Moderator’s note: Today’s blogpost was originally posted March 24, 2015. You can visit the original post here to see the comments.
This post is a response to a recent blog entry titled “Who is Gender Queer?” on this site from Carol Christ. It was posted yesterday. I want to thank my friend, advocate, and upcoming scholar Martha Ovadia for reasons only she knows! Stay brave, speak up, be heard!
Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted August 11, 2015. You can visit it here to see the original comments.
I recently came back from a weeklong camping retreat for Christian faculty and their families in beautiful Catalina (an island an hour’s boat ride away from the Southern Californian mainland). This year’s conference theme was “Power Revealed: Gifts, Dangers, and Possibilities.” Not surprisingly, the topics of race, race relations, and institutional racism came-up repeatedly in sessions and informal conversations.
Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted June 19, 2012. You can visit it to see the original comments here.
I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall. However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it. I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it. He is now long gone; the vagina is now out and proud.
I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology. One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message. I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina. I found myself caught up in its beauty. Its gaze had mesmerized me. The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes. While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary. At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.
The Torah parshah for this week is Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20 – 30:10). Mostly it describes the priesthood, both of Aaron and his sons. It details how they should be consecrated, what they should wear, the difference between the garb of the high priest and the others, institutes the daily burnt offerings of rams, and provides instructions for the construction of an altar for locally-sourced incense.
The parshah works to establish differences between members of the Israelite community through consecration as well as in function and in dress by decreeing the institutionalized of the priesthood. Priests undergo an elaborate consecration ceremony which includes the sacrifice of animals, the smearing of their blood, the waving of various animals parts into the air and the burning/cooking of the sacrificed animals’ flesh. In addition to the blood smearing and animal sacrifices, the priests are also anointed with oil and offer oil and grain offerings to the divine. In terms of function, priests should offer daily sacrifices to the divine in the form of two rams (one in the morning and one in the evening). Also, all priests have four items of similar clothing: tunic, girdle, turban and short pants. However, the high priest has four special items only he wears, like the breastplate and a golden forehead piece. His clothes are laden with gold, precious stones, and royal dyes. Continue reading “On Tetzaveh by Ivy Helman”
In Rebirth of the Goddess, Carol P Christ offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Nine Touchstones are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.[1] In this series of blogs I am exploring ways in which these Nine Touchstones are embodied in the traditional women’s ritual dances of the Balkans, which I have studied as a spiritual practice for more than thirty years.
Carol P Christ’s Second Touchstone is: ‘Walk in love and beauty.’ As she says, ‘love and beauty are the great gifts of bounteous earth’.[2] Dancing women of the Balkans walk in love and beauty each time they put on their festive dress to dance together in the courtyard or the village square. Their ceremonial costumes are created from the bounty of the earth – just a couple of generations ago, this was literally the case, as the women tended the sheep, prepared and spun the wool, wove, sewed, embroidered and ornamented their garments with the work of their own hands. Even now, the cloth they buy is purchased with money they have earned from working and harvesting the land.
In the first part of this article, I looked at how Carol P Christ’s Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality from Rebirth of the Goddess are related to traditional women’s ritual dances of the Balkans. After more than thirty years of researching and teaching these dances and the way that they pass on information in encoded symbolic ways, I have come to see them as an educational system, a women’s mystery school.[1] The main message which the dances convey is an ethic of community, partnership, mutual support, and other life-enhancing values aligned with the Nine Touchstones, which can be directly experienced in the dance.
We know from the research of Marija Gimbutas that these values were central to the Old European civilizations which honoured the Goddess, while Yosef Garfinkel and Elizabeth Wayland Barber show that circle dances have their roots in these same early Neolithic cultures of Eastern Europe and the Near East. This leads me to suggest that Balkan women’s circle dances surviving today may have their origin in early egalitarian matriarchal cultures of Neolithic Europe. The Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality provide an perfect template through which to explore the ethics of women’s ritual dances.
It breaks me down. My anger, my revulsion, my powerlessness. I have been searching for the way since I was a child old enough to remember my mind. For a time, I thought Jesus was a white guy knocking on my door after having seen a religious pamphlet placed under our windshield wiper. I’m not sure he has blond hair anymore, but I still feel him knocking. I have been in love with him for as long as I have been a self, so much so that I baptized myself as a little girl.
