My husband, who is American, first introduced me to the word “negging.” Although I hadn’t come across it before setting foot in America, I soon came to realize it was a concept that knew few cultural bounds. The Urban Dictionary (UD) defines negging as “[when] you use remarks to tap into female insecurity; shake their confidence…neg is a negative remark wrapped in a back-handed compliment.” In the West, as I have learned, negging tends to target a woman’s physical attributes, often as a pick up line. Thus, as the UD again illustrates: “You are nearly as tall as me. I like tall girls (LIFT). Are those heels 4 or 5 inches (DROP)?”[1]
I’m from India and thought I’d provide an example of negging to illustrate its varied and glorious forms. Back when I was growing up, dating wasn’t socially acceptable in my culture – it often had to be done on the sly which probably explains why negging as a pick up line wasn’t the smartest choice. But we South Asians had and continue to have our own cultural equivalents of underhand methods specifically designed to erode a woman’s sense of self. Continue reading “The Guessing Game by Vibha Shetiya”
When I cover my head in respect for the Holy One, it feels right. This act touches on a religious truth of who I am. To me, it not only matches who I am, it also expresses something about who I strive to be and the relationship I want to have with G-d.
Seeing Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair, I think she’d say something similar about herself. Her outward appearance touches to the very core of who she is and who she has had the strength and courage to become. Not only that, it feels right.
Sure, there is a wide gulf between the public nature of Jenner’s cover photo and my public head covering, yet, in these two examples, I see a number of connections. First, there is the real possibility of harm and danger. Second, there is a link between outside actions that express something true about the person on the inside. Third, value is placed on the agency and autonomy of the individual carrying out those actions. Finally, there is a performativity connection between religiosity and gender. It is the last point that I find particularly compelling.
I don’t cover my head anymore on a daily basis although I used to before I moved to Europe. Even though it doesn’t feel right, with the rise of anti-Semitism, it seems like the safe and unfortunately prudent thing to do. I also don’t wear any signifying my religion except for a small star of David earring. In 2014, by the Jewish community’s own account, anti-Semitism grew 200% in the Czech Republic alone. Statistics seems to support my actions.
Jenner too, like so many members of the trans community, now has the real threat of violence against her person. While her public persona may make her somewhat safer, too many trans men and women have been harmed and even murdered just for being themselves. In fact, many trans people live closeted lives because of this danger and the fear of rejection from family, friends and the larger society.
While not minimizing the fear and danger, I want to return to the more theoretical link between gender expression, gender identity and religious identity. In 1990, Judith Butler wrote Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. For Butler, what we think of sex and its connections to gender as masculinity and femininity often come down to a person performing gender in a way that is socially recognizable. People wear clothing, do actions, speak words and use body language that marks them as woman or man and therefore individual agents adhere to societal constructions of gender at the same time they reinforce societal expectations for men and women. Butler’s suggestion is that gender performances, that subvert “normal” discourses on gender expression, show the ways in which gender is culturally constructed. They also disrupt what has been seen as somehow inherently natural. In other words, biologically-sexed females acting, dressing, speaking and behaving in ways typically associated with masculinity disrupts what it means to be both a woman and to be masculine. This would be impossible if things were as natural as society thinks they are.
One of Butler’s goal, in my opinion, is not only to expose the culturally constructed nature of sex/gender, but also to open up individual agency to perform gender in ways that would disrupt the power these “natural notions” have over peoples’ lives. Subversive gender performances, for Butler, creates more freedom in society and would hopefully undermine blanket misogyny and disrupt patriarchal power.
Yes, Butler has often been criticized in many ways, including the attempt to erase any notion of substance behind personhood and its gendered expression especially as it relates to transgendered individuals. Butler has spoken to this specific criticism saying on transadvocate.com that, “…others have a strong sense of self bound up with their genders, so to get rid of gender would be to shatter their self-hood. I think we have to accept a wide variety of positions on gender. Some want to be gender-free, but others want to be free really to be a gender that is crucial to who they are.”
