Marches and Rallies will be held all over the United States this Saturday January 20th to mark the upcoming 51st anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. WomensMarch.Com
But what is happening in our world right now is Bigger than Roe.
It is not about Life, it is about Control.
I voted for Trump in 2016. There. I said it. My entire family was Republican. My husband at the time was Republican. I spent many years on an Airforce base where I saw firsthand that things the government run are full of red tape and inefficiency.
This was a hard post to write. When I write about my personal trauma, it is not only healing for me but adds to the canon of stories of other women that help all of us navigate trauma. That makes it easier. When writing about the trauma of women in a whole culture, I feel a sense of helplessness, especially here in the United States. We are all experiencing a group trauma and it is digging in deep.
January 5, 2024, will live in the Patriarchal Hall of Infamy. On this date the Supremes agreed to allow the rapist, misogynist, trying-to-be-dictator former President an opportunity to have his rights heard. But this same date, the Supremes also told we women that our lives are insignificant. No that’s not right, less than insignificant, a mere distraction to what they consider to be more important issues. They allowed an Idaho abortion law to go into effect that doesn’t allow an abortion even in the case of a medical emergency when a pregnant woman in life-threatening distress has been rushed to the emergency room. The split screen exhibits patriarchy for what it is. I want to use the word, “culmination” but that means the height. I don’t think we’ve reached a culmination because there seems no end to the cruelty that patriarchy seeks to inflict.
Recently I had a very strange experience. I had fallen and was dumped into a nursing home to ‘recover’.
Since I have written about other aspects of this terrifying experience on this blog and published some pieces elsewhere, I am turning my attention to what happened to me after being drugged senseless, and then being stripped of every aspect of personal autonomy.
After I refused the 17 drugs, I incurred hostility from some nurses and aides who blamed me for having diarrhea and many other infractions none worth mentioning (one of the consequences of stopping the drugs was loose bowels).
The one medication I needed was routinely withheld. Each time this happened I became more frightened and anxious. Shaky. These same caregivers either ignored me or intoned “all you have to do is relax, breathe”. They dismissed my PTSD/Anxiety disorder as some kind of psychological problem or were too ignorant or indifferent to care.
The collision of the 2023 Christian liturgical season of Advent with American reproductive politics has been jarring. Feminist religious critique and transformative activism are imperative.
With the Texas Supreme Court decision on a dire abortion case, alongside increasing criminalization of women having miscarriages, we are witnessing the principle of patriarchal dominance of female reproductive capacity and the denigration of women’s full, equal personhood pushed to the extreme. In part, this barbarity is perpetuated by Christianity. Even though this tradition often challenges social systems of injustice, and it does not actually support their hollow theology of “life at conception,” misogynist oppressors have plenty of Christian religiosity to stand on.
In an essay called Sister, You Can Be Anything God Desires You to Be,[1] Kara Triboulet recalls a discussion in her theology class at her Christian college. When the professor opened up the floor and invited students to express their views on women in leadership, these are some of the things her classmates said:
“I believe women can be in leadership, just not as pastors.”
“Allowing women to teach other women and children isn’t limiting. At least they have a place to serve.”
“Women can be directors, but not pastors.”
“The Bible is very clear . . . women can’t teach or lead men because men were created first. It’s just the way God ordained it, and we all just need to accept that.”
When you hear the word ‘soul’, what is your first association?
Soul is a complex and much-debated word, that often brings up strong feelings. Without going into religious or philosophical discourse, it is often associated with the breath, and with that mysterious spark of life force that animates the body. I discussed soul in a previous post Untangling the Triad of Life Force, Spirit and Soul. Today I write about soul as a fluid concept, an essence that can get dispersed and also retrieved, and propose a light self-retrieval through dance as remedy that you can do by yourself.
One of the basic tenants of feminist methodology in religion is the recovery of women’s history. There are many ways to approach such a task. In religions with sacred writings, one avenue for recovery may be reinterpreting them. This could come in the form of a critique. For example, traditional interpretations may overlook or undervalue women, who appear in the text, reaffirm sexist, patronizing, and/or misogynist viewpoints already found in the text, or develop new ones. In order to recover women’s history, feminists working with their sacred texts would then call out these interpretations for their sexism. They would correct phrasing, understanding, and even translations, when necessary.
In addition to critiquing, feminist interpretations of scripture could also be constructive. Religious feminists may highlight values, teachings, and images that affirm women’s lives. They may incorporate documented history into their interpretations as proof of expanded roles for women. That would then contextualize or negate later traditions that deny women such roles.
In Part 1 of this series on labelling, I highlighted the difference between naming and labelling, and the search for a personal label as ‘participation ticket’ for life.
In Part 2 on professional and spiritual identity, I looked at what we can learn from the autoethnographic practice of disclosing various selves in research situations. I also discussed the effects of Christianity on the suppression of pagan traditions in northwestern Europe, and nature-based spirituality as part of our generic spiritual DNA.
Today I share a few final reflections including what groups celebrate their differences with ‘prides and games’, and which ones remain invisible? What are the effects of woke ideology on fear of expression and loss of voices, and an invitation for embodied presence as one characteristic of our shared humanity.
This post continues from Part 1, where I situated this essay as a reflection on Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human. There, I questioned the difference between the power of naming versus the pressure to label. I then described my search for a personal identifier as ‘participation ticket’ to life. This feels important nowadays to join the conversation and not be dismissed by default. However, I wondered whether looking for things that set us apart emphasises otherness rather than shared humanity.
Today, I question what can we learn from autoethnography about the many selves we bring to different professional situations and how they might hide more than they reveal. I also describe the challenges of naming nature-based practices in a geographical area where 2000 years of Christianity forced our pagan traditions underground.
Feminism and Religion 