feminism and religion – Page 3 – Feminism and Religion

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Patriarchy As An Integral System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 3

Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.

As the discussion of patriarchy* I began last week and the week before shows, patriarchy is not simply the domination of women by men. Patriarchy is an integral system in which men’s control of women’s sexuality, private property, and war (including violence, conquest, rape, and slavery) each play a part. These different elements are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate one as the cause of the others. Patriarchy is an integral system of interlocking oppressions, enforced through violence, and legitimated by religions.

The model of patriarchy I have proposed argues that the control of female sexuality is fundamental to the patriarchal system. This explains why there is so much controversy about the “simple matter” of access to birth control and abortion in the US today. It also explains why so much vicious anger is directed at single mothers by politicians and commentators. Any woman who dares to control her own sexuality is questioning the foundations of the patriarchal system. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Patriarchy As An Integral System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 3”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 2

In last week’s blog, I explained patriarchy as a system in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality with the intent of passing property to male heirs. How did a system that identifies a man’s essence with his property and the ability to pass it on to sons come about? I suggest that the answer to this question is war and the confiscation of “property” by warriors in war. Patriarchy is rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.

My argument is that the origin of “private” property, defined as property owned by a single (male) individual, and as that which defines the “essence” of that individual, is the “spoils” of war, which are divided up by victorious warriors. The “spoils” of war are the tangible treasures “looted” or taken by the victors from the conquered, such as jewelry and sacred objects. The “spoils” of war include land “taken” as the result of warfare, along with the right to exploit resources, directly or through taxes and levies. The “spoils” of war also includes the right to “take” the women of the defeated enemy and to confirm ownership of them (and humiliate their fathers or husbands) by raping them. The “spoils” of war also include the right to “take” these raped women and their young children home to serve as slaves and concubines. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 2”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Is the Spirit of Great Generosity in Crete a Survival of Ancient Matriarchal Values?

This was originally posted on October 28, 2013

At a coffee shop in Agios Thomas, Crete last month a perfect stranger offered to pay for the coffees and sodas of the 16 women on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This spirit of great generosity is rarely experienced in the United States or other parts of Europe, but it is still common in rural Crete and some parts of Greece.

In fact our group was in Agios Thomas because our bus driver Babis, also in a spirit of great generosity, insisted on stopping to show us his village when we were passing nearby. He guided us to see Roman rock cut tombs and arranged for the early Byzantine church to be opened. At the end of the our pilgrimage, Babis stopped the bus at a wooded glen beside a small church where he offered us his own homemake raki, wine, and olives, accompanied by local sheep cheese he had purchased while we were climbing a mountain. After every meal that we ate in local tavernas, we were offered bottles of cold raki, fruit, and sweets.

This spirit of great generosity has long been commented on by travelers in Greece, who often speak of it as unexpected (for them) hospitality to the stranger or traveler. That it is, of course. Through the work of Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, I now understand that the famous Greek hospitality to the stranger has deep roots in matriarchal cultures. According to Goettner-Abendroth, equality of wealth is assured through the widely-practiced custom of gift-giving in matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Is the Spirit of Great Generosity in Crete a Survival of Ancient Matriarchal Values?”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: SACRED RHYTHMS OF THE OLIVE HARVEST

This was originally posted on December 2, 2013

Olives are being harvested in the fields outside my town these days. We have been having the first rains of the season. The roads are wet and muddy, and the trees are partially shrouded in mist. The fields are spread with black plastic nets, and people are hard at work, the men hitting the trees to make the olives fall, and the women picking up the olives from the nets. The harvest will continue throughout the winter.

The olive press is busy. Cars and trucks come and go, unloading heavy bags filled with olives. These days the bags are white, made of sturdy woven plastic. In Crete this fall several of us bought canvas olive bags, hand-woven by women. These, along with baskets hand-woven by men, were still in use only a few decades ago.

olive harvest in Lesbos early 20th century by Theofilos Hajimichael

A friend who died a few years ago told me that “in the old days” there were no nets. The women and the children had to pick the olives up from the ground, often cutting their hands on thorns and stones. The nets are a Goddess-send. Between harvests, the nets are simply folded up and placed in the crotch of the tree. Here no one steals them.

In the fields where I walk some of the trees have enormous trunks. Some of them have two trunks, growing like sisters. Many of them are 300, some perhaps 500, years old. A man emerges from a field that has some particularly old trees. I ask him how old they are. “Older than I am,” he replies. “They were here before I was born. They will be here after I die.” Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: SACRED RHYTHMS OF THE OLIVE HARVEST”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND CARE SENSITIVE ETHICS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GAY MARRIAGE DEBATE

This was originally posted on December 9, 2013

Is care the beginning of ethics? Has traditional western ethical thinking been wrong to insist that in order to reason ethically, we must divorce reason from emotion, passion, and feeling?

In Ecofeminist Philosophy, Karen Warren criticizes traditional ethical thinking–advocating a “care-sensitive” approach to ethics. Traditional ethics, as Warren says, are based on the notion of the individual rights of rational moral subjects. Like so much else in western philosophy traditional ethics are rooted in the classical dualisms that separate mind from body, reason from emotion and passion, and male from female. In addition to being based in dualism, western philosophy focuses on the rational individual, imagining “him” to be separable from relationships with others. Western ethics concerns itself with the “rights” of “rational” “individuals” as they come into relationship or conflict with the “rights” of other “rational” “indiviudals.”

