Recently feminist scholar Vicki Noble said this is the best definition of patriarchy she has read–but she hadn’t known of it earlier! I am am republishing it now in hopes that all of you will share it on your… Read More ›
patriarchy
What is Natural? The Wooden Chair Discussion by Ivy Helman
When I begin my class discussion about defining nature, I often start with a wooden chair or table. I point to it and ask the students, “Is this chair natural?” I pause. They have already been introduced to the idea… Read More ›
Listening to the Noise: The Connections between Milada Horáková, Anti-Semitism, and the Black Lives Matter Movement by Ivy Helman.
This month more than most, I feel like I have so much to say that I don’t really know where to begin. It doesn’t help that next door they are remodelling an apartment and, outside my window, there is a… Read More ›
Unorthodox: How Looking for “Truth” Misses the Point by Ivy Helman.
A few weeks ago a Slovak journalist reached out to me about the new Netflix four-part series entitled Unorthodox. In the email, the journalist wrote that they had read about my work as a Jewish feminist and wanted some insight… Read More ›
Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers… Read More ›
When Every Day Will Be Tu B’Shevat by Ivy Helman.
Tomorrow is Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, or their birthday. It is the day of the year when all trees, regardless of when they have been planted, turn another year older. The rabbis standardized this day in… Read More ›
The Matricide Basic to Patriarchy’s Birth by Carol P. Christ
About 20 years ago I witnessed a performance of the 3 plays of the Oresteia (the Orestes plays) by Aeschylus. I was stunned. Watching them in sequence, I understood that the plays were one of patriarchy’s “just so stories” and… Read More ›
Rituals of “Re-birth” Are Based in Matricide by Carol P. Christ
The other night, while I was having dinner with two Greek women friends, one of them asked me what I learned studying theology at Yale. I responded that I learned that woman was created second; that she brought sin and… Read More ›
In the Beginning…by Lori Stewart
In the beginning the very beginning, not the patriarchal, colonial beginning In the beginning was the Word which may have been a grunt, a vibration, a thought, a feeling a woman or man or a non-binary being In the beginning… Read More ›
Untapped Communal Potential and Yom Kippur by Ivy Helman
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was the 9th of October 2019. On this day, Jews typically attend shul, offer various prayers, and participate in some form of fasting. The day is meant to be a reflection on the ways… Read More ›
The Swan-Bone Flute by Rachel O’Leary: Reviewed by Max Dashu
A girl leaps out of her tree perch to warn a pregnant doe that a hunter is drawing his bow against her. For this act of defending the mother deer, who should never be hunted, her uncle beats her. And… Read More ›
On Va’etchanan: Do Not Murder, Rather Love by Ivy Helman
Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) gives us pause for thought in its contradictions. First, the parshah (Torah portion) contains the aseret hadibrot (Ten Commandments), among which is: you shouldn’t murder (5:17). Then, pasukim (verses) 6:4-5 contain the shema (Hear O Israel! The… Read More ›
Ruminations on Emor by Ivy Helman
This week’s Torah portion is Emor, or Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23. It details purity and the priesthood including whose funeral a priest can attend, who can marry a priest, bodily blemishes and temple services, and under what circumstances daughters of… Read More ›
Befriending our Dragons by Sara Wright
“We are an overflowing river. We are a hurricane. We are an earthquake. We are a volcano, a tsunami, a forest fire…” These words written by Judith Shaw speak to the underlying merging of woman’s anger with Earth’s natural disasters,… Read More ›
Gendered Only In Expression by Christy Croft
“I want you to see this new piece I wrote for our newsletter,” said Sister Ann. We were safe inside the dining room of the Episcopal convent where she lived and I was an extended guest, and yet she spoke… Read More ›
Dear Mary by Sara Wright
This piece was written in response to Gina Messina’s recent Feminism and Religion piece “Who is God?” Dear Mary, When I responded to a post on feminism and religion this morning I wrote that you were my first goddess. As… Read More ›
Iroquoian Women: Power Held and Shared by Carol P. Christ
According to Barbara Alice Mann, author of Iroquoian Women, women were at the center of a matrilineal Iroquoian society that could be called (though she does not call it that) an “egalitarian matriarchy.” As in other egalitarian matriarchies, including those… Read More ›
The Women of Lech Lecha by Ivy Helman.
The parshah for this week is Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27). I’ve actually written about Lech Lecha on this forum before, concentrating on the parental aspects of the divine. See here. However, this time I want to look at the Torah… Read More ›
“What Would Happen If One Woman Told the Truth about Her Life?” by Carol P. Christ
According to poet Muriel Rukeyser, “the world would split open.” This poem accurately describes what many women experienced in consciousness raising in the 1970s and what many women experience today in the #MeToo movement. For many of us the world… Read More ›
Lessons from Shofetim by Ivy Helman.
This is the first part of a series of reflections on the weekly Torah portions. For those of you unfamiliar with Judaism, we read the Torah in sections. There are 52 parshot (or portions), one parshah (portion) is read each… Read More ›
God, Gender Violence and The Male Ego by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
We live in a world in which women are the preferred target of different types of violence: physical, sexual, psychological, economic, symbolic and structural, among others. A type of violence we are not talking so much about is spiritual violence…. Read More ›
On Belief and Action by Ivy Helman
My birthday was last Wednesday. Perhaps more than any other time of the year (yes, even more than Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), the days and weeks leading up to my birthday are filled with personal reflection. Not that religious… Read More ›
On the ‘Naturalness’ of Inequality by Ivy Helman
In some regards, life on Earth seems to depend on some basic inequalities. For example, differences in size, height, strength, speed and endurance advantages some and disadvantages others. Depending on another for survival is another type of inequality. Being able… Read More ›
Friend Zoned by God by Christy Croft
Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we dive deeply into darkness. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes our lives line up so perfectly we can’t help but sense the hand of the divine helping us clear our paths and point… Read More ›
Breaking the Silence by Christy Croft
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… Read More ›
Rape Culture and Muslims by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
There is no doubt that Rape Culture is installed within religions and Islam is not an exception. Lately, “honorable Islamic scholar,” Nouman Ali Khan (NAK) was exposed as sexual predator, causing a battle in social media. NAK is only one more… Read More ›
Bans are Bandages not Solutions by Ivy Helman
I’m heartbroken by yet another shooting in the United States. I want to believe that all humans are, deep-down, intrinsically good. I want to trust humans to act in the best interests of others. I want peace between and inside… Read More ›
Reflections on Marriage by Ivy Helman
My partner and I are getting married in a little over a month. She, a lawyer, and I, a professor, live in the Czech Republic. Technically, we aren’t getting married because the Czech Republic doesn’t have marriage equality. Our relationship… Read More ›
Resisting Shame and Choosing to Live through the Loving Eye by Stephanie N. Arel
This week, I finished reading The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye, a text I had not encountered in my studies of feminism (in literary theory, psychology, philosophy, or theology) until now. In some ways, I… Read More ›
Sirens, Thunderstorms, and Bowling: The Divine on this Mother’s Day by Ivy Helman
Let’s see if the following course of events makes sense. A few Wednesdays ago, I was thinking about possible topics for this post considering it would be Mother’s Day. In the midst of thought, the warning sirens in Prague began…. Read More ›