In the end, what is essential for Butler is individual autonomy and freedom to be. Performing sex/gender is one possible way to get there. Let me suggest another that builds off Butler’s ideas of performativity. Religiosity is a type of culturally-laden performance. After all, what are kippot, hijabi, nuns’ habits, ministers’ robes, etc.? They are religious markers tied up in gender identity.
Just as masculine women subvert and disrupt social constructions, couldn’t a Jewish lesbian perform gender in a way that she passes for an orthodox man (or woman)? Doesn’t this disrupt what it means to be both lesbian and orthodox? I think so. This passing person also destabilizes the power of orthodox men to define womanhood and women’s sexuality. She defines for herself who she is. She may very well consider herself to be orthodox and masculine, just as masculine women consider their masculinity as part of who they are. She may connect deeply with Jewish orthodox feminine styles of dress. Nonetheless, her outward performance expresses something about her commitment to G-d and who she is as a Jew at the same time it subverts received religious notions of gender and sexuality. Another example is a woman minister who wears priestly attire including the black shirt and white collar. She too disrupts power relations, gender assumptions and, for some people, the very notion of women and ordination. Religious performance is powerful stuff.
To go back to the point I made at the beginning. I think expressions of religiosity are similar to expressions of gender. In addition, claiming for one’s self a religious identity subverts patriarchal notions of gender. Yet, most importantly, performing a religious identity often expresses an inner truth. In both of these ways, religious identity performances could create freedom, disrupt power-over and destabilize patriarchy just as Butler hopes gender performativity does. I would modify Butler’s approach somewhat to say, “I think we have to accept a wide variety of positions on gender [and/or religious identity]. Some want to be gender-free [and/or religion-free], but others want to be free really to be a gender [and/or religious indentity] that is crucial to who they are.”
A friend who is a spiritual teacher speaks often “bringing back the values associated with the Divine Feminine.” For her this has to do with helping women to understand the beauty of our bodies and the importance of ways of being such as giving and caring for others that have been associated with the undervalued so-called “feminine” side of the masculine-feminine polarity. Though she also speaks about the Goddess, I think she prefers the term “the Divine Feminine” because of the implication that men too have their “Divine Masculine.”
This friend has a wonderful husband who is a teacher in his own right and who often ends up spending a lot of his time among powerful women who enjoy talking about the Goddess. In these conversations he sometimes speaks of the need for men to “recover the Divine Masculine” if they are to become whole.
I was reminded of these conversations when a two other friends, in different contexts, recently voiced their concern that Goddess imagery is problematic if it repeats sex role stereotypes. My response to them was that in the West, the feminist association of femaleness with power and value in Goddess symbolism automatically shatters the most important sex role stereotype: the notion that women are less powerful and less valuable than men. But, I said, after that, problems may arise.
I added that (for me) the categories of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine are problematic because (it seems to me) that at their core these concepts are rooted in the notion that males and females are fundamentally different, and that the so-called “feminine” is relational, loving, giving, while the so-called “masculine” is independent, rational, aggressive, and sometimes violent and warlike. Those who speak of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine as oppositional categories usually try to avoid categorizing men and women by stating that “we all have our masculine and feminine sides.” Still it is hard to avoid the implication that men are more masculine and women are more feminine.
Though I agree that men need new images of what it means to be men as much as women need new images of what it means to be women, I hesitate to speak of these as new images of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine for two reasons. Although I recognize that others are inspired by images of the Sacred Marriage, for me it has been more important–and more possible–to find power within myself and in a wide variety of relationships, than to find it in a male-female heterosexual couple relationship in which the opposites are “joined.”
More importantly, I find that images of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine often do justify patriarchal sex-role stereotypes. An internet search for “Divine Masculine” validated this fear. The first (and therefore most popular) website defined the Divine Masculine through six archetypes: God, King, Priest, Warrior, Lover, Sage.
The site’s author seems to want to help men learn new ways to interact with powerful women—as neither dominant over them nor submissive to them. The author writes: “The Divine Masculine represents an archetypal ideal, the best and most inspiring, elevating, and restorative aspects of masculine expression and manifestation in the universe. For those seeking an expanded understanding of the Self, the Divine Masculine is not a distant, detached, jealous and vengeful male deity. The Divine Masculine (along with the Divine Feminine) acts as a shining mirror of the Self, revealing aspects that need compassionate attention and support to become one’s highest potential.”
