September 14, 2009
How I Became a Feminist
At the age of two I loudly declared, “I a WOO-man!”
As a kid, I was always convinced that girls were better than boys. Slowly, I began to realize that men received benefits that women didn’t: they got paid more, they didn’t have to put as much effort into their appearance, and they somehow always got the last word even when they were wrong. At a young age, I decided not to put up with any of that, and so I began on my path towards feminism.
Even though my mom, aunts, and grandmother always spoke of gender equality, they never considered themselves ‘feminist’ and instilled in me an automatic rejection of the term. I never thought about it until my junior year of college at a small liberal arts college in Oregon when I took Introduction to Gender Studies. It was my first semester there, having transferred from another small liberal arts college in Southern California, and I had never really heard of ‘gender studies.’ I knew about ‘women’s studies,’ which my previous college had offered and which my family had always laughed off as “silly” or “lesbian studies.” I would never have taken a women’s studies course, but gender studies…now that was a different story. I disliked women’s studies because it was too focused on women. I believed in equality between men and women, not tipping the scales in the other direction. I didn’t realize then that to gain equality, women had make themselves heard. I didn’t know how silent we were! Gender studies appealed to me because it sounded so equal, so inclusive.
So I took Gender Studies 101, where we read the article that changed my view of feminism forever: “The F Word” on salon.com (http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/07/05/f_word/index.html). I suddenly realized that feminism wasn’t bad at all; it just had an image problem. Feminists weren’t all ‘militant lesbians’ and ‘femi-nazis,’ as I think I had subconsciously believed my whole life. I knew right then and there that I was a feminist and always had been.
Of course, my understanding of feminism was still quite rudimentary, and over the years I have realized many things about what being a woman means in our society. Eostre is right (see her 10/10/09 post): If you believe that (to paraphrase Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler) “women are people too”, then you are a feminist.
September 12, 2009
How I Became a Feminist
At a surprisingly early age, perhaps nine or ten, I became the author of my own spiritual narrative, meaning, I took it upon myself to initiate and pursue the deep mystery of my faith. Weekly Mass was an event, not an obligation, and something to which I attended without my family. The singleness of my worship at such a young age drew stares and whispers from those families who had arrived in tact. And while I was not unaware of their curiosity, I found it easier to lose myself in the absolute wonder of my environment. This was the world to which I belonged. I was at once home and alive in a devotion filled with sacramentals, those objects of religious piety that created a force field of God’s protection around me.
While the mystery of God’s love enveloped and graced my adolescence, a slow and creeping suspicion began to take hold of my faith. Because of my “girlishness,” I was barred as an alter server, and I began to absorb my otherness. I worried about my difference, and began to question the fairness of God. Telegraphic messages of inferiority caused me great confusion. The implicit reality that as female I was ontologically challenged, slowly sifted its way into my psyche and I would argue, my soul as well.
As a budding young feminist, what I found within the teachings of the church, either implicit or explicitly, did not coincide with what I felt to be the inner me. On the cusp of adulthood, the collision between self and Church [read as God] was inevitable. The catechetical formation of my youth, of coming forth equally male and female in the image and likeness of God seemed like a childish myth and certainly not the reality of the andocentric church to which I was now departing.
Fast forward twenty years, and I cautiously found myself back in the Catholic Church, only this time in the arms of feminist theologians. I was hooked. Their writings informed my life choices, directing me towards my current doctoral pursuit. Yet I have found the academic arena is able to shield and protect me from the pain I continue to feel within the institutional church. To demonstrate the interweaving of the challenges and nourishment I experience as a Catholic I addressed above, I would like to share with you the following story.
Recently I was able to share this sense of exclusion by virtue of my femaleness with a group of foreign priest working in U.S. parishes. Participating in a cultural awareness program specifically designed for priests, I was invited to share my personal experience as a woman “doing” theology within the Catholic Church. The main concern, as expressed by the leaders of the program, themselves priests, is the inability of foreign priests to work collaboratively with women within the parish setting. Currently women are functioning as pastoral associates, directors of religious education, chaplains, parish administrators and more. It is within these ecclesial settings that the tension can be most pronounced between the ordained and the theological trained women that interact with them.
Encircled by sixty priests, and armed with a large number of diverse texts written by feminist theologians as examples of this discipline, I began detailing the trajectory of the development of feminist theology both in the United States, and later, in Third World settings. I shared a feminist critique of the Christian tradition that has privileged men’s experience over women’s, has imaged God in predominantly masculine metaphors and language, or used the Christian message to craft an ecclesial structure of exclusionary hierarchy. Yet, I discovered, it was the image of God as Father, followed by the use of exclusive language that generated the most curiosity and dialogue. While for the most part the use of inclusive language coupled with female images of God is foundational to feminist theology, this was completely new news to my audience. While I had been prepared to discuss women and ecclesiology from an anthropological perspective, I had failed to anticipate the core of the matter. The fact is, the inability to image God in the feminine, or to have exposure to inclusive language, particularly within liturgy, speaks on one level to their seminary training, but on a deeper, theological level, it demonstrates the continue mind-set of the Catholic Church with regards to women. While papal encyclicals attempt to affirm feminism in the modern world, these continue to be, in my estimation, smoke screens that view women’s contributions based on their reproductive capacity.
