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”

Broken Pot by Sara Wright

When Emmy handed me the pot I held it gently in my palm, marveling over its rounded shape, the warm earth tones, the sparkling mica speckled through the smooth clay.

“It’s broken,” she said simply as I turned the small pot in my hands, laying my cheek again her soft skin. How did she manage to stretch the clay that thin?

“I think it’s beautiful just as it is,” I responded gazing at the lines where the clay had cracked in the fire – almost as if it was meant to be this way.” I peered inside the neck of the bowl to see two pieces of broken lip nestled in the bottom, two sisters asleep in the arms of their mother. Continue reading “Broken Pot by Sara Wright”

Time’s Up for Bullies by Mary Sharratt

The Virgin Mary says #Time’s Up for Bullies: illumination from a 13th century manuscript

Bullying is rife in our society and it’s not just school kids who have to deal with it. Bullies flourish in the work place, in academia, in spiritual and religious communities, and, of course, on social media. Although female bullies exist, women, from my experience, are more likely to experience the most severe forms of bullying at the hands of entitled males. I would even argue that female-on-female bullying is a direct symptom of patriarchy’s attempts to divide and conquer us.

Just as #Me Too and #Time’s Up blew the whistle on sexual assault and workplace harassment, I believe we are in desperate need of a #Time’s Up for Bullies movement. One thing is certain–our current methods of dealing with bullies seem agonizingly ineffectual, to say the least. Continue reading “Time’s Up for Bullies by Mary Sharratt”

Clerical Male Mess! by Janice L. Poss

“I am sorry!” “I am guilty of sex abuse” “I have hurt many young children!” “I have ruined lives!” “We are sorry for hiding sex abuse in the Church!” “We are criminals!” “We want to make amends!” We, in the pews, have yet to hear true contrition, instead we hear how the Church needs healing. True, but where is remorse from those who perpetrated and covered-up the crimes? To heal, we must hear from them.

Remorse, a contrite heart, admitting grave sin, deceitfulness, criminal behavior, the global Catholic Church has not yet confessed this loud enough. Why? Why is male clerical privilege so deeply ingrained in the construct of In Persona Christi that none of these guilty perpetrators of crime are able to directly tell Catholics worldwide that they truly, in their hearts grieve for our church and grieve for what they have done to our children? Where is their sensitivity for children? Continue reading “Clerical Male Mess! by Janice L. Poss”

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Then and Now by Carol P. Christ

I was not paying full attention when I heard a news report on CNN saying that archaeologists had uncovered an “ancient erotic fresco” in Pompeii. Hmm, I thought to myself, this story deserves further investigation.

I had heard whispers about frescoes that only men were allowed to see when I visited Pompeii as a student years ago. I now know that these were idealized pornographic wall paintings in brothels of handsome young men engaging with beautiful prostitutes in variety of sexual positions. In real life prostitutes in Pompeii were slaves who worked in appalling conditions in dark, dank, windowless cells. No doubt many of their customers were unwashed toothless dirty old men.

The fresco in the news turned out to be an image of the rape of the Spartan queen Leda by Zeus disguised as a swan; it was found in a bedroom of a house or villa in Pompeii. Continue reading “This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Then and Now by Carol P. Christ”

Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Barbara Ardinger

Even though Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, first Roman emperor, the empire didn’t celebrate that birth until three centuries later when his birth date was moved to mid-winter to match the birth date of the sun god Mithra. The Romans already had a long tradition of celebrating the winter solstice. This celebration was called the Saturnalia. Here are three days in December, taken from my daybook, Pagan Every Day. (When I wrote this book in 2003, I wrote longer days. The publisher demanded that I reduce every day to 300 words. I edited them all down to 301 words.)

