Kile Jones”
Category: Politics
Second Class Rape Victims: Rape Hierarchy and Gender Conflict
Deconstructing masculinity isn’t the key to solving social, sexual, and domestic violence across the world but it is a step worth taking when attempting to engage men in affecting change to stop these violent actions since men, statistically are the perpetrators of such crimes that both cause such outcry as well as perpetual silence.
The most disturbing part of the 2006 documentary Deliver Us from Evil isn’t the fact that Father Oliver O’Grady is rewarded by the Catholic Church with a new congregation in Ireland after his short stint in prison for the rape of dozens of children in the 1970s, but rather the hierarchy of gendered victimization which is often created throughout the various rape cases that are both reported and unreported throughout history.
I am often troubled by the ways in which rape cases are discussed and deconstructed via mediums such as blogs, online communities, social media networks, the news, and popular culture. No series of events troubled me more than the Jerry Sandusky trial, but more importantly, the ways in which the young boys and adult men who were subjected to Sandusky’s abuse quickly overshadowed the other rape cases that are reported on a daily basis, specifically those involving young girls and women. Continue reading “Second Class Rape Victims: Rape Hierarchy and Gender Conflict”
Bringing African American Churches into Reproductive Justice by Mariam Williams
I don’t expect to hear anything in church about the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade during the month of January, the month marking 40 years since the U.S. Supreme Court made the decision to legalize abortion in this country. This is for a number of reasons: 1) it’s January, and at my church the pastor always starts off the year with a series of sermons that illustrate the church’s mission statement, and women’s choice may be off the subject; 2) Martin Luther King Jr. Day is this month, and if a black church is going to honor something or someone besides Jesus in the month of January, it should probably be MLK; and 3) I haven’t heard anything about abortion from the pulpit in a long time.
A local pro-choice movement leader asked me recently about how black churchgoers feel about abortion. I didn’t know what to say. The last time I heard it mentioned was in a Sunday School class in which a woman said that she almost aborted her daughter. It wasn’t a big confessional moment, just part of a longer testimony as to why she was happy her daughter was around, and it wasn’t received with any shock or fanfare. I can remember hearing once from the pulpit of my current church that while abortion might be wrong, the law shouldn’t interfere with what a woman chooses to do with her own body. Many years before that, in the church I grew up in, a preacher said that we would never find a cure for AIDS because the person who would have grown up to discover the cure was aborted. (What made him so sure of that? Who knows.) Continue reading “Bringing African American Churches into Reproductive Justice by Mariam Williams”
The Next Liberal Prophet: What Will She Look Like? By Amy Levin
This past Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I was privileged enough to attend the 57th presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol. Spirits were high and it seemed as if we were breathing recycled air infused with the hope of four years past. As the President approached the stage, he appeared with the confidence of a second term sage, and yet there was a newer, fresher quality about him – purified and politically born-again. As he began to speak, the religious undertones leaped out into the pews. Beautifully crafted in diction, rhetoric, and reference, Obama pleased and inspired his dedicated supporters. Guiding us historically through Seneca, Selma, and Stonewall, we understood the meaningful tributes toward women, African Americans, and the LGBT communities. But there was an excess – another constituent represented – God had entered the stage.
Continue reading “The Next Liberal Prophet: What Will She Look Like? By Amy Levin”
And Thus God made a Covenant with Hagar in the Wilderness by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
We are familiar with the covenant God made with Abraham and Moses, but are you aware that God also made a covenant with Hagar?
In the wilderness Hagar encounters a deity at the well named Beer-lahai-roi (Genesis 16). Water and wells are important because they symbolize fertility and life. Wells for women are common places where they met their future spouses. Because wanderers in the desert need water to survive, water itself becomes a symbolic of life-giving or life.
