August 11th saw Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden announce his pick for Vice President. This pick broke open the history books; California US Senator Kamala Harris. Kamala has been steadily rising as a political force for over ten years. Her nomination is groundbreaking on so many levels. So, let us talk about Senator Harris.
Continue reading “Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice President for 2020 by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
From the very moment after the dust settled from the 2016 elections, notions of impeachment started to break. Now three years into the Trump Presidency, impeachment proceedings have been launched. To start, Impeachment is a Constitutionally supported right. It is an element of the “Checks and Balances” system to ensure that no one branch of the government holds too much power. Instigating impeachment processes is not treason, nor is it unpatriotic – it is a testament to the democratic procedures established by the founding fathers and maintained for the last 230 years.
Continue reading “The Brass Tacks of the Trump Impeachment by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
This post contains spoilers on the Game of Thrones series
For many, this past week saw the MASSIVE HBO hit, Game of Thrones, air its last episode. Thousands were left unsatisfied with the ending and even the entire last season. There was an online petition signed by over 1 million people demanding a season rewrite/reshoot. I have seen on countless social media accounts the amount of people seemingly bereft now that the show is over. I have also seen other shows and tv channels banking on people searching for a new show to immerse themselves in. So why, Game of Thrones? And what will replace it now that it is over?
Continue reading “Game of Thrones is Over, Now What? By Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
It was maybe twenty-five years ago that I first got addicted to the Sunday morning news/talk shows. I’d turn on the TV at 7 a.m., watch an hour of local news, then Stephanopoulos at 8 a.m., then MSNBC until noon or later. Not anymore. This morning, I turned the TV off at 10:00 and immediately got into the shower to wash off what I’d been hearing. I’m worn out by the news!
Now don’t get me wrong. I am totally against any “normalizing” of the Troll-in-Chief. In fact, I’m convinced we ought to pack him into capsule with about a hundred cheeseburgers and without his phone and fire him off to one of the outer planets. Maybe Saturn, which astrologically forces us to face ourselves and to get to work and learn our life lessons.
Continue reading “A Ritual to Bless Our Children by Barbara Ardinger”
Yesterday, Time Magazine announced that its “Person of the Year” for 2017 would be “The Silence Breakers” – the name it has given to those women who helped launch and made headlines in the #metoo movement. This movement was started by activist Tarana Burke in 2006 to highlight the sexual abuse of women of color and was sent viral by actor Alyssa Milano in 2017. It speaks volumes that this designation falls exactly one year after Time awarded this honor to Donald Trump for the political shift heralded by his defeat of Hillary Clinton.
This defeat that was fueled, at least in part, by the way Trump’s own normalization of sexism, harassment, and assault played on the fears and bitterness of misogynist voters hell-bent on preserving what racial, gender, and economic privilege they could continue to hoard for themselves and those like them. This defeat, and the ensuing glorification of a sexual predator and rampant misogynist, in turn fueled a movement of people, mostly women, tired of being scared into silence to protect the powerful who abuse. Continue reading “Breaking the Silence by Chris Ash”
I am sitting here again with my friend Deb—you can see our first conversation here, where we were excited about the activism ensuing from the Women’s March. A photo essay of the Los Angeles Women’s March is here. However, like so many conversations we are all having still, we ask each other— “after the first 100 days…what do we do now?” We are speaking of the first 100 days of the 45th president. When we last got together, we gave a list of options for doing activism as a daily part of life. In this blog, we want to expand on that idea.
Let’s first take stock of where we have gone since the last blog that Deb and I collaborated on February 24th . . Among other things Trump accused President Obama of illegally wiretapping his phones. Here is a list of many other terrifying things he has done. As we write this, we have also recently bombed Syria, sent warships to Korea, and appointed an extremely conservative Supreme Court Justice, because the Republican Senate voted to remove the ability to filibuster, which allowed Gorsuch’s appointment to go through with only 54 votes (rather than the formally required 60). Continue reading “After the First 100 Days—What Do We Do Now? by Marie Cartier”
Many feminist theologians powerfully and convincingly ague that racist, capitalistic hetero-patriarchy is matricidal, as are its religions. Mother-murder takes a variety of forms, including:
This is a too short list for a wealth of feminist knowledge on the subject of matricide: its pages and exemplars filling up books, databases and blogs with evidence for a misogyny, matricide and “theacide,” that the mainstream media is quick to trivialize and ignore.
In the wake of “Trumpcare’s” (or “Ryancare’s” if you prefer) recent false start,* I find it necessary to re-member this crime and re-contextualize matricide in the battle for health care rights.
In a recent CNN Politics article, Tami Luhby describes, “Essential health care benefits and why they matter.” The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) required insurance plans to cover several “essential benefits,” including things like hospitalization, prescription drug coverage, pediatric services, and, maternal and new born care. Trumpcare, unsurprisingly, is working to dismantle these regulations.