December 17: Saturnalia begins

Saturn, who was conflated with the Greek Titan, Cronus, was an ancient Latin agricultural god whose name may derive from satur, “stuffed,” or sator, “a sower”; in either case he stands for abundance. He was a working god who oversaw viniculture and farming, the king of Italy during the golden age. When Jupiter conquered him, he hid himself (latuit) in the region that came to be called Latium. The Romans said Saturn’s body lay beneath the Capitol in Rome. Because his reign brought prosperity to the city, the state treasury and the standards of the Roman legions were kept in his temple when the army was at home. Saturn’s statue was bound in woolen strips to keep him from leaving Rome.

Continue reading “Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Barbara Ardinger”

Navigating Social Space as Power-Struggle, Pt. 2 by Elisabeth Schilling

Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: This post contains details about unwanted sexual advances. Read Part I here.

After Sicily, I went to the English countryside for an intended two weeks in a work exchange. A retired, but part-time, lecturer of Greek and Latin in his 60s was moving house and needed help packing and cleaning and cooking. There would, in a day or two, also be a male student from Lithuania and a Brazilian couple joining the communal house, and I found the position through workaway.info, a site one must pay for that I used three years ago with no problem.

On one hand, I have to use sites like this from time to time due to financial reasons. On the other hand, after traveling alone for awhile, I long for the communal exchange. I enjoy helping someone learn a language, cook for their family, organize their clutter because of the conversations along the way. They have a house and extra food. I have the time (my two classes I teach at university online do not take much) to help. If the people involved are mindful and truly grateful for community and shared work and resources, it can be a sacred return to a way of life where people can practice sharing, non-greed, and carrying each other’s burdens. We practice living with strangers, with all the challenges that presents, instead of isolating ourselves in presumed comfort. Continue reading “Navigating Social Space as Power-Struggle, Pt. 2 by Elisabeth Schilling”

Navigating Social Space as Power-Struggle, Pt. 1 by Elisabeth Schilling

The space we take up by our bodies is an element of the sacred. As we move from bed in waking, through our houses and then out into the world, if any of that movement places a woman in close proximity with a man or men, she might do well to observe how the male presence may modify her behavior, from adjusting orientation, position, and flow.

I was in Sicily for four weeks, and as I lived about 15 km from the town center, I took the bus. There is no on-the-minute bus schedule for my stop, but I could calculate when the bus would depart from the station and how long it might take to get to where I lived. Sometimes if felt like the bus just wouldn’t come. Continue reading “Navigating Social Space as Power-Struggle, Pt. 1 by Elisabeth Schilling”

Bear Spirit Guide by Judith Shaw

judith shaw photoBear has been important to human mythology and story for thousands of years. Some feel that Bear is the oldest European deity, as bones and skulls of bears have been found lovingly arranged on niches found in caves across Europe. The first written sentence from the Old Europe Script, invented around 6,000 years ago reads, “The Bear Goddess and the Bird Goddess are the Bear Goddess indeed.

Continue reading “Bear Spirit Guide by Judith Shaw”

Jewish Hair, Witch Hair, and the Problem of Identity by Jill Hammer

This is a time of increased vulnerability for many minority populations in the United States: people of color, immigrants, LGBT people, native peoples. The policies and rhetoric of the current administration have left all these groups exposed to hostility.  Women are also feeling the pressure, as the gender split in voting in the past election suggests. And, Jews also are facing increased visibility.  In addition to the murders in Pittsburgh, anti-Semitic incidents around the country have increased in the last few years.  All this has me thinking about visibility, chosen and unchosen.

My father, an Ashkenazi Jew with curly black hair, green eyes and dark skin, came from an immigrant family that arrived here in the early 20th century from the region of Poland known as Galicia.  His mother in particular valued assimilation into American identity, and prized blond hair as a sign of this identity– she in fact later dyed her black hair blond.  His aunt had blond hair and it was considered a family coup.  (There’s much to say here about developing an assumed American identity of whiteness, as well as the presumption of Christianity.) When I was a little girl, I had blond hair and blue eyes.  My father used to call me his blond-haired, blue-eyed girl.

“No,” I would insist.  “My hair is brown and my eyes are green.” Continue reading “Jewish Hair, Witch Hair, and the Problem of Identity by Jill Hammer”