Violence Against Women – Page 11 – Feminism and Religion

Les Miserables’ Fantine, Women’s Suffering, and Female Migrant Labor by Gina Messina-Dysert

Upon the recommendation of several friends and colleagues I decided to see the film Les Miserables. It is rare these days that I make it to the movies. My life is generally over scheduled and spare time is nonexistent. So with just a few days left until the start of the semester and with a pile of work on my desk, I decided to throw caution to the wind and head to the theater last-minute to see Victor Hugo’s masterpiece on the big screen.

First, can I say what a brilliant surprise the film itself was? I wondered if Hollywood could do justice to Hugo; from the moment of the opening scene I was in absolute awe. I left the theater experiencing a momentary resurrection.

Anne Hathaway / Les Misérables: © Universal Pictures.

While the entire film was amazing, I would have seen it for nothing else but Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine. I felt her suffering in the depths of my soul and wept along with her. In Fantine we see the suffering of Everywoman. She represents the thin line between those virtuous and those fallen and mirrors women’s imprisonment within this dichotomy. Continue reading “Les Miserables’ Fantine, Women’s Suffering, and Female Migrant Labor by Gina Messina-Dysert”

Morals, Malala, and Mapping by Kile B. Jones

Once again, recent events have me thinking of the ethical paradigms people utilize to comprehend and explain violent acts against women. These violent acts galvanize our moral compasses and beg for answers to our most fundamental moral questions. Do cultural relativism, pragmatism, divine command theory, utilitarianism, quasi-realism, virtue ethics, or moral realism better map on to the sentiments that arise in us when faced with misogynistic violence? Can we honestly say that an act is morally wrong when it is tangled up in the cultural and political characteristics of a certain country or group? Or can we justify, in the manner of moral realism, that certain acts are inherently wrong no matter what the context or culture? As you can tell, my ethical plate is full.

The first event that had me thinking of issues is the shooting of Malala Yousafzai. Malala, who I think should have won “Time Person of the Year” instead of President Obama, was gunned down on her school bus by members of the Taliban for being, amongst other threats, the “symbol of the infidels.” Malala survived a shot to her head and neck, and has since received innumerable awards and honors for her efforts to promote women’s education. Recently, 5 female school teachers were shot and killed by Islamic militants in the same province where Malala was shot. These teachers are thought to have been killed for their work fighting polio, since some Muslim extremists in that area think polio vaccines are a Western way of sterilizing Muslim children. Continue reading “Morals, Malala, and Mapping by Kile B. Jones”

Monthly Highlight: Preaching Requires Boldness by Elizabeth J. A. Siwo-Okundi

This post is part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, a global campaign dedicated to ending gender-based violence.

Preachers. We preach sermons for people we often do not know, in times of great joy and deep sorrow, and in situations that can be challenging. Alliteration, allegories, hyperboles, metaphors, and rhyme never fail us. Even at our worst, we are more confident and more eloquent than the majority of the population who still consider public speaking its worst fear. Why, then, is it that on the issue of violence against women and girls, we preachers lack… boldness?

There is a story of two “ordinary” people who are arrested and sent to prison. The arresting officers order them to stop preaching, but the preachers reply that they “cannot” help but preach about what they have “seen and heard.” Though they appear confident, they have every right to be afraid—recently, their leader had been murdered! They themselves are threatened again and again. When they are finally released from prison, they return to their friends, share their story, and pray. They could have prayed for revenge or deliverance. But as their story unfolds in Acts 4 of the Bible [NRSV], they pray for… “boldness.” Continue reading “Monthly Highlight: Preaching Requires Boldness by Elizabeth J. A. Siwo-Okundi”

WOMEN FOR PEACE–TAKE TO THE STREETS by Carol P. Christ

Sometimes we are told that domination and violence and war are innate in human nature; therefore, it is futile to protest war. But this is not true.

I oppose war because I oppose all forms of power-over, domination, and violence. As a radical feminist and ecofeminist I believe that power can and should always be power-with, the power that nurtures the growth and development of self and others. The power of Goddess/God is always and everywhere power-with and not ever power-over.