Multiple liberal media sites circulated an image of the POTUS and VPOTUS’s meeting with the conservative Freedom Caucus regarding the health care bill, captions of which captured the gross irony: a room full of (mostly white) men in suits is debating women’s health care with nary a woman in sight. A patriarchal power decides (again) what to do about its mothers, and they propose: no more mandatory prenatal care or new born care. The reasons for which go straight to the heart of white supremacist, capitalist kyriarchy.
Republican Representative John Shimkus explains, responding to a question regarding what he “took issue with” in the ACA by asking in turn, “What about men having to purchase prenatal care… I’m just, is that correct… and should they?” Why should men have to pay? Made infamous for his remarks in many circles, Shimkus’ comments betray a common understanding of reality:
We shouldn’t have to pay for each other—capital is the priority.
We shouldn’t have to take care of each other (like mothers care)
We are not responsible for you (like mothers are)
We are independent, not dependent (upon a mother)
We are individual (not interrelational)
We should not have to care about the “other” (even if that “other” is more than half the population and literally “bears” the future of of our species.)
“We,” is not concerned with/ is not a woman, a child, a mother.
If the United States lead the way in maternal health, if women had paid leave, if their partners/ spouses also had leave to help raise the next generation, I would still find the repeals of these protections reprehensible. But the fact of the matter is, the US is falling fall behind other industrialized nations—its maternal death rates rising despite the opposite global trend. The national average was 28 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013, and 25 in 2015. Texas has a particularly high maternal death, growing alarmingly from 18.6 to 30 deaths per 100,000 live births from 2011-2014. USA Today provides important comparative data, reporting “That’s significantly higher than Italy (2.1 deaths per 100,000 live births), Japan (3.3) and France (5.5), and more in line with Mexico (38.9) or Turkey and Chile (15.2), according to World Health Organization statistics.” In light of this data (and other facts of the bill), I cannot respond to Trumpcare with anything but rage and disgust.
Reading different articles about this mortality trend, I was struck by one article in particular that reminded its readers that 25, 28 or 30 in 100,000 isn’t really that many people. ‘Not that many people’ are needlessly dying in a country that has the technology and resources to prevent such death. Not that many people’s lives are impacted—so why should I have to pay for them? Matricide and misogyny are alive and well in our health care system.
I am reading an important book this semester called, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Tolerance by Janet Jacobsen and Anne Pellegrini for one of my classes. In the text the authors remind us that people are selectively minoritized to serve particular political ends and uphold notions of a false dominant majority who is actually the minority.
I also read a powerful the chapter, “Looking Back But Moving Forward: The Radical Disability Model,” in Diability Politics & Theory, by AJ Withers—a work of Crip Theory. Here, Withers problematizes the category of “disability” as an arbitrary and socially constructed label (as opposed to impairment) which extends benefits to some in such ways as to deny benefits for many. Withers then warns readers that as long as the label exists, those who were once considered disabled (women, homosexuals and racialized people) are under constant threat of being reclassified and restigmatized in this way. I found the warning particularly chilling and eye opening, recalling how I (and other parents) accessed my own benefits when on maternity leave: by going on disability.
Trump(anti)care didn’t pass. But rather than read this as a victory, I want to reiterate a colleague’s post the day after the ‘defeat:’ the bill didn’t pass because it wasn’t ‘conservative’ enough for the Republican dominated Senate. This was a false start* in the modern renewal of ancient matricide.
Facing the realities of this death-dealing impulse, however, I want to declare that I re-member these mothers, women and goddesses. We re-member; and we will resist.
What is a feminist mother of four daughters to do these days? Look at our media and how girls and women are portrayed to our daughters, teens, and young adults. Then take a look at how media portrays the face of feminism, promoting every negative stereotype out there. As I scroll through the magazines, listen to songs on the radio, and watch the programming targeted at girls in junior high and up, I cannot help but ask the question – Is the media trying to destroy feminism?
While this introduction might sound drastic, much truth lies behind the questions. One merely needs to look around and watch former Disney Star, Miley Cyrus, twerk and make lewd gestures with a foam finger while grinding against a man, almost twice her age, as he sings about the blurred lines of sexual consent. When I saw the news stories and yes, watched the video, I was utterly mortified and stunned. Gloria Steinem, in a statement that seems to condone this behavior stated that Cyrus’ performance (actions) is not a new phenomenon, but a product of American culture. Instead of looking at it through the lens of degradation and influence, she defended the young star by saying:
“I wish we didn’t have to be nude to get noticed. But given the game as it exists, women make decisions. For instance, the Miss America contest… the single greatest source of scholarship money for women in the United States. If a contest based only on appearance was the single greatest source of scholarship money for men, then we would be saying ‘this is why China wins.’ You know? But that’s the way culture is. I think that we need to change culture, not blame the people that are playing the game that exists.”