Somewhere along the way, I figured my little, lonely way wasn’t good enough, and I wanted a church home. I finished a doctoral dissertation trying to find some place I could hang my hat. I picked the Roman Catholic Church, despite what I knew of it and what I had to defend about its patriarchy and history to family and friends. I loved the conversation, the so-called “Catholic Intellectual Tradition.” I always felt myself to be a covert, a conversa, a definitive outsider, and someone not to be trusted entirely as a cradle Catholic might be trusted, yet I tried to be family. I’ve been bringing up my kids in the Church, volunteering, working in Catholic education, paying the boys’ tuition. I do work-arounds, making excuses for the exclusion of women, defying the Church’s stance on sexuality with a critical repertoire of cross-disciplinary scholarship. Lord, I even had to help my Seventh-Day Adventist mom with a hostile annulment process that was dropped on her unsuspecting by a horrendously insensitive marriage tribunal. It wounded us all. Yet, here I have sat, until this.
Sometimes, being overwhelmed with guilt makes one unable to act. Other times, guilt manipulates and attempts to control. It might offer a sense of responsibility and concern. More often than not, guilt comes bundled in small doses of should-haves and could-haves.
For example, when you feel guilty for skipping exercise and instead lay in front of the television binge-watching your new favorite show. It’s not the end of the world, but you really should have gone and exercised. Or, when you feel bad for getting into a fight with a friend and saying something mean when you could have done otherwise. In general, I think there is such a thing as a healthy amount of guilt which spurs right actions, sincere apologies, forgiveness and knowledge of the good.
Jewish tradition generally agrees with me that a measured amount of guilt is often quite helpful. Guilt instructs us in right and wrong and guides us to be more responsible, more mature individuals. Indeed, it even clues us into a better understanding of G-d. Continue reading “On Guilt and G-d, the Parent by Ivy Helman.”
The opening paragraphs read like my LGBTQ+ religious studies nightmare:
“The first Bible study group held for the U.S. Cabinet in at least 100 years is led by a pastor who believes homosexuality is ‘illegitimate,’ who doesn’t believe women should preach and has described Catholicism as a ‘false’ religion.
Ten members of the Cabinet, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, sponsor the study group, which holds meetings lasting between one hour and 90 minutes every Wednesday, according to BBC News. It unfolds at a location in Washington, D.C., that is kept secret for security reasons.
Its leader is Ralph Drollinger, a pastor and president of Capitol Ministries: an organization which aims to ‘evangelize elected officials and lead them toward maturity in Christ.’”
Another mass shooting. Syria. #MeToo. Hunger. Animal extinction. Iraq. Climate change. Deportation. Slavery. Central African Republic. Hate crimes. Rape. Animal cruelty. Oppression. Accidental nuclear war alerts. Homeless encampments. “Illegal immigrants.” Afghanistan. More mass shootings. Sex robots. Trafficking. Russian bots. Racism. Police brutality. Myanmar. Child abuse. Prostitution. Torture. Poverty. The war in Chicago. The privatization of water. Patriarchy. Prison industry. Islamophobia. Migrants.
This is our world. And I can’t breathe.
I often wonder – is God breathing? Does God care anymore? Does She wonder why we can’t stop harming each other? Has She given up on us? I certainly wouldn’t blame her.
As I sit writing this, the world outside continues. As we awake to more news that numbs us to the every day atrocities we commit upon each other, I believe, inside each and every one of us, we are screaming. We want out. We want this to stop. We are scared. We can’t breathe.
But, we don’t know how to stop. So we keep moving. We keep going. Because that’s what humans do. We keep hoping. We wonder how much time the universe will give us. Will we get a break? Will something or someone finally stop us? Are we even deserving of the chance after chance we continually receive – to get it right?
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”
In Chinua Achebe’s novel, THINGS FALL APART, Okonkwo, a proud, hard-working, albeit quick-tempered tribesman living in the village of Umuofia, fires a gun at Ekwefi, one of his three wives, almost killing her. Chielo, a widow with two children, who also serves as the priestess of Agbala, Oracle of the Hills and Caves, asks Ekwefi, “Is it true that Okonkwo nearly killed you with his gun?”