My own level of anxiety began to rise as the question and answer format began to become more pronounced with objections to any shift in language or Christology. So I shifted gears and began to do exactly what is foundational to feminist theology: I spoke from my own experience. I began by focusing on the diversity of my memories as an Irish-American Catholic. I shared my deep Catholic identity and love for the Church that sustained me as a child; how the nuns reflected and transmitted their care for us through their vocation of teaching. I shared the richness of being raised by an Irish-American mother who instilled in me the Celtic infusion of the Incarnation into daily life. I shared my love for the Eucharist and the aspect of community and ties to the dead through the Communion of Saints, and of course, Mary, whose motherly attention, strength and love continues to call me out of the darkness. But I also shared the pain of exclusive that I spoke of earlier, how I feel estranged from my church as a woman. The tension I and others have experienced in parish ministry with tremendous responsibility but no authority to make lasting change are striking examples, I surmised, of the issues women in ministry continue to face. I asked the men to imagine what it must feel like for the young girls in their parishes, who on Vocational Sunday, the time when young men are asked to consider the priesthood, are not represented or prayed for? While I myself do not feel personally called to the priesthood, the pain of exclusion for my sisters who do feel this vocational deeply saddens me. As I continued to speak from my own experience, surrounded by priest of varying generations, I began to witness an ever so slight shift in attitude in some, and in others a wonderful delight at the theological possibilities for themselves and those they work with. Eager to assimilate this new theology, they asked how to begin, and how to convey these expanded images of God to those they serve and work with. Here is what I suggested. Begin with the most intimate and personal—themselves. Start by reading suggested feminist theologians, pay particular attention to what disturbs you, makes you uncomfortable or uneasy. Then reflect on those feelings through pray and journaling because, I reminded them, you cannot give what you do not possess. And in conclusion I asked that each of them reevaluate how they perceive the women they work with professionally, as well as the countless women who volunteer their time and resources. How might they operate from an inclusive, collaborative model? Feeling affirmed and well, empowered with the change of attitudes, I suggested they take this to a new level; that in preparing their Sunday homilies, they cite feminist theologians as sources of theological authority. And finally, because paradigm shifts of the psyche can be painful excavations of the self, I asked they proceed with patience and self care, but proceed they must. The responsibility rested on them to continue the task of waking up to inclusive, collaborative models of being church. The structure will continue to work against such theology I warned, it always has. And then, in the quiet weight of consideration of my words, something remarkable occurred. A young priest who had remained reserved and cautious asked me the question, “Why, exactly, do I remain Catholic?” The simplicity of the question caught me off guard. My vision, I explained, has felt impossible. The inability to feel welcomed and accepted in what seems to be an oxymoronic state, a feminist woman in the Catholic Church, has left me ragged and scarred. The inability to find a home within the Church is both vexing and sad. But I also know this is not the complete picture. I shared how I also carry within me the memory of Church as home, sustaining me in ways when others could not. Just as it is impossible not to be in the love of God, I find it equally impossible not to be Catholic. The Church needs the voices of women like me and others, who as feminist theologian Mary Jo Weaver argues, “Long for something they cannot name, while desiring a community of belief and celebration they cannot describe.”[1] He seemed immensely satisfied with my response and I could see, if ever so slightly, the shift beginning to take shape.
[1] Mary Jo Weaver Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993) 21
September 11, 2009
Finding My Voice as a Feminist
Woman Power
I was introduced to feminism as a freshman high school student and have considered myself a feminist ever since. Graduating with a BA in Sociology, I chose to focus my career in the social services field working with women. Feminist Theology first became of interest to me during my decade long career as an advocate for survivors of rape and domestic violence. Throughout that time I worked with many women who had images of the divine that I found very troubling. Particularly many women believed that either they were being punished by the divine for some misdeed they had committed or believed that remaining in an abusive relationship was their “cross to bear.”
After ten years I was experiencing burn out from the high stress of the field and was also very perplexed by the images and questions regarding the divine I had encountered. I decided to change my career focus and applied to a graduate program in Religious Studies at John Carroll University. It is a Jesuit University with a strong Catholic foundation. I was able to explore Feminist Theology, but mainly in a Christian context. That being said, I focused on feminist hermeneutics, women’s role in the Church, and the problem of suffering for women.
