Feminism and Religion

This “Diversity” Thing by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson

I find a whole lot of hoopla swirling around this thing we call “diversity.” By and large, these days people readily admit to being “for” diversity. A former colleague of mine, though, became exasperated with the trite, mechanical way many people rally around the concept, claiming to be firmly planted in the “diversity camp.” He would say, “Diversity? How can you be against it? It just is.”

So, what do we mean when we say we are “for” diversity? I think, at least in part, we are saying we want to see the variety of genders, races, ethnicities, and classes living in our communities permeate every aspect of our institutions. People’s “particularities”–their background (education, sex/gender, race, ethnicity, dis/abilities, and class)–shape and color their perspectives. By incorporating the wide swath of humanity into the public sphere, making room for everybody to contribute to society what is uniquely theirs, not only enriches us, but makes for a more equitable world. After all, when your voice is “heard” and when you see yourself reflected in the wider culture (legal rulings, the arts, economic policies), you are less likely to feel disenfranchised.

Continue reading “This “Diversity” Thing by Esther Nelson”

The Importance of Rituals (Part 2) by Elise M. Edwards

elise-edwards

In my previous post, I wrote about the importance of rituals. The rituals of the Easter season helped me process some difficult emotions. The way that rituals mark time and demonstrate consistency has been a comfort for me when facing new challenges and settings. But I am quite aware that rituals can become empty. In one of the comments to that post, a woman named Barbara responded, “There came a time for me when familiar and meaningful ritual no longer made sense. I had changed in understanding of what the ritual symbolized and celebrated. And haven’t found new rituals that make sense for me now…or at least I’m not aware of any.” Barbara’s remarks capture not only the loss from no longer being able to relate to existing rituals after life changes, but also the difficulty in finding or creating new rituals to take their place. I thanked Barbara for her honesty and decided that this post would continue the discussion, focusing more on discovery and creation of new rituals.

As I was preparing that post, I watched an episode of Call the Midwife that prompted me to reflect on the need to create rituals when existing ones just don’t work. Call the Midwife is a BBC-PBS show about nurses and midwives living in a convent in London’s East End at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. The show is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, and it does a better job than most primetime dramas of showing female characters’ experiences the joys and challenges of their professional lives and personal lives. As it is set in a convent with several characters who are both nuns and midwives, the show also explores the theme of vocation. What does it mean to be called to the religious life? Called to nursing? What does motherhood demand? Continue reading “The Importance of Rituals (Part 2) by Elise M. Edwards”

Hildegard the Healer by Mary Sharratt

mary sharratt Saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) was not only a visionary Benedictine abbess, composer, and Powerfrau extraordinaire. She was also a physician and healer who developed her own highly original system of medical treatment and holistic dietary philosophy.

Saint Benedict of Nursia (480-543), the founder of her order, expressly forbade the study of medicine, which in his era derived solely from texts written by Pagans such as Hippocrates and Galen. Benedict believed that prayer alone must suffice in healing Christians.

But by Hildegard’s time, monasteries had become centers of healing that embraced the medical knowledge of both the Classical Pagan world and the pioneering work of Arab and Persian physicians. Nearly every monastic house had its own infirmary, hospice, apothecary, and medicinal garden. Hildegard would have had ample opportunity to train as a physician and apothecarer at Disibodenberg Monastery, a double monastery housing both monks and nuns, where she lived for most of the first half of her life.

Illumination based on Hildegard’s vision of the human body as the microcosm within the sacred macrocosm.

Continue reading “Hildegard the Healer by Mary Sharratt”

Traumatic Narrative on the Screen: Is there a Grey Area? by Stephanie Arel

Arel - AAUW Headshot On May 8, Fifty Shades of Grey became available in DVD format. Marking its release, this post reflects on the mass consumer consumption of this provocative film and the abuse inherent in its script previously discussed here by Michele Stopera Freyhauf. Grossing $500 million dollars at the box office, Fifty Shades will most certainly sell as an unedited DVD. While some self-proclaimed feminists like Emilie Spiegel commend the story, feminists and conservatives slam it, often pressing viewers to reject the film and deny it financial support. Nonetheless, The Fifty Shade of Grey franchise will most probably have a sequel in 2016, continuing to amass hundreds of millions of dollars.