Ekwefi replies, “It is true indeed, my dear friend. I cannot yet find a mouth with which to tell the story.”
I love Ekwefi’s turn of phrase as she responds to Chielo. Shaken, distraught, and outraged over being shot at by her fiery husband, she “cannot yet find a mouth with which to tell the story.” That’s exactly how I feel these days.
If there is any sanity in the world, it has come from the Nobel Peace Prize of 2017, which was awarded to ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. They received the award for the work they have done on the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. According to the ICAN site, the agreement was adopted July 2017 and is backed by 122 nations. If signing the Treaty, a nation must agree to refrain from the following:
“[. . .] developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. [. . .] A nation that possesses nuclear weapons may join the treaty, so long as it agrees to destroy them in accordance with a legally binding, time-bound plan.”[1] A nation cannot encourage or support another nation to hold them either.
In my last post here on Feminism and Religion I unpacked the three primary understandings of atonement theology as well as some of the feminist critiques of those understandings. In this post I’d like to focus a bit more on how the relationship between power and violence influences how Christian women view the atonement.
In her book, On Violence, Hannah Arendt puts forth a new analysis of the relationship between power and violence. Arendt’s analysis, though primarily focused around concepts of the potential for worldwide destruction and war following major global occurrences such as the Second World War and the struggles for civil and women’s rights within the United States context, supplies an interesting framework with which to consider this relationship as it relates to domestic violence. Continue reading “A Middle: Understanding the Relationship between Violence and Power by Katie M. Deaver”
During my last months in Cape Town I have been facilitating a series of workshops on Rape, Gender Justice and Culture of Consent. I am blissful for the opportunity to teach and learn with a group of people with whom we have navigated in the approach of Rape and Sexual Assault in their different perspectives, from the socio-political to the intimate tenets.
This has been an exciting journey of healing and soul blooming. I have realized the critical role that Cape Town has played in pushing me towards empowerment and thriving, enhancing my taking back ownership of my body and all the experiences happening through it.
This journey started few years ago when I decided to come out of the closet as a rape survivor. I wrote about it on Feminism and Religion. This was the first step of my breakthrough. Little by little I became confident and shameless about saying: “Yes, I was raped”.
In light of the recent attacks on Jewish cemeteries —the desecration of Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia and the toppling of more than 150 gravestones at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in Missouri — along with my reminiscing that a year ago today (March 1 as I am writing) I was en route to Jerusalem to work with a group of scholars for the Intercontinental Academia on Human Dignity, I wanted to once again confront trauma (building on Part I of this topic). In this case, I consider trauma as an affront to the dignity of ALL bodies and their memories, while simultaneously questioning how those who have not experienced trauma develop respect for its proximity – in individual lives, in sacred spaces, and in memorials.
Last month, I attended a lecture by Anglican theologian Adrian Thatcher on his recent book, Redeeming Gender. In this book, Thatcher draws upon the one sex and two sex theories described by Thomas Laqueur in his book, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Laqueur posits that until the eighteenth century, it was believed that women and men were two expressions of the same basic sex – that women were men whose reproductive organs were similar but found in the “wrong” places. Ovaries were internal testes, the vagina an inverted penis, and the labia a parallel for the scrotum – all making women flawed expressions of man.
This sets up a continuum in which there is one sex rather than two, with men as more perfect expressions of man, and women as inferior expressions. Thatcher argues that if the language, liturgy, and doctrines of the church arose in the context of the one sex theory, then Christianity’s foundational beliefs and practices are already compatible with acceptance of a spectrum of gender identity within a one-sex model, opening up new interpretations that allow for full participation of women and LGBTQ+ people within the church. While the old one sex theory as described by Laqueur is a spectrum from more to less perfection, from more to less like God, the spectrum Thatcher proposes is clearly progressive – one in which all places along the spectrum share in the same equality.
Like all my reflections, this is not intended to be conclusive, but rather, to share some impressions about theology and the way in which women are created or given an identity as believers.
