Women’s Agency – Page 3 – Feminism and Religion

Sex Radical. A new film by Andy Kirshner; film discussion by Janet Rudolph

At the bottom of this post you will find information for a free streaming of the film.

We are witnessing now in real time what happens when the full weight of the Federal Government turns its attentions and goes after individuals and even companies with the intent to squash dissent, intimidate and punish dissenters. This is perhaps most prominent among the immigrant population and those who the administration have been targeted with the legal system. But before there was Mahmoud Khalil, CBS, The Washington Post, UC Berkeley and all the others who have been hounded by government, there was Ida Craddock who faced the full weight of a government that turned its sights on her.

FAMISHED—ON FOOD, SEX, AND GROWING UP AS A GOOD GIRL by Anna Rollins: Book Review by Esther Nelson, part 2

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

MARRIAGE

“He looked at me without judgment. With him, I didn’t feel the need to perform.” Both her future husband (first year medical resident) and she (now studying applied linguistics) disliked fundamentalism’s legalism, but they were still committed to Christianity. Both were “devoted to [sexual] abstinence.” Sex did not even happen on their wedding night, but when it did, it hurt. For years, the pain continued. Vaginismus. “I didn’t know there was a name for it. I didn’t know that…it was twice as common for those who had grown up in religiously conservative households.” It took years to get through the pain. “It’s not until we can believe that our bodies are inherently good and worthy of pleasure and joy that we can begin to heal.”

A new pastor arrived at Rollins’ church armed with Christian nationalist ideas and fervor. It didn’t set right with her. She was moving toward progressive positions beginning with “my body, my choice.” She adds, “If there’s anything someone who’s struggled with an eating disorder understands, it’s the concept of bodily autonomy.” She began to research the Reformers beginning with Martin Luther who said this about women: “If women become tired, even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth. That’s what they are there for.” Rollins’ husband pushes back, though, quoting Scripture—“there is no male or female…we are all unified in Christ.” Why then, Rollins wonders, does sexism run rampant in the church?

FAMISHED—ON FOOD, SEX, AND GROWING UP AS A GOOD GIRL by Anna Rollins: Book Review by Esther Nelson, part 1

In her Preface, Rollins writes, “Hypercontrolling my food and using exercise compulsively had always been how I coped with life, stress, expectations, and fear.” Many people (usually women) use this coping technique in their day-to-day lives. Controlling your body’s needs and desires allows you to feel powerful. I know. I am one of those people.

Powerful or being in control was not something the author felt able to achieve in any “normal” way given her upbringing “in an Appalachian [West Virginia] church that fully embraced purity culture [sexual abstinence before marriage] and rigid gender roles.” Rollins continues, “…I’d bought into the scripts offered to me by both diet culture [controlling food intake to achieve a better-looking body] and purity culture [controlling your sex drive] … [knowing] that if I controlled my appetites, I could control my world. That if I made myself smaller, I would be better, safer.”

Rollins interviewed scholars, psychologists, and an array of women while writing FAMISHED. She states, “When women worked to heal from body shame, their relationship to religion was intricately involved.”

The author divides her work into three sections: Girlhood, Marriage, and Motherhood.

Feminism – the small and the large of it by Xochitl Alvizo

Feminism’s critical principle is the affirmation and promotion of the full humanity of women; an assertion that must be made in light of a world that diminishes women’s dignity and autonomy thereby authorizing their subjugation. Sexism is the word we use to name the attitudes, prejudices, and actions that work to diminish women’s dignity and autonomy for their subjugation. Patriarchy is the resultant ossified system of those attitudes, prejudices, and actions as they become the norm.

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles: Recovering the Untold Stories of Black Women in America, part 2 by Theresa Dintino

Part 1, appeared yesterday.

There are many women named Rose in the ledgers of unfree people in Charleston around 1850. The defining feature to find the Rose mentioned on this sack is that her daughter is named Ashley, not a common name for Black female children of the time. Miles finally locates a Rose and an Ashley in the inventory of Milberry Place Plantation, a country estate of a man named Robert Martin. When Martin died, his estate was liquidated and thus the mention of the sale of Ashley.

“Ashley is listed among one hundred unfree people in the inventory of Martin’s enslaved property taken in the year 1853. Her attributed value of $300, in comparison to that of other women listed at $500 and $600 in the cotton boom decade of the 1850’s, suggests that she may have been a younger or relatively unskilled worker”(69).

Things were bad enough for unfree people but the disruption that came like a tsunami through their lives when an enslaver died and his property was sold was a fear most carried and trembled at the thought of. Unfree families were always being torn apart in the time that slavery was legal and allowed in this country, but when estates were being divided up, it became particularly excruciating and this is what came to pass for Rose and Ashley.

