Great and Not-So-Great Expectations

Dear Kimberly,

While listening to NPR’s Morning Edition earlier this week, I was struck by a phrase that reminded me of some of our discussions on this blog.  The phrase? “Expectations of how a woman judge should act.”

It occurred during a discussion about critics of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor who claim her style is “overly aggressive.”  Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying that he doesn’t like “bully judges,” and implied that the term might apply to the nominee’s temperament.  With this and similar harsh judgments in mind, NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg interviewed Sotomayor’s mentor, Judge Guido Calabresi, the former dean of the Yale Law School. Calibresi had been keeping track of how Sotomayer questioned attorneys in cases brought before the Court of Appeals as compared to how male judges questioned them.

“I must say I found no difference at all,” said Calibresi. “So I concluded that all that was going on was that there were some male lawyers who couldn’t stand being questioned toughly by a woman. It was sexism in its most obvious form.”

Nina Totenberg reported that when she asked him how he would explain similar criticism if it came from a female attorney, Calabresi told her that women also can be sexist “in their expectations of how a woman judge should act.”

Gloria Steinem has speculated, in another context, that sexism of this sort among both women and men may be pervasive for this reason:

. . . .[M]ost of us of every race have experienced female authority when we were children, so we think it’s not appropriate to adulthood. Some people feel regressed to childhood when they see a powerful woman — which is another reason why men should plan an equal role in raising children, and why women should be equally in authority outside the home.  (From “Gloria Steinem: Still Committing ‘Outrageous Acts’ at 75,” an interview with Gloria Steinem by Joni Evans for The Women on the Web website–wowOwow.com)

I wonder if such (possibly unconscious) fears of being regarded as children may explain the anxieties some male church leaders have as they keep sounding alarms about what they term the “feminization of the church.”  It would help explain their fondness for emphasizing 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and applying it to the church today without regard to its historical and cultural context.  (”Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent,” NRSV).  You and I are both aware of how often this passage continues to be quoted in many conservative Christian circles, where it is generalized as being intended for all times and places, not a local situation.

But I don’t want to get sidetracked here; I want to move on to talk about expectations in general and how that theme fits with our most recent discussions about the seemingly disconnected topics of Susan Boyle, the Taliban’s denial of education for girls, and your last letter about the commodification of women’s sexuality in advertising.

Revisiting the Susan Boyle phenomenon as a case study in expectations

When Scottish singer Susan Boyle auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, the judges and the audience expected little of her because she looked so ordinary. And when she said she was 47 years old, talent judge Simon Cowell raised his eyebrows and scowled, possibly shocked at her audacity in thinking she had a right to be on the stage at that age.  (Cowell himself was 49 at the time — I looked up his birthdate.  I’m reminded of Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s observation in Beyond the Double Bind that one of the double binds women find themselves in is the prevalent idea that “when men age, they gain wisdom and power; as women age, they wrinkle and become superfluous.”)

So it wasn’t hard to see that Susan Boyle, a woman who wanted to achieve her dream, was up against both ageism and lookism.  Most people seemed to expect her to fail and be quickly pushed aside to make way for the next contestant. But instead, she wowed the audience onto their feet and became an immediate worldwide sensation through YouTube.

But then a whole new set of expectations emerged. Now it was assumed that she would happily yield to an image others wanted to dictate to her and be “made over.”  If she could perform,  she must also conform.   She was expected to change her appearance, appreciate the unrelenting media pressure, and play the celebrity game.  Having been thrust upon her so suddenly in just a few weeks, that game didn’t seem to fit her.  I believe she simply wanted to share the gift of her voice with the world and not have to deal with all the trappings that the entertainment industry expects to go with it.  She had difficulty coping and was hospitalized with exhaustion. The media criticized her harshly and spread many rumors that (according to one of the show’s judges ) were both unfair and untrue, not to mention lacking compassion.

But totally apart from the Susan Boyle story, I see a pattern in this trajectory that in a somewhat different way can illustrate and represent what often happens to all of us as women.  It’s all about expectations.

Low expectations

Women have not been expected to achieve to the extent that men are expected to achieve and so women have often been blocked from having a chance to prove they can.

I know you love history, Kim, and we’ve often discussed the foolish ideas that were promulgated to keep women from having access to education, voting, and career aspirations.  Women’s minds were said to be weaker, their brains smaller, their bodies more fragile. And exposure to too much education was thought to harm women’s abilities to bear and rear children.  Governor John Winthrop of the 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony  wrote about a woman who had been afflicted by an infirmity in which she “lost her understanding and reason” over a period of years because, he said, she had “given herself wholly to reading and writing and had written many books.”  He went on to say that her loving husband realized too late that he was in error by not insisting she devote her time solely to household duties “and had not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger.”

(Winthrop’s statement in 1645 is reminiscent of  something we discussed in our two most recent blog posts, the assertion of the Taliban that girls and women existed for domesticity alone and have no business getting an education or being out and about in public.)

Now fast forward to the 20th century. When Steven Goldberg’s controversial book, The Inevitability of Patriarchy was published in the 1970s, he argued for the existence of a “biologically-based male superiority” that equips the male sex for dominance and achievements. He claimed that “there is not a single woman whose genius has approached that of any number of men in philosophy, mathematics, composing, theorizing of any kind, or even painting.”  Goldberg conveniently ignored all the roadblocks placed in women’s way or the fact that women did accomplish such things but had to publish, paint, or compose under a male name to even get their works into public viewing (and then usually without acknowledgment of their contributions).