In the androcentric and misogynist narratives of religious traditions lies the root of much violence against women. This is not new, since the same diagnosis has already been raised by the theologian José Luis Tamayo when he says that although women are the majority presence of religious communities and those most involved in the transmission and practice of traditions “they are the biggest losers” for all the exclusion and violence exercised against them in the name of religion.
The influence of religion on the lives of women goes beyond the realm of religion itself. From theology comes the gender discourses that impact our lives as political subjects. In all the most obvious (sociological, historical, economics) causes of the weak status of women, we can find theological roots or argument religion-based. These roots are discursive. What is said about women from religions, as well as from the social and exact sciences, institutions and the media, are stories, narratives that are the product of the interaction of mechanisms of power, enunciation authority and historical accumulation of performative actions. Continue reading “Women, Theology and Identity as Believer by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”
This election cycle has left many of us in a serious state of mourning. The idea that Donald Trump could be elected president following the many bigoted, xenophobic, and sexist statements he has made seemed impossible, and yet it has happened. Our nation has been left divided with various reactions to our President Elect. Likewise, I have been wondering if hell has frozen over, because for the first time ever, Glenn Beck and liberals agree.
On the Trump side we have seen racist acts of violence across the nation. Signs that say “white power” or “make America white again” have been showing up on church lawns, schools, and more. And let’s not forget how many women have been told they are going to be grabbed by the pussy. If President Elect Trump can do it, why can’t they? Continue reading “Hate Trumps Love? by Gina Messina”
Stalé mám žlutou knihu tak neumím slova. (I’m still in the yellow book, so I don’t know the words). Mluvíš o něčem ale nevím co říkáš. (You are talking to me about something I don’t know what you are saying). Neznám jí. (I don’t know her).
The Czech language has three verbs that express knowledge. The first umět expresses one’s ability. Literally, one doesn’t know because one lacks the skill or hasn’t been taught how to do something. The second vedět captures more the idea of stating facts or events. It almost always requires a connecting word like “that, what, which, etc.” One can’t use this verb with a direct object with one exception: to vím (I know (it)). The third verb znát signals familiarity and it can only be used with a direct object. So, if you want to ask if someone knows someone else, you use znát, if someone knows when the movie starts, vedět, and if someone knows how to play the piano, umět.
So in other words, the three sentences above are better translated as follows: I’m still in the yellow book so I haven’t learned the words; you are talking to me about something but I don’t understand what you are saying; I’m not familiar with her.
Lately I have been reflecting on this quote of Virginia Woolf: “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” Here she points out the deliberate invisibilization of women’s contribution in all areas of human endeavors.
Patriarchy always takes these contributions for granted. For centuries, domestic labor has been invisible and not considered work. It has put beauty over intelligence, even with women of outstanding intelligence. And in terms of knowledge and intellectual production, patriarchy has appropriated women’s ideas and in presenting them as “anonymous,” presents them as it’s own.
The trappings of motherhood are all too powerful reminders that, as Catherine Keller reminds us in her book From a Broken Web, mother goddesses have to be continually slain for patriarchal heroes to be born. Indeed, she suggests that conceptions of Western selfhood are based upon this symbolic matricide—so it is no wonder that breast milk might be considered abject…
Once upon time formula companies and complicit medical experts launched a serious campaign to sell more formula, telling a generation of mothers that this product was both superior to breast milk and far better for baby and mother. Some were convinced, others found formula a good alternative to breast milk given their employment status, hormonal changes, their particular baby’s needs,personal choice, difficulty producing their own milk, or the like; and still others chose to breastfeed despite criticism, like my mother-in-law, who received scorn and derision from medical personnel as the only breastfeeding mother in the hospital in which she gave birth in 1970.