Following this insight, he redefines the God archetype as “unconditionally loving, inclusive, open, welcoming, heart-centered, spiritually focused, supportive and inspirational.” For him, the King archetype is “benevolent, evenhanded, calm, caring and thoughtfully present.” And the Warrior “finds his place in collaborative projects, being fulfilled and contented with the collaboration and not by ambition or competition.”
While I appreciate the ways in which this man redefines masculinity and male strength in terms that in the past have been associated with “the feminine,” I am concerned that he continues to view the six “archetypes” that include the King and Warrior as universal. He does not explicitly name patriarchy as a system of male dominance enforced through violence as the reason for redefining the meaning of the “archetypes.” I also worry that a good king is still a king, and that a warrior who fights for the good of others is still a warrior. From a feminist perspective, these archetypes are not universal, but rather are the product of patriarchy. Perhaps instead of redefining them, we should discard them.
Male and female figures from ancient Crete are not strongly differentiated.
New research suggests that in matriarchies, there is no divine masculine per se, because though men have their own important roles, both males and females are encouraged to embody the values associated with mothers and mothering—in other words to be loving, giving, caring, and generous. In this context there is no opposition or sharp contrast between the divine masculine, the divine feminine, and any other divine gender or transgender.
I believe that that we need a multiplicity of images for divine power that express the diversity and differences of our bodies and all bodies in the web of life. We also need new images of how to be strong and powerful, yet loving and caring above all, in male, female, and other bodies.
However, if the “highest” values are the same for both—and all–genders, then perhaps it is time to retire the oppositional binary of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine and to speak instead of images of divinity in male, female, and other bodies.
Carol Adams in her article “Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals,” argues that ecofeminists should be vegetarians, since ecofeminism is, among other things, action-based and “one’s actions reveal one’s beliefs,” (129). According to ecofeminism, the patriarchal domination of animals and nature is linked to the oppression of women. For her and many ecofeminists, the survival of our planet rests on two foundations: first, fixing the conditions of women and other oppressed groups and, second, envisioning differently our relationship to the natural world. In other words, a better arrangement of human relationships requires better human relationships with the environment. Vegetarianism and veganism are two ways in which ecofeminists opt out of the patriarchal system of domination and exploitation and help create a better world.
But, does one really? Does adopting a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle really have such an impact on the world? Yes and no. Yes, because it has been shown that raising animals to eat uses exorbitant amounts of fuel, water and land, not to mention, the larger environmental impact of farm run-off in the forms of disease-carrying manure, valuable topsoil and harmful pesticides. Yes, because animals are often inhumanely treated, housed in horrible conditions, genetically and/or hormonally-modified and cruelly killed. Continue reading “Do You Eat Animals? Ecofeminism and Our Food System by Ivy Helman”
Many of the young women I meet tell me that they think feminism is not what they are about, that they prefer to work for the good of all. I understand that and certainly we can all choose where we wish to place our focus. However, it does make me wonder how effective we can be with our focus placed on so broad a scope. Certainly, we want equal rights for all and some call that “feminism” these days but is it?
In my 73 years, I have lived through quite a few years of women working for equal rights. I have seen many successes as well as the failures. I am incredibly proud of those successes. When I was in the early stages of my career and had just entered management, I was able to implement leadership methods, which now have become models for employers such as team building and servant leadership. Then however, there were no names for them. I led my teams based simply on how I wished my employers to treat me. Continue reading “It is a Matter of Focus by Deanne Quarrie”
There is a story in the collection called Avadanasataka (One Hundred Legends) of the Sarvastivadin school, one of the schools of early Indian Buddhism that did not survive to present day, relating one episode from the Buddha’s previous lives. The story is about king Padmaka who sacrificed his life to cure his subjects of a disease. Here is an academic article about this episode.