Fast forward again to the 21st century, where the debate continues about the degree to which women in comparison to men are likely to excel in such fields as mathematics, science, and engineering, and observe the disagreements about whether differences in scientific achievements are due to nature or nurture.

In an article for Women’s E-News (June 17, 2009), Caryl Rivers tells of numerous studies (all too often ignored by the media) that are showing that girls can perform as well as boys in science and math.  And yet parents, teachers, and guidance counselors continue to have low expectations for girls’ abilities, steering them away from career paths in these fields. “If we want our daughters to thrive in math and science,” writes Rivers, “We have to peel away the layers of myth, misinformation and conditioning about women’s lack of ability.”

New expectations emerge after low expectations are overturned by success

When a woman demonstrates that the low expectations others may have held for her were wrong, she is then confronted with a new set of expectations.

Although she may desire to put her energies into her accomplishments and furthering her abilities, societal pressures may dictate that she owes the world not only her talents but her conformity to a certain definition of “femininity,” dressing certain ways, speaking certain ways, deferring to men or risk being called assertive, strident, tough, or bullying (as in the opening story on this post), making sure her abilities and aspirations do not intimidate men, and taking care to conform to a mold society expects her to fit.

Furthermore, she is now encumbered with even higher expectations than those her male counterpart is expected to fulfill. You’ve probably heard it said that a woman has to do a job much better than a man in order to be considered equal to him.  Women who succeed are expected to be almost super human in responding to the pressures put on them to excel not only in careers, but in relationships and/or parenthood, active social lives, civic responsibilities, and so much more.  Women are expected to have it all and do it all, without succumbing to the pressure!

In Beyond the Double Bind: Women in Leadership, Kathleen Hall Jamieson says that “unrealizable expectations are also designed to undercut women’s exercise of power.”

By requiring both femininity and competence in the public sphere, and then defining femininity in a way that excludes competence, the bind creates unrealizable expectations. By this standard women are bound to fail. The power of the bind is rooted in a woman’s willingness to grant someone else the right both to define and impose the requirement of femininity. . . .Denying others the power to define appropriate behavior breaks the bind. Being feminine as femininity was traditionally defined may be incompatible with being competent, but being a woman is not. (p. 18)

Your May 23 blog post

I realize I have been rambling on and on, sharing what I’ve been thinking about recently, and I’ve neglected to tell you how much I appreciated your last letter.  I liked your analysis of how women are presented in the mass media and especially in advertising.  It’s another example of others believing they have the right to determine how women should be perceived — the expectations of a certain body image and ad agencies’ assumptions of how men want to see women. I especially liked what you said about certain images being “disturbing not just because they create culture and influence our minds, but more because they reflect what is already in the culture — a conscious and unconscious toleration of de-humanizing women and objectifying female sexuality for male use.”  I was glad you also pointed out that along with “these images of women-as-objects are the images of masculinity that are steeped in aggression and dominance,” with the result that both genders “miss out on healthy images of human sexuality that promote mutuality and equality.”  Well said, Kimberly.

I also wanted to tell you how happy I am that you were invited by a church to present a four-part lecture and discussion series on “Women, Faith, and Justice” and had an opportunity to talk about these topics with many people who were probably new to the ideas of Christian feminism. I’m especially glad your talks were recorded and can be listened to online, Kim, because it gave me a chance not only to hear you but also to hear the very interesting feedback by those attending.  I hope our readers will click on the link, too.

I can only imagine how busy you must be getting ready for graduate study at Yale Divinity School, along with teaching classes and everything else you’re doing in Seattle before your move to the East Coast.  What an exciting time for you!

I’ve been really busy, too, most recently putting together the latest edition of “Web Explorations for Christian Feminists,” which I like to call an almost-quarterly “magazine of links.”  Some of our readers may wish to check that out, too. The previous issue of Web explorations (they’re all archived) might also be of interest. That edition has a lot of movie and DVD recommendations; and along with the description of the movie, Milk, I also tell of meeting Harvey Milk in 1978 (just a few months before he was murdered) when he attended the launching of a book I coauthored.  I’ve included in that post part of a speech our publisher gave at the event.  It was at a time when it took special courage to speak out for the rights of gays and lesbians, and to do so from a Christian point of view was an especially daring thing to do. (Still is in some circles!)  Also, it just occurred to me that some of our readers who work as counselors may especially be interested in the Christian Feminism Today special series on healing from childhood sexual abuse now posted on eewc.com, too.

I guess I should get this sent off before I think of something else to say!  One thing that I did conclude in thinking about all the expectations that our society has for us is this:  We don’t have to allow ourselves to be conformed to someone else’s expectations. We don’t have to play a role to conform to society’s ideas about what femininity is or what a woman should be or do.  We can “break the bind” as Kathleen Hall Jamieson said. And we can enjoy the freedom of being the unique individuals we were created to be.

But as women of faith, I believe we both care about God’s expectations for us. What are they?  I think Micah 6:8 sums it up well.  “And what does God require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Those are truly great expectations.