In the seemingly barren dessert, the fertile Hagar finds out that she is pregnant and going to be the mother of many children. Hagar is promised progeny in a motherless state. According to Pamela Tamarkin Reis, this is called the “after-me” descendants, which guarantees Hagar that her children will live for “immeasurable generations;” a pattern that fits within the scope of this promise. This same promise of progeny is also given to Eve in Genesis 3:20, providing and interesting parallelism between Eve and Hagar.
It is worth pointing out the irony exists in this promise. Sarai uses Hagar to “build her up.” According to Nahum Sarna, to be built up in terms of the number of children that you have, implies that you are mother to a dynasty. In this pericope, however, it is Hagar, not Sarai that is built up through this divine promise.
This patterns of promise exists within the birth narrative through the annunciation of Ishmael and the promise of progeny. It is through this narrative that Hagar enters into a covenantal relationship with the deity. According to J. H. Jarrell, birth narratives have six common elements that establish this relationship: mother’s status, protest, offer, son’s future forecast, Yahweh naming, and acceptance of the contract. Hagar’s story contain these elements:
- Mother’s Status: Hagar is without child because she is a virgin (16:1).
- Protest: Hagar flees from her mistress (16:8).
- Offer: Return to your mistress and submit to her authority (16:9).
- Son’s Future Forecast: He will live at the east of all his brothers (16:12).
- Yahweh Naming: You will bear a son Ishmael because the Lord has given heed to your affliction (16:11).
- Acceptance of the Contract: She called the name of the Lord (16:13).
Don’t Worry, I Won’t Marry Your Girlfriend: Sexuality, Identity, and the Easy Laugh
No longer having to deconstruct the larger cultural and sexual narratives, heterosexuals who do not support marriage equality or feel threatened by homosexuals return to their one source of power that reinforces the ideology that they are on the right path: the Bible. “Marriage is between a man a woman,” or “A man shall not lie with another man as he would a woman,” becomes the newly reinforced heterosexual rallying cry and the progressive progress that occurred in the past becomes nothing more than a joke.
I must say, I will be the first to admit that the recent outbreak of videos promulgating the idea that gay men will marry a straight guy’s girlfriend or lesbians will marry a straight girl’s boyfriend all for the sake of marriage equality left me stifling my laughter as I attempted to pay attention in class.
However, after the calamity died down I took a moment to reflect upon the intrinsically embedded aspects of misdirected norms of sexuality, gender, and misogyny latent within the laugh lines and the guffaws throughout each video. Continue reading “Don’t Worry, I Won’t Marry Your Girlfriend: Sexuality, Identity, and the Easy Laugh”
The Israel-Palestine Conflict and Ecofeminist Insights for Lasting Peace By Ivy Helman
On Thursday, November 29, 2012, the United Nations officially recognized the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state and granted its petition for observer status within the international decision-making body. Sixty-five years before the United Nations had approved a two-state solution for the region, UN Resolution 181, that officially ended the British occupation of the territory and sanctioned the possibility of two states. It says:
“The resolution recommends that the United Kingdom (as mandatory power for Palestine) evacuate; armed forces should withdraw no later than August 1, 1948; independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem administered by the United Nations should come into existence; the City of Jerusalem should preserve the interests of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths.
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While the Palestinian Arab population disagreed with that solution, when British forces left on August 1, 1948, Israel declared statehood. The United States recognized its statehood the same day. Russia was soon to follow suit.