Are violence and domination innate in human nature? We have been told that we are the “naked ape” descended from “apes” who, like the chimpanzees with whom we share 98% of our DNA, were male dominant and violent. Do we, then, have any hope not to be violent and dominant?

Franz de Waal’s studies of the other “ape” species that shares 98% of our DNA, the bonobo, debunks this popular myth. The bonobo live in peaceful matriarchal clans, and their response to conflict is to rub each others’ genitals until the desire to fight goes away. They are living proof that species very much like us can choose to “make love not war.” De Waal says that the most we can conclude from studies of our ape relatives is that ancestors of human beings, chimpanzees, and bonobos had the capacity to evolve toward dominance enforced by violence, or toward more peaceful ways of resolving conflict.

Continue reading “WOMEN FOR PEACE–TAKE TO THE STREETS by Carol P. Christ”

Happiness is a Warm Space: Enchantment as Feminist Virtue by Amy Levin

Art can provide a balm for the modern soul – Claude Monet

Living in New York has its vices, and anxiety-triggering space is one of many. Though the city offers ailments just the same, whether they are in the form of meditation or medication, I’m beginning to believe the statistics delineating just how much more anxious us city-dwellers have become. But once in a while you catch a break.

This past Friday, for me, it was the free admission to the Museum of Modern Art. My favorite exhibition room of the MoMA is neither original nor surprising – Monet’s water lilies. The cool hues of greens, blues, and purples that spread across the triptych canvases so effortlessly interrupt the chaotic bodies roaming about the room, evoking a calm, liberating energy. My lungs expand, my shoulders relax. It is my opinion that more people sit down in this room more than any other in the museum. These ameliorating spaces, which, using Monet’s words, provide a “balm for the modern soul,” not only lift us emotionally and physically, but they offer us something a bit more. . .metaphysical. The water lilies are just one example of the way that art can offer us a sort of spiritual uplift in, what most of us would consider, a secular space. Continue reading “Happiness is a Warm Space: Enchantment as Feminist Virtue by Amy Levin”

How Joan of Arc Crashed Through My Pagan Heart by Marcia Quinn Noren

Born into a Lutheran family of academicians, from earliest childhood I questioned their divisive, anti-Catholic rhetoric and systemic methods of indoctrination. The punitive consequences of my rebellion against their worldview were swift, harsh and unrelenting. Separated emotionally from my mother, subjected to abuse by a narcissistic father who considered himself a warlock, I subconsciously adopted the warrior archetype as a means of survival. Steely armor encased my heart, hidden beneath a feminine veil. When the feminist voices of the 1970’s grew into a force that would not be silenced, for the first time, I felt less alone.

Actively seeking alternative spiritual resources throughout the years that followed, I found a road with many tributaries rising up to meet me, as though that ancient Irish blessing had touched my life with grace. Soothed by nature’s elements, I have always felt the presence of divinity in the earth and sky, in the company of animals and invisible beings. Through studying Hindu and Buddhist traditions, I learned the value of going into the silence. A glimpse of the divine feminine appeared when Quan Yin poured compassion into my soul from the vessel she carries. An immersion into the Western Mystery Schools brought the Hebrew Tree of Life into focus, and there I found a balance of yin and yang, male and female in the Kabbalah’s Sephiroth. Continue reading “How Joan of Arc Crashed Through My Pagan Heart by Marcia Quinn Noren”

Rape is Not a Political Platform – Rape is a Violent Crime! By Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Just when you think you have heard it all, here we go again – another politician with “open mouth-insert foot” syndrome. Discussing his zero-tolerance policy for abortion, Missouri Representative Todd Akin made the following statement last Sunday about pregnancies that result from rape:

“from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

In an inadequate attempt to apologize and clarify his words, Akin stated that he meant to say “forcible rape.” This clarification fares no better nor does the fact that he later acknowledges that women “do become pregnant” during a “forcible rape.” It is interesting to note what Akin considers to be “rare.” According to the Washington Post, approximately 5% of rape victims become pregnant. Akin reduced this to a statistic – 1 out of 32,000 women. This, for Akin, is a rare occurrence.

