Feminism – Page 6 – Feminism and Religion

Crete is the Cradle of a Culture of Peace – Part One by Laura Shannon

These are difficult days. We awaken daily to the ongoing horror of senseless killing. My heart is filled with a yearning for peace. Now is the time to dream of peace, to choose peace, to practice peace – within our selves, with those we love, in our communities and in our world.

But what might a peaceful world look like? It can be hard to even imagine – not only because we live in a world filled with war, but because we have been taught to believe, as Carol Christ explains, that “patriarchy and with it war and domination are universal and inevitable.” However, she goes on, “this is a myth perpetrated by those who do not want to give up the power and privilege the patriarchal system has accorded to them.” War is not inevitable. Peace is possible.

“I Don’t Want to Be “More Feminine”: Deconstructing Gender Together by Elizabeth Jenkins

Long, long ago, back before I met my husband, I met another young man at (my former) church.

I thought he was cute, fun, and funny. We spent a few months meeting up regularly for lunch, dinner, or boba. Always talking, always laughing.

Never doing anything that clearly wasn’t just friendship. Never defining the relationship.

Eventually, I noticed that he wasn’t initiating as much as he used to. I figured he was probably losing interest in anything potentially romantic, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding. So, over bubble tea drinks, I asked if he could clarify how he understood what we’d been doing these last few months—did he see it as a friendship or as dating?

Herstory Profiles: Remember their Names, Buffalo Calf Road Woman and Mollie Kyle Burkhart by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

This month saw the release of a Martin Scorsese film which was based on the book written by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon. While the book and film did try to be more intentional and more inclusive of its representation of the Osage peoples, the film is largely told through the perspective of white men. And if you have been following the Herstory Profile series this year, you know that where there is a historical event, there is a woman who has been overlooked, rewritten, or lost.

Indigenous Women and Non-Binary Peoples are one of the largest populations of missing and murdered peoples in the US. This Herstory Profiles will focus on two Indigenous Women who embody strength, courage, determination, and compassion.

A Thealogy of Land and Roots by Kelle ban Dea

I am my Mothers
My Mothers are me
I am the Goddess
the Goddess is within me
As blood
as bone
as the spirals
of nuclei
as ova
as tears
as breath
I carry my Mothers
as my Daughters will carry me

And the Goddess carries us all

The Importance of Including our Girls in Our Women’s Circles by Caryn MacGrandle

The other night I hosted a First Moon Circle for my fourteen year old daughter. I have been hosting Circles almost a decade, but outside of having them on the ‘periphery’, walking through the sunroom where I host, talking and laughing with all of us after Circle as we eat, occasionally a short ‘sit-down’ in Circle, but nothing where they are included beginning to end.

Because my attitude up until now has been that Circles are work and so are they. Why mix the two?

But I find myself at new juncture: when you become very strong on who you are, feedback becomes so less relevant. And I have learned how to hold the rim of the Circle allowing it to flow and sway with minimum effort on my part.

Nowadays I find myself ‘receiving’ from Circles no matter who else is sitting in them and what they are contributing.

It is quite inspiring.

I Am Kaleidoscope by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Art work designed by Jaysen Waller – http://www.jaysenwaller.com/

FAR was founded in June 2011 by four women, Xochitl Alvizo, Cynthia Garrity-Bond, Caroline Kline, and Gina Messina. They are and have been revolutionary thinkers in the world of feminism. Below is a portion of what they write on our “About” page

“There is no single definition of feminism and this is a place of many voices. Important work in women’s studies in religion continues as more attention is paid to the intersection between gender, race, culture, and sexual identity, within feminism and religion.” They go on to say: “We establish this blog in the hope that feminist scholars of religion — and all who are interested in these issues — will use this forum to share their ideas, insights, and experiences, so that this community of thinkers will be nurtured as we explore diverse and new directions.”

The Queen of Heaven Cakes: Asherah and Ishtar by Michelle Cameron

When one nation conquered another in antiquity, vanquished peoples typically switched allegiances to that country’s gods, since those deities were clearly stronger than their own. In my novel, Babylon: A Novel of Jewish Captivity, the prophet Daniel warns against this tendency, so the Judean exiles would remain faithful despite their captivity:

“You may be tempted to slip away from your Hebrew roots. Many of us struggle to remain steadfast to our faith. We are seduced by the lure of the gods of Ishtar and Marduk, Sin, Damkina, and Ea. Their temples overflow with riches and their ways are strange and compelling.

Herstory Profiles: One Amongst Many: The Continual Activist Fight of Judy Heumann by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Judy Heumann should be a person that school children learn about, read about, and do research on. She is a quintessential element to our progress of humanity and the realization of true equity, equality, and accessibility. We first looked at the early years of Judy’s life in my July post. Also, I highly recommend watching the documentary Crip Camp available on Netflix and at the Crip Camp website.

Archives from the FAR Founders: Privileged Feminist By Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted on November 23, 2011. This is part of a project to highlight the work of the four women who founded FAR: Xochitl Alvizo, Caroline Kline, Gina Messina, and Cynthia Garrity-Bond. The author has added a note at the end.

I have the privilege of having radical lesbian feminism ‘work’ for me. I can’t explain why it does – but it does – it just works for me. I am not of the same generation as most feminists who experienced and awakened to radical feminism during the women’s movement of the 70s and 80s in the United States. I am not white nor was I middle-class when I encountered it (though I probably am middle class now). Nonetheless, as I encountered radical lesbian feminist writing, and eventually some of the women who wrote them, it spoke to me in the depths of my being and rattled my very core. Radical lesbian feminism liberated me and birthed me into a whole new way of Be-ing…and that is a privilege I must not take for granted and must hold loosely.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Essentialism Reconsidered

This was originally posted on September 15, 2014

In my Ecofeminism class we have been discussing essentialism because some feminists have alleged that other feminists, particularly ecofeminists and Goddess feminists, are “essentialists.” They argue that essentialist views reinforce traditional stereotypes including those that designate men as rational and women as emotional. I too find essentialism problematic, but I do not agree that Goddess feminism and ecofeminism are intrinsically essentialist.

Goddess feminists and ecofeminists criticize classical dualism: the traditions of thinking that value reason over emotion and feeling, male over female, man over nature. We argued that the western rational tradition sowed the seeds of the environmental crisis when it separated “man” from “nature.”

Goddess feminists and ecofeminists affirm the connections between women and nature in an environmental worldview that acknowledges the interconnection of all beings in the web of life.