Within the program I was introduced to many new concepts that I was greatly impacted by, in particular the idea that I could call God “Mother.” It seems ridiculous to me now that I did not challenge God language sooner; however my Catholic upbringing kept me from exploring anything outside God “Father.” I found myself trying to image God as woman, God as mother, and comprehend what exactly that meant for my own faith.
Following the completion of my degree, just before I moved to California to begin the Ph.D. program, I lost my mother to domestic violence. It was a shocking and devastating moment in my life, and one that informed my overall view of women and suffering and Feminist Theology.
Coming to CGU, I was able to move out of the Catholic box that I had been stuck in all my life. I had never attended a church that was not Catholic, but here in Claremont I attended a Presbyterian church, and Episcopalian church, and of course Woman Church. Attending these other types of worship helped to further my journey and once classes began I was exposed to an entire world of Feminist Theology that embraced other religious traditions. For the first time in my life I began to feel that perhaps Christianity should be abandoned by women all together. The tradition’s call for women to be passive, meek, and acceptant of suffering is incredibly damaging and lead many women to mistakenly believe that they must remain in abusive situations and suffer as Jesus did, a model that reinforces women being scapegoats.
Rejecting the culture that shapes the abuse for women and glorifies women’s suffering seems to make sense to me now. It has been difficult for me to separate myself from my Catholic identity; however I feel more strongly than ever that women cannot be liberated by a tradition that perpetuates their abuse and suffering. That being said, this is not simply a flaw of Christianity, but of all patriarchal traditions. I find myself now looking towards the Goddess tradition as a source for redemption. I have changed my God language and now utilize the term divine. I have rejected the term “Father” as one representative of the divine, not because I do not think that a male can embody the divine, but because it was part of my vocabulary for long that I now feel I should give equal time to the term “Mother.” In addition, when I think of my own mother and her nurturing ways I truly believe those are the characteristics that exemplify the divine.
Feminist Theology has led me away from the traditional Western thought of classical dualisms and I now recognize that my personal faith in the divine is open to my interpretation. I have no longer felt guilt over not connecting with tradition Catholic masses and have found that prayer for me is something very different than what I was raised with. For me, Feminist Theology has allowed me to experience a relationship with the divine, a relationship that I have not had before in my life. It is through that relationship that I remain connected to my mother. In addition, Feminist Theology has given me the strength to move away from a tradition that I feel is inherently damaging to women.
September 10, 2009
Why I am a Feminist…and why you are, too.
Ever since we decided to talk about Feminism and how we became Feminists, I have been ruminating on something. Because, you see, my path to Feminism is not, in fact, very exciting. It was rather gradual, and I was one for a long time before I even realized it. Which got me to thinking about how so many people (myself included, formerly) claim to “not be a Feminist”, which, in this day and age, is nearly impossible (particularly in the west). So. This lead me to my topic for the day, why I am a Feminist, and why you are, too.
To illustrate my point, I have developed an impromptu survey. I think it will be both fun and educational! It is mostly true/false, so your job is to evaluate each question, and decide whether it is true or false. Here we go!
1) Women should have the right to say who gets to touch their bodies, particularly in an intimate or sexual manner.
2) I plan on using birth control (including but not limited to: the pill, condoms, diaphrams, and “pulling out”).
3) A woman who is raped should have the right of seeing her rapist prosecuted and put in jail.
4) Every legal citizen of the USA should have the right to vote.
5) Women should be able to choose to be a stay at home mom.
6) A woman who is physically abused by her husband should have the right to have him arrested.
Did you answer true to even one of these questions? If so, congradulations! You’re a Feminist (someone should be by your house any minute to show you the secret handshake).
I know what you’re thinking, these things seem like they should go without saying. I think that most of us would agree that a woman has a right not to be raped, and that any man who sexually assaults a woman (or anyone, for that matter) belongs in prison. However that was not always the case. For instance, did you know that up until 1980 a husband could not be prosecuted for raping his wife, and most states required a witness to the rape before they would prosecute? It’s true. Most of us today take these rights for granted, but if it weren’t for the work of Feminist groups like NOW (National Organization of Women) those laws might still be on the books.
And you might be wondering about question 5. Let me address that now. As a Feminist, I believe that you have the right to choose what you want to do with your life. If you want to be a mathemetician, florist, animal trainer, or even a stay at home mom, that is YOUR CHOICE. Let me repeat that. CHOOSING to be a stay at home mom (which is a luxury that is not an option for most women in the world) is still a CHOICE! You are choosing your path in life, a very Feminist thing to do. You have taken control of your own destiny, and decided what you want to do. True, it might not be my choice (but I don’t want to be a mathemetician or animal trainer, either) but you have the right to choose to do whatever you want. And you have that right because of Feminists. Your welcome.