Concerns about the book and film include how the storyline presents a romantic ideal for women wrapped surreptitiously in abuse. Peering deeper at the narrative reveals the potential for conflicted emotional responses including feelings of guilt and shame, revulsion and interest, disgust and seduction. Confronted with the writing of this post, I responded in turn, torn between whether to watch the film or not. While wanting to deny the franchise any monetary gain, I also wanted to both know what I was rejecting and what, if any, value existed in viewing. Continue reading “Traumatic Narrative on the Screen: Is there a Grey Area? by Stephanie Arel”

Restored in Beauty by Carol P. Christ

The path leading to the Klapados Waterfall begins at the edge of an open meadow in the pine and oak woodlands of a mountain in the island of Lesbos. After driving several miles on a very rutted dirt track, we parked under an oak tree, crossed the meadow and scrambled down a winding path. After about 20 minutes, it ended at a stream surrounded by plane trees. From there, we climbed over rocks to reach a pool created by the seasonal waterfall.

On the day we visited it, the waterfall was only a trickle of cascading drops that moistened its moss-covered path to the pool. The roots of a plane tree growing at the top of cliff followed the path of the water, weaving a web over the rockface all the way down to the pool.

Sitting on a rock at the edge of the pool I realized that the cliffs that embraced it on three sides were the remains of a crater formed twenty million (or so) years ago when a finger of molten lava pushed its way through the earth, exploding in clouds of dust and projectile rocks.

In Lesbos the volcanic activity came not from a single source–for example, from the highest mountain. Rather, like the plane trees in whose shade we rested, the volcano’s trunk with roots in the molten lava of the earth’s core, had many branches from which it erupted at different times. Huge boulders thrown out in the explosions can be seen in the meadows, while the trees in the forest curve their roots around them to reach the soil. The mountain was also shaped by the settling of volcanic dust that crumbles again into tiny fragments when exposed.

As I was thinking of all of this my friend Cristina climbed over the roots of the plane trees that surrounded the pool, removed her clothes, and slipped into the water. Soon I followed her. We sensed that we were in a sacred place, and as we have done rituals together many times before, our ritual emerged spontaneously: it almost seemed as if our minds and bodies were moving as one.

We renewed ourselves in beauty, submerging our bodies under the water three times, while floating in the embrace of the pool, gazing up at the rock formations, admiring trees that looked like dancing women, moss that looked like pubic hair, and blue black damselflies that all together had created a most beautiful place that called to something deep within us on that day.

Later we would sing the English version of the song of the Navajo Beautyway:

I walk with beauty before me.
I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty all around me.
As I walk the beauty way.
I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty below me.
I walk with beauty inside me.
As I walk the beauty way.

We are the creative process of life.

We are restored in beauty.

Blessed be!

Carol leads the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (facebook and twitter). Carol’s books include She Who Changes and and Rebirth of the Goddess; with Judith Plaskow, the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions and forthcoming next year, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Explore Carol’s writing.

Do You Eat Animals? Ecofeminism and Our Food System by Ivy Helman

Carol Adams in her article “Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals,” argues that ecofeminists should be vegetarians, since ecofeminism is, among other things, action-based and “one’s actions reveal one’s beliefs,” (129). According to ecofeminism, the patriarchal domination of animals and nature is linked to the oppression of women. For her and many ecofeminists, the survival of our planet rests on two foundations: first, fixing the conditions of women and other oppressed groups and, second, envisioning differently our relationship to the natural world. In other words, a better arrangement of human relationships requires better human relationships with the environment. Vegetarianism and veganism are two ways in which ecofeminists opt out of the patriarchal system of domination and exploitation and help create a better world.

But, does one really? Does adopting a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle really have such an impact on the world? Yes and no. Yes, because it has been shown that raising animals to eat uses exorbitant amounts of fuel, water and land, not to mention, the larger environmental impact of farm run-off in the forms of disease-carrying manure, valuable topsoil and harmful pesticides. Yes, because animals are often inhumanely treated, housed in horrible conditions, genetically and/or hormonally-modified and cruelly killed. Continue reading “Do You Eat Animals? Ecofeminism and Our Food System by Ivy Helman”

Guanyin Revisited: Queer, Pacifist, Vegan Icon by Angela Yarber

Each month, I delight in writing about a revolutionary woman. Whether she is from history or mythology, sharing the stories of my Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is one of my favorite things to do as a feminist, artist, scholar, and clergywoman. Yet, no matter how much research I’ve done, or how many times I’ve taught about an icon, new discoveries are made, revelations within my own heart and mind cracked open, so that there is sometimes the need to revisit a particular holy woman afresh. Such is the case this month with Guanyin. Though I wrote about her nearly two years ago, published a book including her story, and have taught a course with one session focused on her compassion and mercy, I realized that much about her has gone unsaid. Namely, she is an icon for queers, pacifists, and vegans. Before explaining why, let’s have a quick review…