Despite this effort, science has finally “proven” that breast milk, when it is possible to give it, is better for your child than synthesized alternatives. Wow. Well, the politics of believability aside, women in the U.S. are now encouraged to trust their own bodies to feed their babies and give the breast a try. In fact, every new book, article, website and internet forum, birthing class teacher and hospital nurse will tell you that “breast is best,” repeatedly, for months, asking you about your breastfeeding plan, and urging you to keep trying until you and baby get it right. A counter-campaign, this vigorous encouragement is working to undo the attitudinal changes within popular culture that placed a stigma on the breastfeeding woman. Continue reading “Breastfeeding and the Abject? by Sara Frykenberg”
The creative ‘Wisdom of the Goddess’ Journey Within Program I am facilitating has moved into its’ second trimester, ‘Transformation’. It is winter here in the South; a time to release what no longer serves us and look at the shadow aspects of ourselves. I decided that the goddess Kali Ma, often referred to as the “Dark Mother” was most suitable to explore at this stage. Kali Ma is the Hindu goddess of creation, preservation, and destruction and is better known for her destroyer aspect. She serves as the archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously the womb and tomb, the giver of life as well as the taker. She is the primordial female principle of manifestation and embodies shakti – feminine energy, creativity and fertility.
Kali is a warrior and is usually depicted with her tongue protruding, brandishing a sword in one hand a decapitated head of a demon in the other. She wears a necklace and belt of skulls, and she drips with blood. The demons she slays however, are the demons of the ego and the attributes of ignorance. Kali is the enlightening force that dismantles preconceived notions, frees you from conditioned beliefs, false personal identities, and anything else that keeps you from recognizing your true identity. In other words, part of what Kali represents is the power to release that which is true in you. Even in destruction, She reminds us that good really can come of bad situations. If you find your hopes and dreams have been crushed, Kali can change the cycle and produce life out of nothingness. Where there is sorrow, She dances to bring joy. Where there is fear, She dances in courage. Continue reading “Kali Ma by Jassy Watson”
To speak ones truth is oftentimes a difficult and nearly impossible act. However, to live one’s truth, on a day-to-day basis, is an aspect of life that has become so foreign to individuals who have become so comfortable in their own skin that I fear the activist and social justice roots that we all claim to hail from have fallen at the wayside and been replaced by complacency and reductionism.
I’m deeply troubled by some of the anti-trans and anti-queer commentary that has been taking place on some of the comments on this blog in recent months. I’ll never forget when this project first began—talking with the founders about its original purpose: to bring the “F” word back into the mainstream religious discourse and more importantly, to be a place where scholars, young and old, senior or junior, could write, collaborate and eventually converse with across cyberspace.
However, in recent months, I’ve found myself being more of a watchdog rather than a frequent commentator on issues pertaining to feminist religious discourse. I’ve found myself reading comments about issues I may not frankly identify or agree with just to make sure that the cisgendering or anti-trans narratives do not become symbolic of what this blog is now rather than what was supposed to be at the beginning.
When I sat down to write my very first post I was scared. I was terrified that feminists from all communities would see me only as I appeared and not for whom I actually was. I was afraid that all I had worked for throughout my life would be moot with the first bad comment on one of my posts. While all of those fears were real and valid they quickly faded away as I was embraced by this community and many others for my passion rather than my gender; my life’s work rather than my privilege; and more importantly, the personal mission to make the world a safer and better place for women and girls everywhere.
To speak ones truth is oftentimes a difficult and nearly impossible act. However, to live one’s truth, on a day-to-day basis, is an aspect of life that has become so foreign to individuals who have become so comfortable in their own skin that I fear the activist and social justice roots that we all claim to hail from have fallen at the wayside and been replaced by complacency and reductionism.
Caitlyn Jenner’s story is one that many individuals, often not highlighted on this blog, know all too well. Caitlyn Jenner’s story and personal experiences are valid and for members of the feminist community to refer to her as not “feminist” or merely as a man “masquerading” as a woman while still utilizing his privilege from being biologically born as a man is troubling and the root of the problem facing many trans individuals today when they’re negotiating coming out as their true selves.
Trans individuals face a cadre of other horrible social, physical and mental statistics that oftentimes lead them to be more likely to self-harm. However, as feminists, isn’t it our job to make sure that all groups have access to the same freedoms rather than working towards denying it for certain groups while trolling the comments sections of posts?
Shakespeare said: “To thine own self be true” and for those of us who identify with the Golden Rule, if we no longer treat others as we would like to treat ourselves, then we really have failed as feminists; and if the comments on recent blogs are any indication, we still have a long way to go before all voices can feel welcomed not only on FAR but also in the world at-large.