Stating that a woman’s body is capable of preventing pregnancy in the case of “legitimate rape” demonstrates how out of touch politicians are and further (re)affirms the bigotry that exists within our political system. The same politicians who have waived a “war against women” this year, try to promote policies that exercise control over what a woman can and cannot do with her body; policies that are based on ill-advised misinformation. Decisions politicians make for a woman – what she can and cannot do with her body – are rooted in personal faith beliefs, party-line agendas, and supporters (campaign financing dollars and lobbyists). This year, a woman’s body has become a platform for votes.

Inasmuch as I would like to think Akin’s statement is an isolated event, Garance Franke-Ruta points out that this is not the first time a politician made a statement about rape victims and pregnancies: Continue reading “Rape is Not a Political Platform – Rape is a Violent Crime! By Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

“Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson

Nice girls don’t say the word vagina.

I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall. However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it. I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it. He is now long gone; the vagina is now out and proud.

I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology. One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message. I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina. I found myself caught up in its beauty. Its gaze had mesmerized me. The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes. While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary. At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.

My ex boyfriend was ashamed of the photo. I let him shame me into putting it in the back of my closet and cast it away like it was nothing. Like the experience, call it religious or not, had never happened. When we ended our relationship, I found myself inconsolable and pacing up and down my stairs in a never-ending cycle of sadness and downheartedness. As I was pilfering through our items, I came about the picture. I saw it and for a split second, I was no longer sad. Continue reading ““Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson”

JUDGES 19: A BRIEF PAUSE FROM JUSTICE-WORK TO BE WITH HER IN THE SILENCE BY IVY HELMAN

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and renowned Jewish thinker, believes that no one can ever truly understand the profundity and tragedy of the Shoah unless one experienced it. For him, silence is the best way to express the events since words fail to do justice. The principle of letting silence speak, when words no longer can, when pain is so real it debilitates and when tears flow more freely than thoughts, is not original to the twentieth century. The Bible contains many events and personal stories in which this is the case.

Judges 19 begins with two characters: a Levite and his concubine. The concubine has recently run away to her father’s house, when her husband decides to visit her there trying to win her back. He seems to have only good intentions in mind. After leaving her father’s house with his wife, the Levite discusses his future plans with his servant who apparently accompanied him on the journey. He still has not spoken a word to his wife.

The servant and the Levite decide to spend the night in Gibeah, a Benjaminite city. The three of them sit in the city’s square waiting for someone to take them in but no one arrives until evening. At dusk, an old man comes by and offers to take care of the needs of the entire party, including the donkeys, as long as they promised not to spend the night in the city square. Continue reading “JUDGES 19: A BRIEF PAUSE FROM JUSTICE-WORK TO BE WITH HER IN THE SILENCE BY IVY HELMAN”

Reproductive Justice by Gina Messina-Dysert

Following the testimony of Sandra Fluke on the lack of availability of contraception and the appalling remarks by Rush Limbaugh that took place in early March, 2012, much discussion around issues of reproductive justice has emerged. Among these conversations, Mary Hunt recently shared her thoughts in “Contraceptive Controversies” on the issue on FSR-Inc., and graduate students Katie German and Linda Claros organized an event at Loyola Marymount University to invite faculty members, students, and interested persons to engage in dialogue on reproductive justice. I was honored to have the opportunity to participate in that discussion and would like to share my thoughts here in an effort to continue that dialogue.

To begin, I understand reproductive justice as the call for the social, political and economic ability to make responsible and healthy decisions about gender, sexuality, and procreation for ourselves and our communities with the goal of transforming power inequities and bringing about systemic change. The denial of reproductive justice in the Catholic Church is a symptom of the larger rape culture. When I use this phrase I am referring to a culture that not only perpetrates rape, but all forms of sexualized violence against women and girls. Continue reading “Reproductive Justice by Gina Messina-Dysert”