Becoming a Godfather was more than just a reentry into the Catholic traditions I had long given up but rather a journey back in time that would grant me the ability to rewrite the wrongs I felt as a kid growing up in a tradition I not only didn’t understand but also didn’t feel like I belonged in.
I often wondered why I wasn’t asked to be the Godfather of my niece and nephew. It made perfect sense to me that I would be the best person to guide and provide spiritual care for either of them as I was the only member, in both my family and my brother-in-law’s, getting a PhD in Religion. I didn’t think there would be much to it. I would go, hold my nephew, and watch a priest pour water over his head, and then go and enjoy some very sugary cake in my sister’s backyard.
On August 18th, 2012 my wish came true and I became the Godfather to my sister’s second child, Drew. I had always believed that there was nothing to being a Godfather. That it was a title in name only and a tradition that many individuals bestowed upon members of their family as ritualistic habit rather than a sacred institution of spiritual care and upbringing. Boy, was I wrong. Continue reading “8 Simple Rules for Being a Queer Godfather by John Erickson”
Why has Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith mostly been a non-question in his political life? John Kennedy was asked if he would obey the Pope or make his own decisions, Jimmy Carter was asked how his Baptist faith would affect his Presidency, and Barack Obama was asked if he agreed with the sermons of his preacher. Why is the press afraid to ask Mitt Romney if he agrees with the patriarchal teachings of his church and if so, if this affects his views on the rights of women?
Sex sells. The sexual objectification of women is used in advertising to sell anything from auto parts to cologne to alcohol. Despite the myriads of feminist critiques of women’s sexual objectification to sell products, it still exists. Open a Vogue Magazine or walk into an Abercrombie and Fitch store. Women are posed half, to almost totally, nude in sexually suggestive ways trying to entice the generic person in patriarchal society, the “average” male (usually white, middle-class and heterosexual) to buy the product. Sometimes that same sexually suggestive pose is meant to also sell a product to the “average” woman as well with the mistaken notion that she will look as attractive and satisfied as the model if only she own the product too.
One of my part-time jobs is as a clerk at a liquor store where there are a good number of sexually explicit ads for alcohol. I also have three other part-time jobs teaching in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Boston College, in the Religious and Theological Studies Department at Merrimack College and in my shul’s religious school. My combined income from the four jobs barely covers rent, food and bills and some months when I don’t get paid from teaching I use the little savings I have to make ends meet.
Recently I have noticed how silenced my feminist voice has become in the liquor store because of my precarious financial situation. I am hesitant to speak up about the sexist ads for fear of losing my job. This muted feminist voice is a class issue within feminism. Specifically, classism affects one’s ability to stand up for one’s self when one’s livelihood is on the line. Often, I find myself thinking about this as I sell customers vodka or beer.
As I painted her icon, I knew that “the room of one’s own” must engulf more space on the canvas than she did, her heart beating in the room and outside of it, and her arms outstretched as though she is inviting other women into the room.
I first encountered her in the lyrics of a song. The Indigo Girls shaped my adolescence, molding me into a young feminist as I sang in harmony with other teenage girls:
They published your diary
And that’s how I got to know you
The key to the room of your own
And a mind without end
And here’s a young girl
On a kind of a telephone line through time
And the voice at the other end
Comes like a long lost friend
So I know I’m alright
Life will come and life will go
Still I feel it’s alright
‘Cause I just got a letter to my soul
Emily Saliers and Amy Ray (the Indigo Girls) were singing about Virginia Woolf, naming the song after her. As I belted out the lyrics with my soon-to-become-feminist friends, I had yet to learn who Virginia Woolf was and how her life and work had shaped my own. All I knew as I harmonized those many years ago was that this woman must be special if the Indigo Girls dedicated a song to her. I felt a longing to know her, to learn more about her, for her to call me on that telephone line through time and tell me I’m alright. Accordingly, Virginia Woolf is our Holy Woman Icon for September. Continue reading “Painting Virginia Woolf by Angela Yarber”
Let’s be honest. It’s not about the junk science. There were some crazy things said recently but they were crazy with a purpose.
Republican Rep. Todd Aikin (who is a policy blood brother to Republican Reps. Paul Ryan and Chris Smith) effectively said a woman’s subconscious can determine if she gets pregnant. He said as a result of a rape a women’s body can shut down its reproductive mechanisms. Of course this is junk science. And Republicans quickly reacted to the predictable public uproar by castigating Rep. Aikin and seeking his resignation from the race. (Two interesting exceptions to that list were former Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and current Congressional candidate Rep. Chris Smith. Huckabee by his stout defense and Smith by his silence.)
But this had nothing to do with Republicans’ regard for science. In fact science is held in very low regard in the Republican party. This is best exemplified by the fact that the Republicans appointed Rep. Aikin to the Congressional Science Committee. Continue reading “It’s Junk Science by Brian Froelich”
As many feminists invest their life fighting for women’s rights to be the center of attention – no one could predict the occurrences of this election year. In my previous post “Rape is Not a Political Platform – Rape is a Violent Crime!” Carol P. Christ made a comment about women’s issues and politics:
“I have been waiting all my life for women’s issues to become central in an election campaign, but I guess I should have been more specific in my wish: this is not the format I imagined…”
Christ’s reaction is like so many others in the election; no one could have imagined such a bizarre and backwards slide being lobbied against women’s rights. Issues being bantered around continue to be rooted in a purported pro-life stance. This ranges from trans-vaginal ultrasounds, definitions of “legitimate” rape, and now using an Ob/Gyn’s “best guess” to define the gestational age of a baby from the time of a woman’s last period. This is not a game – this is semantics, this is politics, this rhetoric, and frankly, this needs to stop. Continue reading “Is the Republican Party Platform Truly Pro-Life? by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”
When stuck between a vow of obedience and a hard place known as the Vatican, sisterhood may be our only prayer. Since April 18, 2012, the U.S. nuns have been cast into the headlines as the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) released a harsh assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella organization, representing 80% of U.S. sisters. Accused of “radical feminist themes,” “corporate dissent,” and among other things, not taking an official stance on some hot Catholic issues, nuns have become frontrunners of a revolution.