And with that, I really will sign off!

Your friend,
Letha

Dear Letha,

I loved your last letter, especially how you juxtaposed the situation in Swat Valley, Pakistan with the situation of Susan Boyle in the western media. I always like seeing the world through the lens of “inter-text”—putting seemingly non related topics side-by-side and noticing how they illuminate one another. And as we know, feminist study is at its best when it can name the connections between many different systems of power, privilege and marginalization as they play out across diverse cultures. You did that so well in your last letter. I would encourage all of our readers to play through the links you posted in your last letter, from the sensational performance of Susan Boyle in England to the coverage of the situation of girls’ education in Swat Valley, Pakistan.

Continuing the Conversation: “Ideal” Femininity in the Media

I want to start this letter by springboarding off your comments about Susan Boyle. I loved your sentence, “Her few moments on stage that night before Easter, 2009 would change her life incredibly and prompt endless discussions about whether we have had it wrong all along in our botox-injecting, silicone implanting, cosmetic surgery-loving society that has claimed to know what beauty is.”

Just last night I gave a presentation at a church on the images of masculinity and femininity that bombard our lives through the messaging of the media. To prepare for my talk, I have spent weeks researching images of women’s bodies in advertising. My research has made me feel nearly physically ill. Image after image of what is considered ideal feminine beauty—usually white, frighteningly skinny, often child-like and seductive presentations of women. And to be more accurate, the images are not really images of real women at all—they are body parts from many different women merged together through the use of photo editing software.

The cultural psyche is then imprinted with these “perfect” images, so that when we see a real woman like Susan Boyle who does not look like these fabrications of ideal femininity, she gets treated with immediate contempt when she walks on a stage. (I was so angry when I first saw the beginning of the video on Susan’s performance. How dare people be so blatantly rude to her!)

The more I have looked at pictures of women and advertising these past few weeks, the more I have grown gravely concerned about how these images reflect the status of women in our culture. What concerns me is not only that these images unconsciously influence our views of women, but that it is done so intentionally. The marketing teams who design these advertising campaigns do so because they know what their target audience responds to. I have seen some horrifying images in my research. I will link them here (at the risk of giving these companies even more attention), but please be aware that they are truly disturbing pictures. One magazine has a picture of a woman thrown in a garbage can, her legs sticking out. It’s an image that accompanies an article about how the economy is affecting men’s dating lives. (Thanks to feministing.com for drawing my attention to this ad.) Another ad came out last year from the high-end designer Dolce Gibanna, which is clearly depicting gang rape. (This ad eventually got pulled after protests in Europe.) Another high end designer, Duncan Quinn, has this ad, which has a well-dressed man holding his tie around the neck of a nearly naked, apparently dead woman with blood around her head. (FYI: That link takes a moment to load the image.) I could go on and on.

These more extreme images of male violence toward women are not disconnected from the more “normal” images of women’s objectification that we see in most magazines. All around us in the barrage of advertising, a woman has been reduced to a passive “thing,” her humanity stripped, her body pimped in a culture of mass consumerism. And as she has become more and more a “thing” and not a person, there has been a frightening merger of violence and sex in how she is depicted. Some ads are even subtly (or not so subtly) playing off scenes from pornography, which is an industry built on eroticizing violence toward women. If you want to read more thoughts on sexism in advertising, here is a thought-provoking and disturbing article published last year in the Huffington Post.

All that to say, I have been horribly discouraged this week. I fear we have a whole culture that—in the name of freedom of expression—dismisses the harm of these images. And as I noted earlier, these images are disturbing not just because they create culture and influence our minds, but more because they reflect what is already in the culture—a conscious and unconscious toleration of de-humanizing women and objectifying female sexuality for male use. And the counterpoint, of course, to these images of women-as-objects are the images of masculinity that are steeped in aggression and dominance. Both men and women suffer in this system. We both miss out on healthy images of human sexuality that promote mutuality and equality.

Closing Thoughts on Girls’ Education in Pakistan

I will end this letter by transitioning to the other topic in your letter—the destruction of girls’ schools in Swat Valley, Pakistan. The topic was timely for me, because just last week, I was studying and teaching on Mary Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Women. As you know, Letha, this important book, published in 1792 in England, presented one of the first written arguments for why girls should be educated. Wollestonecraft was responding to the kind of thinking found in Rosseau’s books. Rousseau wrote in Emilie: “Women’s place was to oblige us, to do us service, to gain our love and esteem, these are the duties of the sex at all times, and what they ought to learn from their infancy. Women is framed particularly for the delight and pleasure of man.”

So, when I saw the clips on Swat Valley, I couldn’t help but realize how the work of Wollestonecraft lives on. We still need to be educating people on why girls should be educated! It’s not an outdated topic. Perhaps you saw the 2001 letter written by the now re-instated Catholic Bishop Williamson who says that “almost no girl should go to university” because she was not created by God to study ideas and reason. (This, of course, is the same bishop who has denied the gas chambers existed in the Holocaust, so we can safely assume he has a level of insanity. But, I am not ready to let the other religious leaders off the hook, who allow a man like this to have such an authoritative position.)