When Cyrus’ actions are boiled down to being “nude to get noticed,” and we accept this behavior by merely chalking her performance up to culture – isn’t it time to change culture? Continue reading ““Enlightened Sexism” and The Media: The Cultural Attack on Feminism by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”
Feminism has a “brand”? A recent contest – still running, if you want to get in on it! – asks for suggestions about how to “rebrand feminism.” The contest has corporate sponsors. Saying that although feminism “has brought us the right to vote, drive and have our own bank accounts,” it is nonetheless the case that “Feminism has been given a bad rap, and gotten a bad rep.” Elle UK’s November issue does the same, claiming to rebrand “a term that many feel has become burdened with complications and negativity.”
I suspect that most readers here at Feminism and Religion will have similar reactions to this development: disgust and distaste. Why do feminists need to overcome the negative stereotypes and reactions that are used to dismiss them by anti-feminists? Most of us have heard the usual derisive responses, I suspect, and are tired of being instructed that it is our responsibility to overcome stereotypes we have done nothing to earn. I once wrote the words “feminist” and “Christian” on the board in an introductory theology class, and asked students what the first word that came to mind was in each case. Predictably, the first response for “feminist” was “femi-Nazi.” The student wasn’t intending to imply that such a designation was fair, but the immediacy of the reaction was telling. So why should feminists subordinate our political and social aims to corporate self-promotion? And is feminism really just about getting the vote, being able to drive, and having bank accounts? This list of issues brings together the trivial (when were women unable to drive in the UK or USA?), the liberal status quo (voting), and the assumption that feminism means the full ability to participate in the capitalist system. That’s not to suggest that these concerns are unimportant. But all of them involve acceding to an already-constituted public, financial, political, and social space. Is feminism simply about, as so many popular invocations have it these days, equality and giving women the same opportunities as men? Continue reading “Rebranding Feminism by Linn Marie Tonstad”
The headlines blared, “Who am I to judge?” News outlet after news outlet led with the pope’s conciliatory stance toward gays, expressed during an interview aboard the pope-plane as he returned from Brazil. Among the several headers from Fox News (I encourage not clicking!), we find discussions of the pope’s “reaching out” to gays and even one that combines this development with his “urging” of a “greater role” for women. The New York Times story introduced the pope’s comments as follows: “For generations, homosexuality has largely been a taboo topic for the Vatican, ignored altogether or treated as ‘an intrinsic moral evil,’ in the words of the previous pope.” Ignoring the astonishing comment that this has been the case “for generations,” as though homosexuality has historically been the kind of issue for the church it has become in the wake of radical queer movements – see Mark Jordan’s several books on this for the most helpful treatments – the story went on to say that the pope’s comments “resonated throughout the church.” Although the NYT article did a better job than some contextualizing and nuancing the pope’s comments, they were still termed “revolutionary” in an assessment better suited to an opinion page than to a news report. Better-informed commentators, such as James Martin, offered a measured response. Martin said that although the pope’s remarks didn’t really signal a significant change in policy, “in the church, style often proves substantial,” implying that the “pastoral” tone might have effects in the implementation of policy. More significantly, Martin praised the pope’s adherence to Jesus’ injunction not to judge as an instance, first and foremost, of the pope’s commitment to mercy as the hallmark of his pontificate.
My Facebook feed, predictably, lit up with links to and discussions of these comments. While most were thrilled, a few posts noted that, even if Pope Francis is in fact (which is not proven) walking back Benedict XVI’s language of “intrinsically disordered,” the church’s policy has not and will not change in any significant way. What was missing in all but a few instances was attention to the pope’s comments in the same interview on women, and the deep theological problems with the assumptions contained in those comments. And while I, as a queer theologian, would never wish to downplay the struggles of LGBTQI people in the Roman Catholic church, there are rather more women than queers in that church (as elsewhere!). What’s more, it is arguable that it is the sexism and heterosexism of what Marcella Althaus-Reid memorably termed “T-Theology” that underlies condemnation of homosexuality in Roman Catholic theology. Continue reading “Who is the Church? by Linn Marie Tonstad”
In the space of a week, three obtuse remarks by non-Muslim men about Muslim women ticked me off.
First was a letter to the editor by Rabbi Howard Berman, published in the Boston Globe on April 21. The title (“Women’s Strides set Judaism apart”) was telling. According to Berman, strict religious hierarchy means that only in (his branch of) Judaism have women’s rights and roles advanced. Mormons and Catholics have no shot – never mind that Mormon women had recently raised the issue of women’s priesthood, or that lay and religious women among Catholics have long been fighting the good fight, sometimes with male allies. He then contradicts himself on the role of official hierarchy: Islam, where there is less centralization than in American or world Judaism, also gives women no chance of gaining authority.
I fumed and mentally composed a pithy refutation, which I never actually wrote. Continue reading “Third Time’s the Charm by Kecia Ali”
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