Guanyin is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy and Compassion. In the Lotus Sutras, she originates from a bodhisattva named Avalokitesyara. Avalokitesyara is identified as male in the Lotus Sutras. Overtime, however, Avalokitesyara transitions from being identified as a male to becoming Guanyin, most often portrayed in feminine terms and referred to as “she.” Many scholars assert that Guanyin is androgynous and can take on the form of any sentient being. And this is how I’ve always written about Guanyin, as the divinely androgynous one who is most often portrayed in feminine form. Continue reading “Guanyin Revisited: Queer, Pacifist, Vegan Icon by Angela Yarber”

Sappho’s Prescription For A Healthy Heart & the Taoist/Buddhist Concept of Forget (忘)

Stuart WordPress photo A two line fragment of Sappho’s poetry (S.120) reads:

But I am not one to keep venting my anger:
Rather I let some things in my heart go unspoken

Sappho’s word choices here make this as difficult as any of her fragments to appreciate in translation. Yet, not only do those choices make attribution of this fragment to Sappho secure, they also manifest her importance in an area for which she rarely receives attention: early Greek medical thinking. One reason her importance in that regard is largely unnoticed is that Western medicine in general has abandoned its own tradition, retaining only the nomenclature and some of the symbolism of early Greek medicine. Continue reading “Sappho’s Prescription For A Healthy Heart & the Taoist/Buddhist Concept of Forget (忘)”

Um… Happy Mother’s Day? By Natalie Weaver

Natalie Weaver edited In the Smithsonian Museum of American History, there is an exhibit on food and the way it has changed on the American table over the years. It is an interesting exhibit for a number of reasons. It shows, for example, a reproduction of Julia Child’s kitchen. It shows the advent of T.V. trays and Swanson frozen dinners. It shows when wine became a staple beverage. And, there is one of the most entertaining images in all of Washington, D.C. …

In what I believe was a 70s era campaign to popularize frozen food, there is a magazine article featuring a woman on the floor, cleaning up a milky cereal mess. The caption above her reads, “My favorite part of breakfast is when it is over.” At first, I thought the woman had vomited her food, emphasizing (if not also explaining) the point that she hates breakfast. Then, I noticed the dejected-looking child in a highchair, scowling at her mother, down on the ground, managing what was in fact a spill. In the center panel, a mother looks on at her frowning child, who is this time refusing to eat lunch. In the third and final panel, a miserable child now rejects dinner, but mom, still working the situation, observes, “Dinner isn’t so bad because it is almost over.” One understands that soon the unhappy little darling will be in bed, and mom won’t have to do this again until tomorrow. Continue reading “Um… Happy Mother’s Day? By Natalie Weaver”

#WATERTalk: Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century

WATERtalks: Feminist Conversations in Religion Series

Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century:
Technology, Dialogue, & Expanding Borders

with

Xochitl Alvizo, Gina Messina-Dysert, & Rosemary Radford Ruether

Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 1 p.m. ET

The editors of Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century: Technology, Dialogue, and Expanding Borders (Routledge, 2015) will discuss new movements in feminism and religion, as well as the ways in which technology creates spaces for expanded dialogue and change. Their volume brings together more than 15 feminist theologians across generations to reflect on the state of the art. The hour will offer an insightful portrait into the history and modern direction of feminist religion.

Xochitl Alvizo recently completed her Ph.D. in Practical Theology at Boston University School of Theology. She will be Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the area of Women and Religion and the Philosophy of Gender (LGBT), Sex, and Sexuality at California State University, Northridge, in the fall. Xochitl is co-founder of Feminism and Religion, an online project that brings together multiple feminist voices from around the world to dialogue about feminism in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community. She is co-founder of the Pub Church, Boston.

Gina Messina-Dysert is Dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies at Ursuline College and co-founder of feminismandreligion.com. She is the author of Rape Culture and Spiritual Violence (Routledge, 2014), and co-editor (with Rosemary Radford Ruether) of Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2014). She is active in movements to end violence against women and explores opportunities for spiritual healing for those who have encountered gender-based violence. See her TEDx Talk here. Gina can be followed on Twitter @FemTheologian and see her website, http://GinaMessinaDysert.com.

Rosemary Radford Ruether is a renowed feminist scholar and Catholic theologian. She is currently Senior Visiting Professor of Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Graduate University, where she earned a Ph.D. in classics and patristics in 1965. Rosemary is the author of more than 40 books and hundreds of articles on feminism, eco-feminism, and Christianity. She has also lectured all over the world. Rosemary has held numerous teaching positions including as the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary Northwestern University and the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She is the recipient of more than ten honorary doctorates in humane letters.

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Email Cathy Jaskey at waterstaff@hers.com if you have any trouble registering or need more information. Thank you!