What I liked so much about the clip on Swat Valley is that it showed so well the interplay of gender oppression with other forms of oppression. While the girls’ schools were being blown up, the boys’ schools were essentially recruiting and training grounds for the Taliban. And because many of the schools provided food and shelter, parents struggling economically were forced to send their boys to school, where they were then indoctrinated. The links you posted begin to help us see the interplay of religious fundamentalism with gender fundamentalism, poverty, and violence, especially the violence of the West. (For instance, when America bombs civilians in Afganistan, we are playing perfectly into the strategy of the Taliban. What better recruiting ground for Taliban idealogy?) I realize these political situations have much more complexity than I am going into here, but the tension I am trying to begin to see more is how much the oppression of girls and women relies on others systems of domination, too.

All for Now

Well, Letha, I better sign off now. It’s a beautiful day, and there is a fantastic dance festival happening this weekend in Seattle! I hope to finish my work today a bit early, so that I can enjoy the sun and take time to relax. As we have talked about so much on the phone, it is getting more and more important for me to prioritize self-care in the midst of thinking, writing, and teaching so much on these really difficult issues. So, this weekend I am going to play! I only have 10 weeks left in Seattle before I move to New Haven for graduate school, so I am trying to savor my time here. Thanks for your well wishes on Yale Divinity School. I am thrilled to get to study at such a fantastic place. I have visited twice now, and each time I have gone I am incredibly impressed by how well the school merges reflection and action. I think it will be an excellent place to learn better how to be a practitioner of social justice, while not forgetting the importance of dance and laughter and spontaneous potlucks! I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part of the community there and begin this next adventure.

Your friend,

Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

Your further thoughts about pride, lookism, racism, and anti-feminist religious teachings were right on the mark! I want to pick up on that discussion by sharing some thoughts I’ve had after viewing some seemingly unrelated television programs this past week. You may have seen them, too, Kim. If not, you can view these videos online. One is the Scottish singer Susan Boyle’s sensational and heartwarming performance on Britain’s Got Talent, which has gone viral on YouTube (more than 25 million viewings and still climbing as I write) and is being much discussed throughout the media.  The other two are the PBS Frontline/World showing of “Pakistan: Children of the Taliban” and the New York Times short video, “Class Dismissed in Swat Valley.” Both are frightening reports about the Taliban’s expanding power in Pakistan and its devastating effects on children, especially girls.

On the surface, these programs seem galaxies apart — an uplifting performance by a middle-aged woman on Britain’s counterpart to American Idol on the one hand, and a heartbreaking look at the Taliban’s destructive forces in a country far from the UK on the other.  But there is a link in some underlying messages each conveys.  And all three films brought tears to my eyes.

Dreaming a Dream That Came True

It seems almost everyone has heard of Susan Boyle by now.  (“The Scot Heard Round the World” was the apt title of Mary Jordan’s April 16 article about her in the Washington Post.) An unassuming 47-year-old woman from a small village in Scotland, Susan now lives alone with her cat in the home where she had cared for her mother until her mother died in 2007.  Never married and currently unemployed, she has been devoting her time to her church and volunteer work.

As she walked onstage for the talent audition, Susan Boyle did not fit society’s show-biz image of someone whose ambition was to be a professional singer.  Her physical features, clothing, and hairstyle were ordinary — considered unglamorous according to the Western world’s ideals of beauty promoted by the lookism culture you and I have been discussing.  Wanting to look her best for her big chance, she had worn the special dress she had bought a few months earlier for her nephew’s wedding.  But an endless supply of media reports used words like “frumpy,” “dowdy,” “plain,” “matronly,” “unfashionable,” and worse to describe her, and both the audience and  judges were skeptical as she walked to the center of the stage, microphone in hand.  When she spoke of her aspirations for a professional singing career, she was met by the audience’s undisguised scoffing, sneers, and smirks and the skeptical facial expressions of the judges.

When asked her age she declared confidently, “I am 47.”  The camera zoomed in on the rolled eyes of one of the judges, prompting Susan to add, “But that’s just one side of me,” underscoring the point that neither age nor any other physical characteristic defines who a person is or what she or he has to offer the world. Ageism, like all the other isms we’ve discussed, is just one more discriminatory attitude that can keep people from living out their dreams.

But Susan Boyle was determined to live out her dream. “I’ve never been given the chance before, but here’s hoping it will change,” she responded when asked why her aspirations to be a professional singer had not worked out. She graciously ignored the cynicism of the judges and crowd.

In spite of the ridicule she had often faced, having been bullied as a child, she told the program’s backstage staff workers before the performance that she was going to “make that audience rock!”

And that she did!  Far beyond anyone’s most fanciful imagination. When she began singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, the audience went wild with admiration after only the first few notes.  Her instantaneous worldwide fame has become a phenomenon that can’t be dismissed lightly. Her few moments on stage that night before Easter, 2009 would change her life incredibly and prompt endless discussions about whether we have had it wrong all along in our botox-injecting, silicone implanting, cosmetic surgery-loving society that has claimed to know what beauty is.

Why the Response?

Countless articles, interviews, blogs, Facebook comments, Twitter tweets, and radio and TV commentaries have speculated about the reason Susan’s performance has had such an impact on so many people who continue to view the YouTube video repeatedly. Almost invariably they say they have cried as they watched and listened. Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz of Cleveland’s Plain Dealer said that in writing about the video, she had at first concentrated on the audience’s initial reaction and how it shows our tendency to judge others before we know anything about them.  And no doubt that was the first lesson many people, including the judges, took from the event.  One of the judges called the turnaround in attitude upon hearing her sing “the biggest wake-up call ever.”

