Feminism and Religion

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Part 3 by Carol P. Christ

Warning contains images of rape in the history of art portrayed through the pornographic male gaze

According to the myth, Danae was the only child of the King of Argos who longed for a male heir. After an oracle declared that Danae would indeed bear a son, but that he would kill his grandfather, the King locked his daughter in a tower. Hearing the story, Zeus decided to breach the tower. Transforming himself into a shower of gold, he entered the tower through its roof and raped Danae. When Danae gave birth to Perseus, the King locked them both in a chest and dumped it into the sea. Zeus rescued them, and Perseus went on to behead Medusa, but that is another story.

The myth of the rape of Danae has been a popular subject for male artists from classical times up to the present. It is unclear whether, when they dreamed of “golden showers,” the artists had in mind degrading activities involving pee or whether they thought of sperm as inherently golden, perhaps as the mirror image of golden treasures stolen as the spoils of war. In any case, they were fascinated with the image of golden sperm. In their works, Danae is portrayed as beautiful and rape is normalized. The brutality of the facts–that Danae was locked in a tower by her father, that she was raped while imprisoned, and that her father tried to murder her and her infant son–are overlooked.

I was little more than a child myself when I began to study images like this in the history of art. I spent countless hours gazing at them in the museums of Europe before I was twenty. I am not sure I even knew what sperm was at the time. Nor had anyone explained to me that rape is always a violent act. Like Danae, I accepted rape: the rape of my innocence, the rape of my mind, the rape of my psyche.

#JustSayNo

Do not accept what you are taught. Do not accept that rape is beautiful. Do not accept that paintings of rape are beautiful. Do not accept rape culture. Do not let anyone tell you that Greek myths are beautiful. Do not let anyone tell you Greek myths are archetypes of the psyche. Question. Question everything.

Also see: https://feminismandreligion.com/2018/12/03/this-is-what-rape-culture-looks-like-then-and-now-by-carol-p-christ/ and https://feminismandreligion.com/2018/12/10/this-is-what-rape-culture-looks-like-in-great-art-by-carol-p-christ/.

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer, activist, and educator living in Crete. Carol’s recent book written with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology, is on Amazon. A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess is on sale for $9.99 on Amazon. Carol has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honneger.

Listen to Carol’sa-mazing interview with Mary Hynes on CBC’s Tapestry recorded in conjunction with her keynote address to the Parilament of World’s Religions.

Bringing About the Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo

Happy day friends. It’s Sunday – maybe you have a day off from your income-making labor, maybe you’re home with the kiddos working more than usual since they have no school, or maybe it’s a day you have all to yourself – whatever is before you, I have a word I’d like to share with you today – enjoy being with you.

I say this because it’s the word I have needed for myself for a little while now. I have not enjoyed myself lately – neither being with myself nor being myself. As of late, I had lost touch with the fact that I am, or can be, an enjoyable person to be around. I know that sounds like a funny thing to say, and I don’t mean it in any weird or arrogant way; I just mean that yesterday morning I remembered that I can be quite fun. I can be goofy, loving, encouraging, friendly, attentive, thoughtful, strong, grounded, intellectually engaged…and, because of all this, I make pretty good company—even to myself! Continue reading “Bringing About the Revolution by Xochitl Alvizo”

Mary Daly and Simone de Beauvoir: Sister Diagnosticians by Xochitl Alvizo

Xochitl Alvizo; Photo by http://www.chrispinkham.com/

Mary Daly still causes me awe. I think about the way she was so keenly able to diagnose the Catholic Church’s collusion in creating, sustaining, the oppressive structures that directly impact women (and men, as she always affirmed). Mary Daly knew that the situation of women’s second-class status, outlined at the time most powerfully by Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex,[1] was in great part made possible by the Catholic Church. The church used Christianity to justify the creation of gender hierarchies (for it can be used otherwise), and regarded a category of humans as having greater value and worth than others by default. So much so that it comes to be understood as “god ordained” or “natural” – the right order of things.

At the time of her early writing, Mary Daly still identified as part of the Catholic Church – but she did not hesitate to call out her church. Building on the work of existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, Daly made a powerful case against the church. She described the antagonism between the Catholic Church and women as based on the fact that the Church’s teachings perpetuated a “traditional view of woman” that both “pretends to put woman on a pedestal but which in reality prevents her from genuine self-fulfillment and from active, adult-size participation in society.”^[2] She drew on insights from de Beauvoir to make her case and wrote her book The Church and the Second Sex with the conviction that there were “harmful distortions of doctrine and practice” in the Catholic Church. Continue reading “Mary Daly and Simone de Beauvoir: Sister Diagnosticians by Xochitl Alvizo”

Crow and The Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright

Once she believed that
it was her fault
they came on to her,
that she owed them
something…
They owned her?
Secretly the
girl was pleased
because any kind of attention
was better than none,
or being so “different” –
stitched into an Indian skin.

She was a pretty shell,
an abandoned spiral
worn down by waves –
assaulted from within
by the pornographic gaze.
How she hated being young. Continue reading “Crow and The Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright”

We Might Need to Die by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee

Last week was the first week of Advent – in my tradition, the week of lighting a candle for Hope. This year has felt uniquely intense as I enter into Advent. Hope, even as headline after headline continues to warn us of the climate crisis. Just this past week alone – the week of Hope – we read:

EPA Rolls Back Coal Rule Despite Climate Change Warnings (CNN)
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accelerate Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018 (NY Times)
Climate Change and Marine Mass Extinction (Science Magazine)
David Attenborough Warns Of ‘Collapse Of Civilizations’ At U.N. Climate Meeting (NPR)
The Climate Apocalypse is Now, and it’s Happening to You (Wired)

Hope? In the midst of literally the greatest crisis in the history of the planet? We are facing alarmingly strong odds of annihilation. Hope? Hope for what?

Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer

“Beginnings and endings are so very sacred, to give honor to all that has transpired, every experience, every joy, every pain, is a doorway to the magical. Hold your entire year between your hands, every day, every thought, every breath. Now bless it with gratitude, love and humility. You have done more to transform this new year than a thousand resolutions.”

–K. Allen Kay

Two years ago, at the end of the year, I was supposed to hold a closing ceremony for a year-long Ariadne’s Thread study group I had been guiding throughout the year. Every member of the circle ended up backing out of the closing circle at the last minute, but I held the ceremony in full anyway, alone in my front yard, just for myself, and expanding it to include acknowledging and appreciating all the work I had completed in 2016, including my D.Min degree. People’s reasons for backing out of the ceremony were very valid and while on a cognitive level I understood why they couldn’t come, on an emotional level I still felt let down and disappointed at being “abandoned” by them. Holding the closing ceremony for myself anyway and acknowledging that I kept my own commitment to doing a full year of this work in circle, felt like a powerful declaration and affirmation of my own worth. In fact, it was such a validating and powerful experience that I continued the practice with a personal year-end closing ceremony for 2017 as well and I will do the same for myself this year too. Continue reading “Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer”

A Moment of Change in Our Church by Janice Poss

On September 12, 2018, Roman Catholic Bishop David O’Connell helped move the Episcopate into a new day. A healing Mass at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Claremont, California was celebrated for the victims of clergy sex abuse. They were humanized, spoken about reverently, prayed about to heal, to sacredly be acknowledged in their pain, to be known how priests and bishops were guilty and had their direct part in the hurtful abuse of children. This Mass was said in the hope of healing our collective wounds, I believe it has helped turn a new chapter in our church.

The service did not stop at the end of the mass: Bishop O’Donnell had an open Q&A with the people in the pews who came, many attending had been abused, not all by priests, but others. Among them were a man abused by a woman when he was four years old, a woman whose sister was abused by a priest, a woman abused from six years old until twelve by a male. The victims were all a part of the prayers said for this healing mass dedicated to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, particularly from the recent revelations of sex abuse by the Grand Jury in the Pennsylvania dioceses. Continue reading “A Moment of Change in Our Church by Janice Poss”

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like in “Great” Art by Carol P. Christ

Warning: contains images of rape portrayed through the lens of the objectifying pornographic male gaze

When I reflected on the discovery of a rape fresco from ancient Pompeii that depicted Leda and the swan, I did not mention that the image of the rape of Leda by Zeus along with related images of Zeus raping Europa as a bull and raping Danae as a shower of gold are favorite themes in the history of western art up to the present day. Myths of rape not only give artists permission to paint or sculpt naked women but also to normalize rape as an aspect of culture. In the imagination of western artists, noble or immortal women are portrayed as passively accepting and even enjoying being raped. The fact that these women are understood to be icons of female beauty delivers the message that female beauty invites rape.

I am beginning to understand my university education as brain-washing. I was 17 years old and in my first semester of college when I was shown images of Zeus raping women on a large screen in a darkened auditorium while being told that I should pay attention to perspective, brush-work, and detail. I understood that in learning to appreciate great works of art I would be considered intelligent and sensitive by other intelligent and sensitive people whose ranks I hoped to join. I learned what I was being taught. I was not told was that my “education” was grooming me to accept rape as part of high culture and as beautiful. Continue reading “This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like in “Great” Art by Carol P. Christ”

Vayigash: Lessons from Joseph’s Behavior by Ivy Helman

29662350_10155723099993089_8391051315166448776_o Parshah Vayigash covers Genesis 44:18 to 47:27. It involves the reunification of Joseph with his brothers and his father, the immigration of Jacob’s entire family to Egypt and Joseph successfully leading Egypt through famine. In other words, the parshah provides the backdrop for how the Israelites become slaves in Egypt.

Any mention of women is confined to verses 46: 14-26. They are not active participants, but are remembered as mothers and (a few) daughters and help explain the size and development of Jacob’s family. It is most striking that they are mentioned at all as the text is heavily preoccupied with sons. Nonetheless, according to the account, Jacob’s family has 70 members and a seemingly very small number are women and daughters.

Clearly it comes as no surprise that this text is highly influenced by its patriarchal roots and we could dismiss it for that reason. Nonetheless, it has become a project of mine in this blog over the past few months to find redeeming qualities and food for thought within these texts. In other words, despite its sexist pitfalls, there are still holy insights and life lessons as my previous blogs attest. Continue reading “Vayigash: Lessons from Joseph’s Behavior by Ivy Helman”

Part 4: I Was Brainwashed to Believe I Wasn’t Human. Now I’m on a Mission Against that Cult by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: This post includes content about rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, graphic sexual.

In Part 1 of this story, I introduce a discussion of Johan Galtung’s theory of cultural violence as it relates to my experience as a young woman in an abusive relationship. To recap:

Cultural violence is: “…any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence in its direct or structural form. Symbolic violence built into a culture does not kill or maim like direct violence or the violence built into the structure. However, it is used to legitimize either or both.”

Cultural violence against women is: Normalization and promotion of pornography, prostitution, degradation, and sexual objectification of females in media, predominantly male language in civic, business, and religious institutions, gender roles and stereotypes, misogynist humor, gaslighting, minimizing or denying any of these forms of violence. Continue reading “Part 4: I Was Brainwashed to Believe I Wasn’t Human. Now I’m on a Mission Against that Cult by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”