Those who would think ethically are advised to “rise above” the “emotions” and “passions” or “feelings” of the body, in order to reason dispassionately about the rights and responsibilities of rational individuals. According to this theory, emotions and passions “get in the way” of rational thinking. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND CARE SENSITIVE ETHICS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GAY MARRIAGE DEBATE”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES?

This post was originally published on Oct. 28th, 2013

This spirit of great generosity has long been commented on by travelers in Greece, who often speak of it as unexpected (for them) hospitality to the stranger or traveler. That it is, of course. Through the work of Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, I now understand that the famous Greek hospitality to the stranger has deep roots in matriarchal cultures. According to Goettner-Abendroth, equality of wealth is assured through the widely-practiced custom of gift-giving in matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES?”

Summer Lessons, by Molly M. Remer

Let us be gentle with ourselves
as we cross the threshold
into summer,
as we both open our hearts to change
and open our hands to choice.
It is now that we both let things go
and celebrate what is flourishing,
what is thriving and growing
and calling us onward.
Let us be soft and supple,
luminous and languorous.
Let us practice the discipline of pleasure
and the liturgy of delight.
Let us protect wide margins for magic,
commit to our own life’s unfolding
and swim freely
in the current of the sacred
that is always available
to receive us
and welcome us home.

Today, I sit missing the orioles and thinking about cycles of change, how things grow and decline, and how we can choose to be present or not with what we see and feel. I tip my head back in the green filtered light of morning and discover berries beginning on the mulberry trees. The wild raspberries and blackberries too are tipped with small, firm caps of green. I am feeling the sort of overdue clarity that descends when I finally realize I can let something go, that not everything is mine to carry or mine to fix. I know that this clarity too will come and go, but for now, I welcome it, feeling the cool wind stirring my hair and brushing my shoulders as I enjoy the sunshine and the sound of hawks on the wing. There is a powerful hope in these blue sky days and for now, I bask in the sensation of both remembering and reclamation.

This year, as we tip into summer in the Northern hemisphere, the temperatures in my own Midwestern biome have been surprisingly cool, peaceful and rainy. In an era of climate change, this slow entry into the heat of the year has felt welcome and encouraging. Something that continues to inspire and teach me this year has been to start where my feet are, to return again and again to where I am on this earth and in my body. In a culture that encourages fragmentation and distraction, distance, discord, and dis-embodiment, this practice of return is an act of both rebellion and reclamation.

I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. This year, sitting down to write and reflecting on the life lesson of starting where my feet are, I decided to go back through my past summer posts here to discover the other lessons I have learned from summers gone by. I chose thirteen lessons to share from past summer posts:

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: In The News – Global Climate Change

This post was originally posted on Nov. 7th, 2012

Climate change is in the news again due to the devasting storm known as Hurricane Sandy. Scientists, activists, journalists, and politicians are telling us that Sandy is not just another “unpredictable event” brought to us by “Mother Nature.” Will we listen this time?

Hurricane Sandy is a human-made and entirely predictable and sure to be repeated environmental consequence of the use of fossil fuels, especially oil and coal. Burning fossil fuels puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This raises the global temperature in the air, land, and sea. Melting of polar ice caps is a result of the rise in global temperatures. This will cause a 3 foot or more rise in the seas, leading to the permanent flooding of the seacoasts and sea coast constructions, including homes, restaurants and shops, office buildings, and harbors and ports.

The warming of the seas is also producing extreme weather conditions, including high winds and hurricanes, along with colder winters and hotter summers. Extreme weather conditions will lead to regular storm-related flooding of rivers and sea coasts, erosion of hills and mountains in winter, followed by catastrophic fires in summer. Prolonged droughts and unseasonal rains will devastate farms and food production. Wildlife habitats will be destroyed. Places where people live will become too hot, too cold, too wet, and generally unfriendly to life.

Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: In The News – Global Climate Change”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors

This post was originally published on Jan. 21st, 2013

Over the past year I have written several blogs on ancestor connection. In this blog I will share what I have learned about how to find ancestors.

I recommend the popular television series Who Do You Think You Are? which has US, UK, and Australian, and other versions, and the PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, African American Lives and Finding Your Roots. While you might think, as I did, that genealogical research is about finding the names and birthplaces of ancestors, these programs set the genealogical quest in the great flow of history.

Records show that I have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, and Germany in the early 1850s. Historical research tells me that more than a million people left Ireland and Scotland in the 1850s due to the “potato famine,”* which affected the rest of Europe as well. History explains why ancestors emigrated.

Begin your search by asking parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, for names, dates, places of residence, stories, and other information they remember. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It?

This post was originally published on Nov. 26th, 2012

Recently, in an interview with the Women’s Living History Project of Claremont Graduate University, I was asked: What religious tradition did you identify with as a child and how did it impact your childhood? and: Is your tradition the same today that you had when growing up?

I was surprised that the interview questions didn’t ask anything about feminism, experiencing exclusion in patriarchal religions, or belief. My religious and political convictions, which are intertwined, have alienated me from family members. Therefore, I was suspicious of questions that seemed to have been formulated by someone for whom religion and family go together, and for whom believing or not believing (!) did not seem to be an important issue.

After expressing criticism of the questions, I agreed to work with them. My answer to the first question was that I did not have a single religious tradition as a child. I had four. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It?”