Columnist Schultz said she learned something else in reactions from her readers that she had not grasped at first,  namely,”how many people would see themselves in Susan Boyle.”  She pointed out that we “might expect some middle-aged women to respond with tears, but scores of men told me they cried, too, and they echoed the heart’s universal desire: I wish I had that courage.”  We were rooting for Susan because we saw her as Everywoman or Everyman who somehow garnered the confidence to stand up and be who she is.

Others have called attention to a third lesson to be drawn from the Susan Boyle phenomenon, namely, the realization that many other ordinary-seeming people with extraordinary gifts are no doubt going about their everyday lives with talents, abilities, and personalities unrecognized or unappreciated.  Author Letty Cottin Pogrebin, one of the founding editors of Ms. magazine, said she wept, too, upon viewing the Susan Boyle video. “Partly, I think it’s the age thing” she wrote,  “the fact that a woman closing in on 50 had the courage to compete with the kids — and blew them out of the water.”  She referred to the old saying about “not judging a book by its cover” and suggested that virtually all who had watched Susan “were initially blinded by entrenched stereotypes of age, class, gender, and Western beauty standards, until her book was opened and everyone saw what was inside.” Pogrebin said she thought our tears over Susan’s story were probably not only for joy that her story seemed to be moving toward a happy ending, but that perhaps our tears were also “for all the books whose covers have never been cracked.”

From the time I first watched the video a week ago, it was the idea of those unopened “book covers,” concealing the unrealized dreams of so many throughout time and cultures, that has struck me most. Think of how much the world has lost by not recognizing the talents among whole categories of people who have  been denied opportunities because a dominant group in some cultural or historical setting objected to their race, gender, social class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or some other factor.  Barriers were erected to keep members of these groups from being all they could be and doing all they could do.  Regrettably, as you and I have so often discussed in this blog, Kim, misguided religious teachings have at times provided the major rationale behind such barriers.  And societies and religious institutions are the real losers in both the short run and the long run.

Although the song Susan Boyle sang was actually a sad song about dashed dreams rather than fulfilled dreams, and ended with the line, “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed,” she herself refused to allow life to kill hers.

Shattered Dreams

But then my thoughts move to scenes from the two other videos I’ve watched recently.  These show the growing power of the Taliban in Pakistan. And I hear other voices — voices of young girls whose dreams are being killed, brutally killed.

I hear the voice of one girl, probably 11 or 12 years old, who has covered herself with a full burqa so that her identity won’t be known. She is taking a tremendous risk by giving an impassioned speech as her schoolmates gather around her.

“Why is our future targeted?” she says.  “Our dreams are shattered!  And let me say we are destroyed!”

Her voice is strong and emotional as she reads her speech, beginning with how wonderful her area was before the militant Taliban arrived.

The schoolgirls  live in the Swat Valley of Pakistan,about 100 miles from Islamabad,the capital.  A beautiful area, known for its waterfalls and idyllic loveliness, Swat Valley was a favorite tourist spot until the Taliban gained power there in 2007, drastically changing the lives of its people.  Two hundred of the schools for girls have already been blown up, although schools for boys remain open.

Fighting between the military forces of the Pakastani government and the insurgent Taliban in that area has been fierce, so the government  recently made a truce with the Taliban, hoping to see peace by yielding to the Taliban’s demands for the institution of a strict militant form of Islamic law.

The girl’s “shattered dreams” speech is part of a 15-minute documentary, Class Dismissed: The Death of Female Education by Adam Ellick and Irfan Ashraf.  It is featured online as a New York Times video. The filmmakers were there as the Taliban announced their demands over the radio: “After January 15, girls must not go to school.”  That meant the few remaining schools would have to shut down, and there would be grave consequences for those who disobeyed the order.

The filmmakers did their filming and interviews with the owner of a private girls’ school and his winsome 11-year-old daughter on January 14 as they prepared for the next day, after which the school would have to close down. Already many students and teachers were planning to stay away out of fear.

(As you know, Kimberly, I have an 11-year-old granddaughter, and I couldn’t help but think about her as I watched the beautiful young girl in the video.)  The girl and her father were deeply saddened that the next day would be her last day of school.  The father said that on that day, “50,000 schoolgirls would lose their education.” His family would also lose their livelihood.

The child spoke up with a proud smile: “I want to get my education, and I want to become a doctor.”  She began choking up and was unable to continue.  As she put her hands over her face and started crying, her father spoke tenderly, patting her and telling her to relax.  Her family is taking a tremendous risk in speaking out, but they want the world to know the situation of their people. The father hopes the girl will grow up to be a politician rather than a doctor and work for societal change so that other girls will not have to go through what they are going through.

The next day the child walks to school, bookbag on her back, for her last day of formal schooling. She bravely tells the filmmakers that even before this latest Taliban edict, girls walked along the streets in constant fear of the Taliban, aware that “the Taliban will kill us or throw acid in our faces.”  She arrives at school and joins the few classmates who had braved the danger to attend their final classes. It is no way to live — surviving in a state of constant anxiety in this valley of shattered dreams.