The Buddha was prompted to tell this story of his previous life in order to illustrate to his monks, once again, the workings of karma. All of the monks in the Buddha’s milieu were sick with a digestive disorder, while he remained well. The Buddha presented the story of king Padmaka as a proof that no good deed is ever lost and that what he had done then has an effect now in that the Buddha has good digestion.
My partner is a lawyer who works with asylum seekers and other immigrants here in the Czech Republic (ČR). She’s amazing at her job and I’m constantly in awe of her passion and commitment along with her righteous anger at systematic injustices. In fact just last week, her workplace, together with a consortium of other immigration organizations in the ČR, helped organize a demonstration in the center of Prague to protest the Czech Republic’s refusal to admit Syrian children and their families into the country. She invited me to attend the event with her. I went.
It was my first time attending a public demonstration in Europe. It was moving to see many of her co-workers there and inspiring to listen to the passionate speeches against xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, the plight of the Roma people as well as the need to come together and welcome diversity. In addition, there were signs in Czech, German and English saying “No One is Illegal,” “End Xenophobia,” “Do Syrian Children Have to Wait for their (Nicholas) Winton?” “I want to have a Syrian Friend!” and “Refugees Welcome!” I wanted to hold each one of those signs! Continue reading “Being Scared: Fear and Authenticity by Ivy Helman”
Women’s bodies are the preferred territory in which religious oppression becomes cruelly evident. Misogynist narratives in religions are always addressed to them: decency, honor, virtue, holiness, discretion, and shame are embodied in us, We pay for the absence of these patriarchal principles of control, on our bodies too: imprisonment, slut-shamming, bullying, rape, punishment, mutilation, and death.
Feminism makes sense in this world because women allow their struggles to push the boundaries that have been imposed on us by patriarchy, on our minds, spirits and bodies. The right to decide issues concerning our bodies is not only linked to reproductive rights and planning parenthood, but also to the experience of sexuality on the terms we freely decide and the way we interact with our body and relate to it. Freeing women from the traditions’ narratives of oppression accumulated over hundreds of years and designed to indoctrinate a hatred against our bodies is one of the purposes of feminism, including the work of feminists inside those religious traditions. If I have no right to my body, then I have no right to anything. A God who considers me free and worthy, but allows others to decide how I should embody that worth and that freedom is not a God of justice and equality at all.
Should women (or men) maintain a religious identity within a patriarchal tradition? Is it a feminist act to stay? Or is it only a feminist act to leave? These are questions that regularly surface in conversations related to religion and are often the center of dialogue here on Feminism and Religion.
The title of this post is meant to reflect where I am in the semester, temporally speaking: halfway. Actually, the idea that I am halfway is a bit of a shock to me, considering I feel like I just started! I have a goddess oracle card sitting on my desk that reads: “Blossoming: You are just getting started,” reminding me to be patient with myself as my work takes shape this semester. But seven of fifteen weeks in, I think its time to pull a new card.
When the word “halfway” popped into my head, though, I realized this is also a struggle I am having right now. I feel halfway—I answer “yes and no” to every emotional question. I sleep halfway, working even in my dreams. I am halfway okay: one week I am very down and the next, I feel just fine. And sitting on my patio this weekend, unable to sleep, I thought to myself: you are less than halfway full; and realized I that didn’t know what to do to fill myself up.
My husband, who is American, first introduced me to the word “negging.” Although I hadn’t come across it before setting foot in America, I soon came to realize it was a concept that knew few cultural bounds. The Urban Dictionary (UD) defines negging as “[when] you use remarks to tap into female insecurity; shake their confidence…neg is a negative remark wrapped in a back-handed compliment.” In the West, as I have learned, negging tends to target a woman’s physical attributes, often as a pick up line. Thus, as the UD again illustrates: “You are nearly as tall as me. I like tall girls (LIFT). Are those heels 4 or 5 inches (DROP)?”[1]
The title of this post is meant to reflect where I am in the semester, temporally speaking: halfway. Actually, the idea that I am halfway is a bit of a shock to me, considering I feel like I just started! I have a 
Feminism and Religion 