The groundswell of support and solidarity pouring forth from faithful Catholics and the media has been unprecedented by all standards; when the secular feminist website Jezebel is calling for Sr. Simone Campbell , executive director for the Catholic lobby group, NETWORK, for president, the issue has clearly gone beyond the choir. The movement has taken on the adage “we are all nuns,” expressing a shared sense of oppression by the Catholic Church. If the second largest religious domination in the U.S. (10%) is “former Catholic,” then this shared sense of betrayal by the Vatican may not be new, but it has found new energy in the conflict between Rome and the American nuns. Continue reading “Hijacking the Nuns? by Kate Conmy”
Sometimes science fictional curiosities paint an image of a larger matrix. Sometimes they project cultural fears, tearing down and minimizing our webs of existence in new world schemes. But whether a positive vision or negative one, science fiction, like feminism, is about crossing boundaries.
Yes, the human exploration of outer space matters.
Yes, I believe it is a feminist cosmological and theo/alogical concern.
Yes, yes, yes. Curiosity Matters! And this is why:
1. The possible discovery that there is or was life on other planets in our solar system broadens our understanding of inter-connection and what it means to be a part of a larger “web” of existence.
Curiosity, the “Mars Science Laboratory,” is explicitly concerned with the question, “Could Mars have once harbored life,” according to the NASA missions website. The investigation is a part of ongoing efforts to understand the Martian surface, particularly since scientists discovered the actual existence of frozen water on the planet and the possible existence of “flows of liquid brine.”
Curiosity on the surface of Mars!
Water. It is the necessary “stuff” of our bodies and planet. We, like all of our Earth-creaturely relations, cannot exist without water. Life is amazingly connected by this molecule; and it is amazing to discover this link on Mars. Many feminist theologians and thealogians describe our existence as a kind of web or matrix: a system of difference and relationships that makes up a whole. Life on Mars makes our web larger. It discourages exclusive and human-centered cosmological claims, asking us to consider what other realities and what other experiences define the history of this vast and beautiful universe. Continue reading ““Curiosity” Matters by Sara Frykenberg”
Where patriarchalism trumps love, when push comes, shove often follows.The underside of love patriarchalism is hatred of the independence of women.
We are told that it is the duty of a loving father and husband to protect his wife and children. In exchange, good wives support their husbands and good children obey their fathers. The bottom line of patriarchy is control. The fight over abortion is a fight about men’s right to control women.
I have spent much of the past few weeks wondering why so many Republican men hate women. Why do they want to deny the right to an abortion to a 12 year-old girl raped by her father, to a 21 year-old college student gang raped at a fraternity party, to a 33 year-old woman who submitted to a violent boyfriend she did not know had poked a hole in his condom, or a to a 41 year-old woman who offered a cup of coffee to the man who came to her house to fix the electricity, but who said “no” when he assaulted her.
I have also wondered why Republican men would deny the right to an abortion to 28 year-old married woman who got pregnant while taking the pill, to a 15 year-old girl who got carried away with her boyfriend, or even to a 35 year-old woman who got drunk one night and had sex without protection. We are all human aren’t we? Birth control sometimes fails and sometimes women make mistakes. Apparently women are to be punished for both! Continue reading ““LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE by Carol P. Christ”
I was driving through one of the more conservative corners of Orange County, California, a couple weeks ago and went past a very pretty brick church with a tall, proud steeple and signs in the front yard giving times of worship services. I have no idea what kind of church it was, but as I went past, a car pulled out of the driveway and began following me. It’s a public street, I said to myself. Looks like a tony neighborhood. No need to worry about being followed. So I neither sped up nor slowed down. At the red light, the car behind me pulled up beside me and the driver, a young man, looked at me. As soon as the light changed, he sped ahead, changed lanes, then slowed down just a little. As I pulled up behind him at the next red light, a hand came out of the driver’s window. A finger was aggressively elevated.
Good grief! How had I insulted this driver? The guy made a right turn, I stewed and fussed a couple of miles…and then it dawned. My bumper stickers. I have four on my car. PROTECT OUR MOTHER EARTH—SHE’S THE ONLYONE WE’VEGOT. THANK GODDESS. BRIGHT BLESSINGS. And my current political bumper sticker: IMPEACH THE SUPREME COURT. (This last, of course, is a comment on the Citizens United decision, which many people think is doing incalculable damage to the political process.) For years, my friends have been telling me that at any gathering, they can always tell I’m there by the bumper stickers on my car. Continue reading “Fun With Bumper Stickers By Barbara Ardinger”
I often wondered why I wasn’t asked to be the Godfather of my niece and nephew. It made perfect sense to me that I would be the best person to guide and provide spiritual care for either of them as I was the only member, in both my family and my brother-in-law’s, getting a PhD in Religion. I didn’t think there would be much to it. I would go, hold my nephew, and watch a priest pour water over his head, and then go and enjoy some very sugary cake in my sister’s backyard.
Feminism and Religion 