Extinguished Lights

A different metaphor shows up in the other film I watched on this topic — the PBS Frontline/World documentary, Pakistan: Children of the Taliban by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a courageous female journalist and documentary filmmaker who was born and raised in Pakistan. Early in the video, she stands with two nine-year-old school girls in the ruins of what had been their school building before the Taliban demolished it.  Amidst the crumbled concrete, twisted overturned desks, books, scattered debris, and what is left of what were once educational supplies and equipment, the girls have promised to give the journalist a tour of what remains of their school.

As they talk amidst the rubble, she asks them why they liked going to school.  Without hesitation, one girl replies, “Because education is a ray of light, and I want that light.”  The girls tell her they are unhappy that they will have to wear burqas under the Taliban. One says she has tried one on and trips over it when she walks.  The tour of the bombed-out school building is cut short before it even begins because of a nearby mortar attack, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and the girls flee to safety.

I shudder to think of the “light of education” being turned off for these young girls, so full of energy and promise, and with so much to give to their country and the world.

Women Compared to Plastic Bags

As Shermeen Obaid-Chinoy travels to another part of Pakistan, she points out that the state education system has virtually collapsed, affecting many boys as well, with the result that considerable numbers of boys (especially from poor families) go to religious schools set up by the Taliban. There they are taught militancy and encouraged to seek martyrdom.   She interviews a 14-year-old boy from one of these schools who tells her what he has learned about women under Sharia law. In addition to militancy and the desirability of martyrdom, the boys are taught about “women’s place.”

“Women are meant for domestic care, and that’s what they should do,” he tells her. “The government should forbid women from wandering about outside. Just like the government banned plastic bags. No one uses them anymore. We should do the same with women.”  He tells her that the “only people who keep women in their proper place is the Taliban.”

The boys are taught these things under the guise of religion, and they are expected to consider their teachers’ directives and interpretations of sacred writings to be the will of God.  (As we know, this can happen within the framework of any religion.  We’ve seen the same thing in the way some Christian teachings have been presented and how the Bible has been interpreted and applied.  Just recently, I heard a preacher insist that women are not permitted to be ministers on the basis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15, arguing that the instruction that women be silent and not teach or lead men is not cultural but was intended for all women in all times and places. Why?  Because the passage claims women were last to be created and first to sin, and their salvation lies in childbearing.  You’ve told me of many similar sermons you’ve heard, too. And we both know the damage such teachings have done to girls and women who really believed that was God’s message to them.)

Lighting Lights and Restoring Dreams

I know this has been a long letter, Kimberly, and I hope you’re not suffering from eye fatigue by now!  But I just wanted to share some of the things I’ve been thinking about over this past week after watching these various videos.  I hope you’ll watch them, too.  I know you’ll see that many of my thoughts here underscore a point we’ve both talked about before and that you reminded us about again in your most recent post, namely, that we must view all of these issues in a global context and not in any ethnocentric way.

Those who think we are in a post-feminist time when gender equality has been achieved are not seeing the total picture. (That’s true of racial equality, too.)  We need to find ways we can help all people everywhere to achieve their dreams.  We need to find ways to help all girls and women to enjoy that ray of light the little Pakistani girl talked about in describing the education she yearned for but was denied.  We need to support women such as those in Afghanistan who dared to protest against their government’s caving in to the hardline Shia clerics who pushed for the enactment of Shia Family Law which strips away women’s rights and gives husbands greater power over wives, even permitting marital rape.

Why the Title of This Post?

My title for this blog post might seem strange.  Dreaming a dream is clear enough, but how does one “light”a light.  Isn’t light by its very name and nature already present without having to be “lit”?

True, but sometimes the shades are drawn, keeping the light that already exists from flooding the room and chasing away the darkness.  By making known what is happening to our sisters around the world, we may be doing our little part to pull up the shades, let in the light, and increase awareness of how much work we have yet to do to help girls and women dream their dreams and experience the light of education and empowerment. And we need men to help, too. Women can’t do it alone, because we’re all in this together. Jesus told us not to hide our light under a bushel, so we need to spread the light we’ve been given.

Speaking of Dreams

And since I’ve been speaking about dreams, Kimberly, before I sign off I want to publicly congratulate you on so actively pursuing your dream of further graduate study and earning a full merit scholarship to Yale Divinity School!  Wow!  You are amazing. I am so happy for you and so very proud of you.

And I want to hear more about your visit out to the East Coast.  I was also thrilled to hear that in your travels, you met one of our blog readers — Anna, the trombonist who added a January 17 comment to my October 25 post where I talked about my trombone studies and the way even musical instruments tend to be associated with gender.  I remember her saying that she will receive her master’s degree in trombone performance next month, and I want to congratulate her.  (Anna, if you’re still reading our blog, please contact me through my personal website.)

I’d better sign off now.  It’s your turn next.   Keep dreaming dreams and lighting lights!

