women’s journeys – Feminism and Religion

FAMISHED—ON FOOD, SEX, AND GROWING UP AS A GOOD GIRL by Anna Rollins: Book Review by Esther Nelson, part 2

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

MARRIAGE

“He looked at me without judgment. With him, I didn’t feel the need to perform.” Both her future husband (first year medical resident) and she (now studying applied linguistics) disliked fundamentalism’s legalism, but they were still committed to Christianity. Both were “devoted to [sexual] abstinence.” Sex did not even happen on their wedding night, but when it did, it hurt. For years, the pain continued. Vaginismus. “I didn’t know there was a name for it. I didn’t know that…it was twice as common for those who had grown up in religiously conservative households.” It took years to get through the pain. “It’s not until we can believe that our bodies are inherently good and worthy of pleasure and joy that we can begin to heal.”

A new pastor arrived at Rollins’ church armed with Christian nationalist ideas and fervor. It didn’t set right with her. She was moving toward progressive positions beginning with “my body, my choice.” She adds, “If there’s anything someone who’s struggled with an eating disorder understands, it’s the concept of bodily autonomy.” She began to research the Reformers beginning with Martin Luther who said this about women: “If women become tired, even die, it does not matter. Let them die in childbirth. That’s what they are there for.” Rollins’ husband pushes back, though, quoting Scripture—“there is no male or female…we are all unified in Christ.” Why then, Rollins wonders, does sexism run rampant in the church?

The Erotic as Power, Notes on Audre Lorde by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I’ve long kept a tract of Audre Lorde’s seminal piece The Uses of the Erotic near my computer. “The Erotic as Power” is her subtitle. If you haven’t read it, please do. It is in her book Sister Outsider. And you can find it as a stand-alone here. It was written in 1978.

Lorde points out how the erotic is the opposite of pornography, in fact pornography is ultimately a denial of the erotic because it emphasizes sensation without feeling. “The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane . . .” She goes on to note how it is through our bodies that we recognize and access this power. But she goes on, “We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused and devalued within Western society.” In the hands of patriarchy this amazing and important resource often lies out of reach because it has become a source of shame and a sense of inferiority for women.[1]

I would add to the definition of patriarchy that one of its main goals is to damp down, even destroy, the erotic. We have seen this play out over thousands of years of history. Women are often viewed as either saints or sinners. Saints are denuded of this deep earthy power and sinners are those who flaunt it, or at least in the eyes of patriarchy.

Dear Mr. Vance, Love, A Childless Cat Lady

I am a writer, one who sometimes touches on personal issues. But this is the first time I elaborate on why I don’t have children, no doubt, provoked by your “childless cat lady” jibe.

I am childless or childfree; to me, it is a matter of semantics. I have two cats whom I consider my children. In many ways, I am like most Americans; I love my job, I love my students, I love my colleagues.

And I love my cats.

Life Still Shaped by the Witch Hunts? by Eline Kieft

In this article I reframe my understanding of feminism through the lens of Mona Chollet’s In Defence of Witches, and reflect on how my psyche as a woman today is still deeply influenced by the effects of the witch hunts in mediaeval times.

Return to the Wild by Caryn MacGrandle

Everything is connected.

My son is into Alan Watts. He was speaking about him to me yesterday. It made me think of an old blog I had from 2014 where I quoted Alan Watts.

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.”

– Alan Wilson Watts | 29 Best Quotes about Writing: We are Legion