John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University. He holds a MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in Women’s Literature and Women’s Studies. He is a Permanent Contributor to the blog Feminism and Religion, a Non-Fiction Reviewer for Lambda Literary, the leader in LGBT reviews, author interviews, opinions and news since 1989 and the Co-Chair of the Queer Studies in Religion section of the American Academy of Religion’s Western Region, the only regional section of the American Academy of Religion that is dedicated to the exploration of queer studies in religion and other relevant fields in the nation and the President of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s LGBTQA+ Alumni Association. When he is not working on his dissertation, he can be found at West Hollywood City Hall where he is the Community Events Technician and works on policies and special events relating to women, gender, sexuality, and human rights issues that are sponsored or co-sponsored by the City of West Hollywood. He is the author of the blog From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter @JErickson85
We find our versions of home in these communities and it is within these spaces where our home not only begins to define who we are but we, as a reflection of that space, begin to outwardly redefine the spaces we exist in. If we slowly begin, through our experiences to shape our homes based on privilege and power without self-reflection and acknowledgment of others, then we are no better than those oppressive forces we say we’re against.
This post is a response to a recent blog entry titled “Who is Gender Queer?” on this site from Carol Christ. The post can be read by clicking here.I want to thank my friend, advocate, and upcoming scholar Martha Ovadia for reasons only she knows! Stay brave, speak up, be heard! _________________________________________
It is terrifying to know that something is wrong but not be able to speak truth to power.
It is even more terrifying to know something is wrong, be able to speak to it, and then silence those voices that do not have that same privilege, power, or position.
The struggle that many of us in positions of privilege and power face is not just that of being ostracizing and essentializing forces—it is that we, as allies, members of communities, or even those dedicated to a cause, can ourselves participate in the oppression we are fighting against and can do harm.
It’s taken me a long time to not only be comfortable with who I identify as, but also how I go about fighting and defining my life based on said identity and experience. However, the one thing that I have the ability to do is choose that identity more freely than others. Unlike Leelah Alcorn, Ash Haffner, Aniya Knee Parker, or Yaz’min Shancez pictured above, I did not have to face the types of oppressions they did, to which they sadly lost their lives, as a result of the fact that we exist in a society that can’t deal with the inability to leave things undefined or to allow people to define who they are on their own terms.
It is vital that although my lived experiences could never meet nor match the same types of oppression that these brave individuals had to face, I, as a white, cisgendered gay male, do not become part of their oppression through my own position and privilege.
As a man who exists in the world of feminism and within various women’s communities, I walk a daily tightrope of privilege and power to insure that I do not silence those that I consider allies, friends, mentors, or colleagues. As a man who exists in the world of the LGBTQ community, I walk an additional tightrope to additionally not take away from or diminish the experiences of those members of our community that do not have the same type of lived experiences as myself. Even within minority communities, there are positions of hierarchy and within these hierarchies of knowledge, identity, or power, comes a responsibility to insure that the oppressed do not become the oppressors.
We find our versions of home in these communities and it is within these spaces where our home not only begins to define who we are but we, as a reflection of that space, begin to outwardly redefine the spaces we exist in. If we slowly begin to shape our homes based on privilege and power without self-reflection and acknowledgment of others, then we are no better than those oppressive forces we say we’re against.
I can’t speak for what identity feels like –I can only speak for what essentializing does, and what it does is reflected in the deaths of Lelah, Ash, and the many others who die nameless. It is our responsibility, as allies, members of communities, and those fighting to end sexist, patriarchal, and, even now, homonormative oppression, to make sure that no more deaths occur on our watch or that truth is spoken to power even when power is masquerading around as truth.