Your friend,

Letha

Dear Letha,

Now it is my turn to apologize for my slow reply to your last letter! As you know, this past month has been eventful for me. I moved to a new apartment in Seattle, and I also have been traveling a bit to look at different graduate school programs. The verdict is in: this fall, I will be going to Yale Divinity School to study for a Master of Arts in Religion with a concentration in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. I am so thrilled by my acceptance and the merit scholarship I was offered. And I want to thank you—and EEWC—for being such a great community to me the past year as I have journeyed in all things feminist. I would not be able to achieve my dreams without the love of the people who support me and work alongside me toward similar hopes for our world. I am so grateful.

And I also want to celebrate your health, too, as you passed the one-year marker as a cancer survivor. I am so glad that you are conscious not to “burn the midnight oil” too much; taking care of our bodies is so important. I know you are balancing so many tasks—from editing Christian Feminism Today to updating the EEWC website to providing support and encouragement to many people! I am glad that in the midst of your work load that you prioritize yourself and take care of your health—you are setting a good example for me and others. I am already thinking about school next fall and how I will balance intense studies with rest, play, and good self-care. I know that balance is so important, so that we can sustain our work long-term. And, as you know, I am not always good at self-care! But, I feel encouraged that I am learning its importance.

Women, Men, and Pride

I wanted to begin this letter by letting you know that I have been thinking a great deal about that first article you linked in your last post (the BBC article that talked about women reportedly confessing the sin of pride more than men). It so happened that when I got your letter I was reading Feminist Theory and Christian Theology by Serene Jones. (Dr. Jones used to be a professor at Yale Divinity School, and now she is at Union Theological Seminary.) Her book gave me a news lens for seeing some of the important issues in Reformed theology, particularly the weighty idea of “pride equals sin” within that tradition.

Jones explains that Calvin, similar to many preachers today, focused on pride as being one of the most damaging aspects of the human condition. Pride was a brazen, over-inflation of self that offended God, or so Calvin and others have said. It was the essence of sin and to be avoided at all cost for a healthy spiritual life.  

Dr. Jones questions where women—and other marginalized people—fit in this tradition. It is one thing for the most powerful people in society to promote these ideas around pride: perhaps Calvin’s deepest struggle really was this grandiosity of self that he describes. Certainly, many of the preachers I have listened to seem to struggle with pride a great deal, so it makes sense to me that they would define sin in terms of over-inflation of self. 

And yet these preachers and theologians are often white heterosexual men with tremendous spiritual authority who are at the top of the power structures in society. Of course they struggle with pride. They are simply reading the Bible and writing their theology out of their lived experience. They are being honest with what they know— they just are not seeing from the vantage points of those not sharing their pedestal. Perhaps they have no idea of the “view from below” or have no sense of what it means to hold the kind of power that they have. (Indeed, they might even deny that a power structure exists, so far are they from understanding marginalization)

So, what happens when all those messages about the sin of “pride” are communicated from a position of power to those who are disempowered and marginalized? What happens when the promoters of this theology are in an entirely different position of status and voice than those “below” them?

Remembering When I First Questioned Pride as Sin

Jones’ writing on this topic helped me make sense of an experience I had years ago. During this time of my life, I was helping at a transition home for abused women, and during one particular Bible study, something became abundantly clear to me: the Christian message I had so often heard about pride being the essence of sin was an irrelevant and harmful message for these women. Their sin was not pride or thinking of themselves too highly. Their sin—if we want to use that language—was not recognizing their own glory. 

If human beings are both dust and the image of God, then perhaps we all fall on different sides of the spectrum of not being able to hold these simultaneous truths. Those of us who enjoy a great deal of power might struggle with the traditional Calvinist sense of pride—thinking of ourselves as too godlike. Therefore, we need to be reminded of our dustiness. But others of us actually need to “repent” of having too low an opinion of ourselves and failing to claim our beauty, worth, glory and selfhood. We need to repent of living lives of deference or dismissing our own talents. We need to learn to “take up space” (as my friend Dr. Susan Hall says) and be more bold about who we are.

So, I agree that the article you mentioned about men and women supposedly sinning differently is actually and absolutely about gendered social construction in our churches. I know that as a young woman, when I am driven to lead or make money or be successful or follow my ambitions, I quickly question myself and my “pride.” Just who do I think I am to believe I am capable of such things?  I have been socialized differently than men. My gender still makes 76 cents on the dollar; I still struggle with devaluing myself more than I struggle with an over-inflated sense of self. 

It is not that I never struggle with pride in the Calvinist sense of the term—certainly I am not immune from grandiosity or selfish ambition. It’s just that what I often am quick to call “pride” or “selfish ambition” is really nothing more than living fully into who I am and using the gifts God has given me.

And so I am not at all surprised that women confess the sin of “pride” more than men. We have been socialized to be suspicious of our desires for success in a way that men have not been socialized. And the tragedy is that because of these suspicions and anxieties, we so often hold back from living out our limitless potential to bless the world (and ourselves) with the fullness of who we are as daughters of God. 

More on Lookism and Racism

For the last part of my letter, I want to return to the other important topic of your letter—the harm of lookism, and how that “ism” intersects with other “isms” like sexism and racism.

Wow, those images you linked of the models falling over their stilettos is chilling on so many levels. Their shoes look like they weigh more than their bodies! The short video by Mary Pipher also had some highly disturbing images. More and more, I find myself consciously cringing as I look at the beauty norms for women that are blaring from nearly every magazine, movie, and advertisement. The image is so thin, so white, so cut-off from the reality of women’s beauty and diversity.