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles: Recovering the Untold Stories of Black Women in America, part 1 by Theresa Dintino

Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on November 30, 2021. You can see more of their posts here.

First she was told about a grain sack dating from around 1851 that had these words embroidered on it:

My great grandmother Rose
mother of Ashley gave her this sack when
she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina
it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of
pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her
It be filled with my LOVE always
she never saw her again
Ashley is my grandmother
Ruth Middleton
1921

Let’s Have The Talk – What Does “The Birds and The Bees” Actually Mean: By Zoe Carlin

Recently, I have thought about a common idiom that has been used to refer to sexual reproduction, the birds and the bees. I became curious why animals that appear in most gardens were used as an example to explain where babies come from, until I did some research. It turns out that since the birds lay eggs, that is their representation of the female body and the bees represent the sperm due to pollination. It is a very subtle, overlooked message that can be disguised as being more age-appropriate to young children. However, I decided to dig a bit deeper. Ed Finegan, a USC professor of linguistics and law, has stated that this phrase has existed a lot longer than one might think. There is evidence of it being used in a somewhat sexual context going back to at least two authors, Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1825) and an entry from John Evelyn’s The Evelyn Diary (1644).

In Work Without Hope, Samuel Coleridge Taylor quotes, “All nature seems at work . . . The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing . . . and I the while, the sole unbusy thing, not honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.” This separation of the birds and bees is indicating the loneliness and sadness of missing out on a potential romantic connection. When going even further back in time to 1644, it was noticed in the Evelyn Diary that there was an entry discussing the interior design of St. Peter’s in Rome: “That stupendous canopy of Corinthian brasse; it consists of 4 wreath’d columns, incircl’d with vines, on which hang little putti [cherubs], birds and bees.” This description is illustrating that there is a possible sensual or sexual meaning of the architecture in St. Peters.

Me and the All American Girls Baseball League by Winifred Nathan

During my grade school years, I was a passionate fan of the Belles, the Racine, Wisconsin team in the All-American Girls Baseball League. My aunt and I would travel across town to Horlick Field to cheer them on—an experience that took place during the challenging times of World War II. Racine proudly carried the nickname “Belle of the Lake.” I don’t remember the players fitting the conventional idea of “Belles”; what stood out was their competitiveness and the exciting baseball they played.

Later in life, the movie *A League of Their Own* became a cultural touchstone for me, although I formed my connection to it years after its first showing. I first watched it during a twelve-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean in 2023. Expecting only nostalgia, I was surprised to uncover a profound connection to my past as I watched it two or three times during the journey.

The scenes reminded me of the evening games played just a few blocks from Lake Michigan. The cool breezes from the lake enveloped me, and I recalled how the ballpark served as an oasis, providing a blissful escape from the harsh realities of the war effort. There were no distractions—just baseball—a stark contrast to the Brewers games I attended later with my grandson, which were filled with Jumbotrons and entertainment gimmicks. Back then, the focus was solely on the game itself, although I must admit I secretly looked forward to the Brewers’ sausage race.

May Sarton: Leaping the Waterfalls (1912-1995 American Woman Writer), part 1 by Marie Dintino

Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on July 13, 2021. You can see more of their posts here.

Spending summer 2021 in New Hampshire, I drive through Nelson quite often these days. Each time I do, I think of May Sarton, her years here, who she was, her art, and all she accomplished. I always glance down the road at the cemetery where she now rests.*

This post is one I wrote about May two years ago and it feels right to run it again since I feel so close to her these days. Enjoy!

May Sarton: Leaping the Waterfalls

I’d been duped. The gray-haired writer who moved to the small town of Nelson, New Hampshire in 1958 was not who I imagined. I only discovered this when I began work on this post. Far from the tranquil woman in my mind, May Sarton was an enigma, even to herself.

At forty-six, May Sarton purchased her first and only house, attempting to extract herself. In a destructive relationship, struggling to reign herself in, she sought to settle, to live where only those she wanted to see or those who really wanted to see her would visit. Plus, the dramatic move would provide fresh writing material.

May, high school graduation, Cambridge, MA 1929

Seeing Double by Esther Nelson

I’ve often thought that we (in the USA) have been somewhat, albeit reluctantly, willing to discuss and perhaps even change our minds, behavior, policies, and laws when confronted about the long-lived presence of racism in our local and national institutions. However, when it comes to misogyny—not so much.

Shirley Anita Chisholm St. Hill (1924 – 2005), was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to Congress. “Chisholm represented a district centered in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the U.S. and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Throughout her career, she was known for taking ‘a resolute stand against economic, social, and political injustices’ as well as being a strong supporter of black civil rights and women’s rights” (Wikipedia).

Chisholm noted that “…she had faced much more discrimination during her New York legislative career because she was a woman than for her race” (Wikipedia). Why are not more of us aware of Chisholm’s confession?