Category: Power relations

Hands Off By John Erickson

This post is written in conjunction with the Feminist Ethics Course Dialogue project sponsored by Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium,  Claremont Graduate University, and directed by Grace Yia-Hei Kao.

John Erickson is a doctoral student in Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University.  His research interests involve an interdisciplinary approach and are influenced by his time as the director of a women’s center and active member in the GLBTQ and women’s rights movements.  His work is inspired by the intersectionality of the feminism, queer identity, and religious political and cultural rhetoric.  He is the author of the blog, From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter at@jerickson85.

I find it little ironic that I am writing about Mary Daly’s formidable “anti-male” book Gyn/Ecology.  I remember reading the book when I was a sophomore in college and I owe much to Daly and her opus because they helped me to identify as a radical.

I know my position in feminism is sometimes misunderstood.  I have often found myself on the defensive end when someone asks me the question: “Why are you a feminist?”  However, although my identification as a feminist is always changing and growing, the label “RADICAL” is one I proudly wear on my chest everyday.   Continue reading “Hands Off By John Erickson”

Infantilizing Women, Sexualizing Girls By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Continue reading “Infantilizing Women, Sexualizing Girls By Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

The Black Horse: Our Bodies, Our Selves By Carol P. Christ

Carol P. Christ is a founding mother in the study of women and religion and women’s spirituality.  Her books include  She Who Changes , Rebirth of the Goddess, and the widely used anthologies she co-edited with Judith Plaskow, Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.  She has been thinking about the black horse in relation to the online course she is teaching on Ecofeminism in the Women’s Spirituality Program at California Institute of Integral Studies.

“The driver…falls back like a racing charioteer at the barrier, and with a still more violent backward pull jerks the bit from between the teeth of the lustful horse, drenches his abusive tongue and jaws with blood, and forcing his legs and haunches against the ground reduces him to torment.  Finally, after several repetitions of this treatment, the wicked horse abandons his lustful ways; meekly now he executes the wishes of his driver, and when he catches sight of the loved one [i.e. his master] is ready to die of fear.”

I can’t seem to get this image from Plato’s Phaedrus quoted in Val Plumwood’s Feminism and the Mastery of Nature out of my mind or my body these days.  The other day I tried to read the above passage to a friend and my body became so tense that I accidentally cut off the phone connection—twice.  Now while I am writing my muscles are tight, and I am beginning to get a headache.  I cannot get the image of the black horse out of my mind because “she” (I know that Plato’s horse was a “he”) has lived in my body for as long as I remember.  She probably first took root in my body when I began to fear my father’s discipline.  She became bigger and stronger every time someone or something in culture told me that my body and the feelings of my body were bad, that I as a girl or woman was unworthy, that the things I cared about were not important, that my thoughts were wrong.   Continue reading “The Black Horse: Our Bodies, Our Selves By Carol P. Christ”