Now, there is an alternative to being a Feminist, but I can promise you that you wont like it. It involves a lot of really unpleasant things like illiteracy, prolapsed uterui (which often happens when you have a lot of babies one right after another), early death, loss of free will, an insecure future, the right of your husband to beat you with something thinner than his thumb, and scores of other things. It is a bleak picture.
Ok. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that despite what I have said, you simply CAN’T be a Feminist. You’re thinking that Feminism comes with all of these monsters, seeking out what “family values” they can devour. But, I hate to break it to you, that’s just not the case. Feminism is about the things I listed in the quiz. It is about giving women the rights to their own bodies and souls, and who could disagree with that?
I know that you have created a pretty magnificent straw-Feminist, and have had a great deal of fun tearing her apart, but while you were tilting at windmills, we were ensuring that women had the right to vote, to own property, to work or stay at home, to get an education.
This is why I am a Feminist. Because I believe that every woman has the right to own her own soul, that being born with a vagina doesn’t make us somehow inferior, or less of a human. No one gets to make our choices for us. We are valid human beings, and we have a right to be heard. I know that this post has been somewhat flippant, but when it comes right donw to the point, this is why I am a Feminist, and frankly, why you are too.
September 9, 2009
How I Became a Feminist
Feminism did not really cross my radar until the month before my junior year of college would end. My cute cherub blonde boyfriend had led me up to the balcony of the Bible building at Oklahoma Christian University and told me he had let Tracy Something pleasure him behind the school bleachers. So that was the end of that. Such news left me indignant about boys and their childish ways. I spent my summer of small-scale rebellion sitting out on the front lawn of my parents’ house reading all the books by women from the Oprah Book Club I could find instead of the male-authored “classics” of my previous reading lists. I studied myself through my first copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves and perused the women’s studies section at Borders to discover Gloria Steinem. I reveled in my womanhood by turning the mediocre task of shaving my legs into a goddess ritual and celebrating my singleness. This is what feminism, at first encounter, meant to me. As for feminist theology, I remember my excitement when I went home one weekend to do laundry after an enlightening week at college: “Mother,” I said, “Did you ever think that God could possibly be a woman?” to which my mother promptly replied education was doing me no good.
Through feminist theory classes at the University of Cincinnati, and through my own research and then preparation for the classes I taught once I returned to Oklahoma Christian, and now after discussions at CGU, I understand feminism and feminist theology to be necessary critical lenses through which the world becomes more complicated yet clearer, and by which libratory practices can begin. And I am no longer so indignant about boys.
My assumptions are these. First, feminism encourages people to ask questions about themselves, their world, and their beliefs. For a feminist, nothing is a “given” and there is a sense of suspicion about whatever is deemed natural or obvious. Rather than explicitly subversive, feminism to me is simply one way of going more deeply into a complex world of grays, of not missing the nuances of people, situations, what one sees and hears. Feminism also reveals agency. In my own religious upbringing in the charismatic evangelistic Assembly of God movement, there was a salvific way and an immoral way. This extended to what I thought, what I felt, who I could love, who God was, and what He wanted. Yet, through a feminist lens, I see that the freedom to construct my own person is salvific. Feminism is a creative endeavor. Because I question the world around me, at times I conclude that I have not been given the full story or that the story has been distorted or is completely wrong. It is then that I become an agent by filling in the gaps, correcting, or re-imagining/re-constructing the stories so that they are more in line with a truth that is less oppressive and more inclusive. Feminism is also communal, revealing the interconnectivity of animate and inanimate beings, the environment sustaining and becoming my body, and me needing to sustain it as well.
Lastly for now, feminism is honest. While traditional academic writing can often be arrogant and deceiving by claiming to be authoritative or knowing it all, feminist authors often use first person pronouns and lay out their own biases and assumptions in their works. Therefore, I too hope to admit/confess/lay bare my own prejudices in this class, allow my thoughts to be tentative, hoping they will become more nuanced or change completely. Daily I realize how I perpetuate oppression for myself and others and how much of a responsibility I have to do something about it. Yet, it will not be done by myself, but with strangers and family and the earth, and all those groups that are a part of me but of whom I am unaware. May we be continually becoming and becoming conscious.
September 3, 2009
One day…
there was this one day in seminary…
i was in some class that had a lot of men, but some women
the topic was women in ministry and some idiot in my class was railing against women – i was the only one that spoke up
i responded with a lot of emotion, but got my points across
i remember going back to the dorm after class and going to the prayer room
i just fell on my face and wept for like an hour – breaks my heart over and over and over for women
thought about the countless women that were denied in the church, abused, put down over the years
their pain still felt real to me, that it was still happening
cried for all of those women
when will it stop?
when will i look around and not have to cry anymore because it is over?
Around the Godde-Sisters Table 