Out of the Bars and Into the Streets and ….by Marie Cartier
I remember the election season of 1984. At the 1984 Democratic National Convention on July 18 in San Francisco, California, Jesse Jackson delivered the Keynote address, entitled “The Rainbow Coalition.” The speech called for Arab Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, youth, disabled veterans, small farmers, lesbians and gays to join with African Americans and Jewish Americans for a political purpose. My lover at the time woke me up very early in the morning to tell me that Jesse Jackson had said the words “lesbians and gays” as part of his speech at the Democratic Convention. I started to cry and called my mother and she cried, too. We both cried. It was a moment I will never forget…because in that moment I as a lesbian existed on national television and in the imagination and spoken word of the country’s political system where I live and pay taxes—in a way I never had before—I was spoken out loud. Continue reading “Out of the Bars and Into the Streets and ….by Marie Cartier”
Blessed Are The Organized, by Amy Levin
It was a humid yet windy day in Broward County, South Florida. My long pants and sleeves were becoming hostile towards me as I proceeded to slip off my shoes, don my borrowed headscarf, and set up shop just outside the modest mosque in Pembroke Pines. I waited patiently for prayers to end, hoping that my “Register to Vote” sign was placed in optimal eyesight of the female worshippers as they exited the prayer hall. All of my hope to expand the Florida electorate to help re-elect President Barack Obama was bundled in my mix of clipboards, voter registration forms, pens, and volunteer sign-up sheets. Just moments after the Imam wrapped up the Friday afternoon prayers, two young women wearing full hijab sauntered out. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to register to vote,” one of them said. “Perfect.” Continue reading “Blessed Are The Organized, by Amy Levin”
Pussy Riot: Guilty of Crimes of Blasphemy or Being Feminists? By Michele Stopera Freyhauf
In a country that was willing to [sic] its secular court on a “religious” cause, Pussy Riot are true revolutionaries. Nonetheless, it was not until they delivered these closing statements that their supporters—and opponents—heard what these three brave women stand for. Although they are being crushed in the jaws of the system—and know it!—their courage and steadfast sincerity are sufficient cause for (impossible) hope. If not for the Russian state, then at least for the Russian people. —Bela Shayevich
“When religion puts people in jail it’s unjust” – David Gross
The intermix of religion and politics are familiar, especially after this year’s presidential election. Many supported Mitt Romney out of concern for religious freedom; a stance that had the potential to marry religion and politics in a dysfunctional union. We also witnessed a veiled attempt by the Catholic Church to emphasize and sway the faithful to vote for the one true moral candidate; a stance contradicted by Obama’s ability to carry the Catholic vote. I believe what we see in Russia is a shining example that shows what happens when regulations and laws do not segregate between secular law and church law. Freedoms do not exist, rather, rules and restrictions are imposed creating an institutional prison.
The prosecution of an all girl punk band named Pussy Riot [i] demonstrates a “complete fusion of the institutions of the state and church,” which devalues “women’s rights and freedom of speech.”Members of Pussy Riot are serving a two year sentence of hard labor for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” What was their crime? They went into a Cathedral in Moscow and started singing a punk prayer – “Mother of God, Chase Putin Out!”
Virgin birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!
Black frock, golden epaulettes
Parishioners crawl bowing [toward the priest, during the Eucharist]
Freedom’s ghost [has gone to] heaven
A gay-pride parade [has been] sent to Siberia in shackles
Their chief saint is the head of the KGB
He leads a convoy of protestors to jail
So as not to insult the Holiest One
Woman should bear children and love
Shit, shit, the Lord’s shit!
Shit, shit, the Lord’s shit!
Virgin birth-giver of God, become a feminist!
Become a feminist, become a feminist!
The Church praises rotten leaders
The march of the cross consists of black limousines
A preacher is on his way to your school
Go to class and give him money!
Patriarch Gundyay believes in Putin
Would be better, the bastard, if he believed in God!
The Virgin’s belt won’t replace political gatherings
The eternal Virgin Mary is with us in our protests!
Virgin birth-Giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!
Original Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grEBLskpDWQ&feature=related
Finished Video (music added): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYzlaBPCM6c&feature=related
They danced, kneeled, and crossed themselves in front of the Church’s high altar. This occurred the day before the re-election of Vladimir Putin. While I do not support going into a sacred space with relics to make a protest, what I find problematic is their harsh sentence. However, it should be noted that with the coverage of the trial and the outpouring of support received from many organizations, and musicians, they did manage to bring to the forefront issues surrounding the government and the Church.
Feminism and Religion 