Women’s Agency – Page 6 – Feminism and Religion

The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women’s Movement by Laura Swan, part 1 by Theresa C. 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 5, 2022. You can see more of their posts here.

Around 1200 AD in Europe, communities of women often called beguines began to form. These women were not nuns, they were devout and devoted to the tenets of Christianity but did not belong to any church. They were independent communities of women who often created their own industry, trade or other means to produce income. They were self-sufficient and generally concerned with helping the poor, especially women. They lived in convents. This was the origin of that word.

“These women were essentially self-defined, in opposition to the many attempts to control and define them. They lived by themselves or together in so-called beguinages, which could be single houses for as few as a handful of beguines or, as in Brugge, walled-in rows of houses enclosing a central court with a chapel where over a thousand beguines might live—a village of women within a medieval town or city”(2).

Dear Anti-Harris Progressives: Here’s how to help Palestine (and the economy, and everything else) by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

I do not like the hand we’ve been dealt. Our democracy, always deeply flawed, has become increasingly weak and unstable. In fact, many professors and analysts increasingly define the US as a plutocracy – governed by and for the top 1%, in which the average citizen has little to no voice or impact on policies. Monopolies have consolidated in order to help destroy democracy, driving costs of living up and wages down. The Military Industrial Complex, with its staggering domination of the international markets, has locked the US into endless war, often in support of autocracies over democracies. And the same billionaires who are causing climate change, are investing in high tech solutions to save themselves from the apocalypse while the rest of us go extinct or become their slaves.

Women’s Bodies As Battlefield by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in the introduction to her book The Women’s Bible:

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgement seat of Heaven, tried, convicted and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity, a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants . .

We are facing the long-term results of these biblical writings. This upcoming election is so unsettling because it is showing patriarchy in all its ugliness. We see how this is being played out, especially regarding abortion, but in all areas of the functioning of women’s bodies. The reason abortion is at the foundation of it all is that the drive to police women’s bodies is the crux which justifies all sorts of cruelties. It is the same with racism. These are issues that span the pantheon of rights; human, economic, healthcare, bodily autonomy. It takes a police state to quell all of these.

Poetry, Plays, Pens, Persistence, Underpin Voice: Both Jean & Eleanor Live by Margot Van Sluytman

Stepping into the autumn season offers time to think about summer. Time to think about what happened during those hazy, lazy, crazy days. Digesting. Re-wording. Steeping one’s self in recent memories and drawing forth, indeed permitting to re-surface, what touched us most deeply. For me, The Beatles song, Eleanor Rigby, was conjured. That imagined woman. That fictional woman. And her voice and her voicing. Buried she was, in a church, along with her name. Nobody came.

What is it that invites this negation of voice? Voices? Voice-ing? Particularly those of womyn? No matter class, culture, creed. This question continues to journey with me, as I myself, note the accumulation of years. As I breathe the beauty of my Grand-Children’s energies. And with-ness their lives unfold. Unfold in a world that is slowly, ever so slowly, yet determinately, and with unceasing tenacity, resurrecting the lost voices of womyn. Too long buried and silenced.

Asking For What You Really Want…by Mary Gelfand

As no doubt everyone reading this knows, this election season is full of twists and turns and highly unpredictable. I struggle daily with ways to manage my stress without destroying my health.

As a practicing Wiccan, my faith does not encourage me to curse or ill-wish anyone, no matter how tempted I may be. In response to that, I wanted to create something I could do on a daily basis to promote the electoral outcome I desire from a spiritual perspective. A long-forgotten quote from Rumi provided me with the key to what I want. “The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want.”

“You must ask for what you really want.” As a woman reared in the south in the 1950s, I am not really accustomed to asking for what I want. So Rumi quote liberated me. I can ask for what I really want as the outcome of this election. Although I completely support the only feminist candidate, what I really want is a president that embodies certain traits and characteristics that, from my perspective, make a strong and creative leader. So I’ve created a simple little ritual that anyone can do that gives me a framework to ask for what I really want—to spread my prayers and intentions to the cosmos.