John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University. He holds a MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in Women’s Literature and Women’s Studies. He is a Non-Fiction Reviewer for Lambda Literary, the leader in LGBT reviews, author interviews, opinions and news since 1989 and the Co-Chair of the Queer Studies in Religion section of the American Academy of Religion’s Western Region, the only regional section of the American Academy of Religion that is dedicated to the exploration of queer studies in religion and other relevant fields in the nation and the President of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s LGBTQA+ Alumni Association. When he is not working on his dissertation, he can be found at West Hollywood City Hall where he is the Community Events Technician and works on policies and special events relating to women, gender, sexuality, and human rights issues that are sponsored or co-sponsored by the City of West Hollywood. He is the author of the blog From Wisconsin, with Love and can be followed on Twitter @JErickson85
I still remember the first time I read Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology. It awoke something within me. Her use of language, the power of her writing and the ease with which she created new words taught me so much about the world around me and about the way the language, and subsequently its use in writing, shapes lives, choices, abilities and destinies. She also taught me about myself.
I was hooked, but not just on Mary Daly. Shortly after I finished her book, I moved onto other feminists writing about religion like Katie Cannon, Judith Plaskow, Alice Walker, Carol Christ, Rita Gross, Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Farley and Starhawk to name just a few. All of them, in fact every feminist I’ve ever read, has shown me the way in which words have power and how words speak truth to power. Ever since, I’ve wanted to be the kind of writer whose words carry a power that not only affects people but also inspires a more just, more equal, more compassionate and more humane world. In other words, I wanted to be a writer activist.
Yet, I’ve always carried around with me a sneaky suspicion that people don’t consider writers true activists. If you aren’t holding a sign, screaming or participating in some sort of public demonstration or civil disobedience, then you have no right to call yourself an activist. Is that really true? Continue reading “Writing: Changing the World and Ourselves. By Ivy Helman”
When I sat down to write my article this month, I browsed through my computer for ideas. As I did, I found this article that I wrote about 18 years ago for a newsletter I prepared for my workplace. Because it is still a very relevant topic to me today, I thought I would share it here. ( food for thought – I am an introvert, a triple Aries and a Myers Briggs INFJ)
I have spent a lot of my life sorting through very strong feelings in order to decide to express them or not. Of course, there are those that erupt before given the opportunity for that kind of sorting! Just ask my friends and family! I have often wondered if everyone has this going on inside their heads. It is part and parcel of being an introvert to ponder such things. I have even wondered if perhaps some just don’t have that experience of heavy duty “feeling”! Of course, that’s a ridiculous idea. We all have feelings. We all just have varying levels of willingness to share them. Continue reading “Apathy by Deanne Quarrie”
The start of the Spring 2014 semester is right around the corner, which means that many academics like me are madly trying to put the finishing touches on their syllabi.
The process of doing so has always been equal parts exciting and stress-inducing. Right now, however, I am feeling the pain. Why?
In my first blog for Feminism and Religion, I discussed the cognitive and embodied dissonance that some Muslims experience as a result of historically (not eternally) gendered ritual forms. I ended with a promise to share with readers the ways in which el-Tawhid Juma Circle mosques try to create space to break free of those forms. Our mosques affirm all human beings as spiritually, socially, and ritually equal and try to break down the social hierarchy of ritual and theological leadership by opening up a space for all bodies, minds, and hearts to lead and follow as equals among each other.
The Torah parshah for this week is Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20 – 30:10). Mostly it describes the priesthood, both of Aaron and his sons. It details how they should be consecrated, what they should wear, the difference between the garb of the high priest and the others, institutes the daily burnt offerings of rams, and provides instructions for the construction of an altar for locally-sourced incense. 
Yesterday, Time Magazine announced that its “Person of the Year” for 2017 would be 
In 
In light of the recent attacks on Jewish cemeteries —the desecration of 
This election cycle has left many of us in a serious state of mourning. The idea that Donald Trump could be elected president following the many bigoted, xenophobic, and sexist statements he has made seemed impossible, and yet it has happened. Our nation has been left divided with various reactions to our President Elect. Likewise, I have been wondering if hell has frozen over, because for the first time ever, 
Once upon time formula companies and complicit medical experts launched a serious campaign to sell more formula, telling a generation of mothers that this product was both superior to breast milk and far better for baby and mother. Some were convinced, others found formula a good alternative to breast milk given their employment status, hormonal changes, their particular baby’s needs,personal choice, difficulty producing their own milk, or the like; and still others chose to breastfeed despite criticism, like my mother-in-law, who received scorn and derision from medical personnel as the only breastfeeding mother in the hospital in which she gave birth in 1970.
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