women’s rights – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Don’t Worry, I Won’t Marry Your Girlfriend: Sexuality, Identity, and the Easy Laugh

No longer having to deconstruct the larger cultural and sexual narratives, heterosexuals who do not support marriage equality or feel threatened by homosexuals return to their one source of power that reinforces the ideology that they are on the right path: the Bible. “Marriage is between a man a woman,” or “A man shall not lie with another man as he would a woman,” becomes the newly reinforced heterosexual rallying cry and the progressive progress that occurred in the past becomes nothing more than a joke.

I must say, I will be the first to admit that the recent outbreak of videos promulgating the idea that gay men will marry a straight guy’s girlfriend or lesbians will marry a straight girl’s boyfriend all for the sake of marriage equality left me stifling my laughter as I attempted to pay attention in class.

However, after the calamity died down I took a moment to reflect upon the intrinsically embedded aspects of misdirected norms of sexuality, gender, and misogyny latent within the laugh lines and the guffaws throughout each video. Continue reading “Don’t Worry, I Won’t Marry Your Girlfriend: Sexuality, Identity, and the Easy Laugh”

“LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE by Carol P. Christ

Where patriarchalism trumps love, when push comes, shove often follows. The underside of love patriarchalism is hatred of the independence of women.

We are told that it is the duty of a loving father and husband to protect his wife and children. In exchange, good wives support their husbands and good children obey their fathers. The bottom line of patriarchy is control. The fight over abortion is a fight about men’s right to control women.

I have spent much of the past few weeks wondering why so many Republican men hate women. Why do they want to deny the right to an abortion to a 12 year-old girl raped by her father, to a 21 year-old college student gang raped at a fraternity party, to a 33 year-old woman who submitted to a violent boyfriend she did not know had poked a hole in his condom, or a to a 41 year-old woman who offered a cup of coffee to the man who came to her house to fix the electricity, but who said “no” when he assaulted her.

I have also wondered why Republican men would deny the right to an abortion to 28 year-old married woman who got pregnant while taking the pill, to a 15 year-old girl who got carried away with her boyfriend, or even to a 35 year-old woman who got drunk one night and had sex without protection. We are all human aren’t we? Birth control sometimes fails and sometimes women make mistakes. Apparently women are to be punished for both! Continue reading ““LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE by Carol P. Christ”

Grievances Against the GOP from a (former?) Republican Woman by Katie German

I was raised in a conservative, Republican, military family. I support personal freedom and personal responsibility. I support the military. I support a balanced budget. I support individual rights and the constitution. I support small government. But I find myself increasingly separated from the Republican Party, and this is why:

I cannot align myself with a party that repeatedly acts to restrict the rights of women, to deny women protection from abuse and violence, and to trample the rights of women to make their own medical decisions. I cannot support a party where individual rights and freedoms are only protected for people with a penis (so long as they are not gay).

On February 16, 2012, there was a hearing by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the Affordable Care Act, which concerned the availability for contraception through insurance provided through religiously-affiliated employers. Out of the ten witnesses called, only two were women. When other representatives asked that other female witnesses be called to testify regarding contraceptives, Chairman Darrell Issa refused their request on the grounds that the scope of the committee was limited to the 1st Amendment implications and not to the matter of contraceptives themselves.

Republicans in Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wisconsin and Mississippi have advanced “Personhood” acts/bills declaring that a fetus has the full legal rights of a person, beginning at fertilization. Such laws would make in-vitro fertilization, stem-cell research, the morning-after-pill andall abortions (medically necessary or not) illegal. It could also be interpreted to make standard birth control options such as the Nuva ring, the pill, IUDs, and birth control patches illegal. Democrat Vivian Watts in VA attempted to amend the bill in Virginia to specify that contraception would not be banned under the Personhood bill, but Republicans voted 64-34 against adding this amendment. Any abortion or even cases of miscarriage due to negligence could be charged as manslaughter or homicide. Another attempt at amending the bill was proposed by Democrat Jennifer McClellan on Feburary 13, 2012. Continue reading

The Egyptian Revolution: Women, Islam And Social Change By Karen Torjesen

The following is a guest post written by Karen Torjesen, Ph.D., Margo L. Goldsmith Professor of Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University where she has helped establish graduate programs in Women’s Studies in Religion and Applied Women’s Studies. For ten years she served as Dean of the School of Religion, partnering with religious communities to create programs in comparative religion. She has published extensively on women, gender and sexuality within Christianity.

Originally posted at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-torjesen/the-egyptian-revolution-women-islam-social-change_b_978190.html

Traffic inches through the narrow streets. Sidewalks are peppered with chairs, men in gallabiyas (tunic-like garment reaching the ankles) chatting, drinking tea or smoking the hookah. Women in hijabs threading the traffic, children in tow. Shops bustle; vendors call. Normal life — but there is something in the air. What is it I wondered. What is going on in Egypt?

It is profound and it is complex, but a conversation at the Cheops pyramid with a young student worked as a single snapshot. His first question after, “Where are you from?” was, “What do Americans think of us now, after the revolution?” How can I describe his effect — it was something new. A tone? A manner? He asked with eagerness; he asked with pride, there was a confidence in his voice. He explained, straining for the English vocabulary that the regime had controlled how Egyptians thought about themselves. “When we woke up in the morning, we thought only of taking care of food and family. Now we think about ourselves differently.” Johnny West named this difference in his Journey through the Arab Spring. It became the title of his book, “Karama,” dignity. Continue reading “The Egyptian Revolution: Women, Islam And Social Change By Karen Torjesen”