Because I tutor many students who are visiting the United States from their home countries, I have heard first-hand the effect of lookism and racism on young teenage girls who cannot fit the  prized Western European version of beauty. I once told one of my Korean, 16-year-old students that my sisters had dark eyes and hair like hers and she could not believe it! She wanted me to bring pictures of them. “Before I came here,” she said, “I thought all Americans looked like Britney Spears.” My heart sank with her words.

I listened to her continue to talk about the sexism and racism she experienced that made her doubt her own beauty. One day she even shared with me about the painful plastic surgery that women go through in South Korea to try to look like Caucasian women (giving them rounder eyes or longer legs). I was shocked at how colonialism is still alive and well. Not only does the U.S. fashion and cosmetic industry brainwash American women (and men) to terrible ideas about what is beautiful, but those images are being exported around the world and doing profound harm.

Today I have been reading some powerful essays by African American women who are further articulating the harm of the racist, sexist image of beauty that is pervasive in the culture. Patricia L. Hunter writes the following insightful words in her essay, “Women’s Power-Women’s Passion” (which is a piece in the book A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering, ed. by Emilie Townes):

It is critically important for women of color to believe we are created in the image of God and that we are wonderfully made. We do not have to spend our energies trying to be something we are not or someone else. Women of African descent are beautiful with our larger sizes, intricately curly hair, adequate hips, broad noses, and other distinct features. To try to conform to a European image of beauty is to deny ourselves as being created in the image of God….The billion dollar makeup/make-over/weight loss industry flourishes because most women, including myself, have received messages since we were little girls that something about our physical appearance is not adequate. (page 194)

Layers of Harm

The more I research the fashion and cosmetic industry, the more I see its layers of harm—how it is not only racist, but also often complicit in harming the earth and harming women’s bodies. Just recently, I have been reading the labels on my shampoo,  lotion, and makeup and have been shocked to learn of the amount of dangerous chemicals (like parabens and sodium lauryl sulfate) loaded up in these products! I am now on a quest to learn more and find earth friendly, body friendly, fair-trade products. (I am also curious if any of our readers have already done some research on the this topic and know where to buy such products? I would love to hear from you!) I am just starting to realize that not only is the beauty industry trying to exploit me (by selling me such an inhumane image of female beauty), but by buying many of these products, I am also harming myself and exploiting the earth.

It seems that, once again, our conversation around feminism lands us at a vantage point where we can see the matrix of oppressive systems—and hopefully see the muti-faceted nature of hope, too. I have been learning that racism, sexism, and other injustices like the exploitation of the earth are all deeply connected.  And healing them is, too.

I appreciate having these conversations, Letha. I have learned so much in our correspondence.

Your friend,

Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

So many things in the news have recently reminded me of your last letter about how women are judged by their appearance, causing some women to believe they must be slaves to fashion.  And I also want to comment on something else I read in the news last week, namely, the news that a Roman Catholic survey has indicated that the sins people confess differ according to gender. That observational study led some news headline writers to imply that men and women actually sin in different ways. But do they?  Or do they just confess certain attitudes as sins according to the different socialization they’ve experienced as women or men?  Let’s discuss that, too, at some point.  I’ll just briefly introduce the topic toward the end of this letter and maybe we can discuss it later.

A message to our readers

But first, I want to apologize for the long delay in responding to your January 10 post.  And I want to say a word to our readers.  I know some loyal readers of our blog posts have expressed concern that our posts have been less frequent.  On the other hand, other readers have remarked that they found it hard to keep up with our essays when we were posting sometimes twice a week.  So we’ve started slowing it down a bit, because we’re trying to make our posts solid informational articles, which take time to read and ponder and also take quite a bit of time, thought, and research on our part. Recently, we’ve both found that a number of our other responsibilities have prevented more than once-a-month or once-every-two-or-three-weeks posts.  We thank our readers for hanging in there and not thinking we’ve abandoned them!

I know how busy you’ve been, Kimberly, with moving, traveling, and graduate school applications; and I’ve been devoting countless hours to editing and publishing the Winter edition of Christian Feminism Today and providing new website content for eewc.com.  I tend to be somewhat of a night owl, as you know from times I’ve often answered your emails in the wee hours of the night (or more accurately, wee hours of the morning!), but I’m trying to be more sensible about burning the after-midnight oil.  I want to do everything in my power to keep my immune system strong and healthy so that it can do its best in fighting off any recurrence of cancer.  I know you are rejoicing with me and joining in praise to God that this month, February 2009, I  celebrated the milestone of being a one-year breast cancer survivor.  I have so much for which to be thankful.

Cultural conformity and women’s appearance

If you’re wondering what has recently steered my mind toward some of the things you said in your January 10 post, here are just a few items that come to mind. Last week was Fashion Week in New York City, and an emphasis on appearance was center stage as designers presented their latest creations.  During that week, in two separate incidents, the models fell to the floor as they were walking across the runway in their multi-strapped platform high heels. These tumbles reminded me once again of how women’s feet and shoes have been a major area of conformity to societal beauty ideals. The extremes of this phenomenon can be seen in the ancient Chinese custom of footbinding, which survived into the 20th century; and, now in the 21st century, can be seen in the decisions of some women to have cosmetic foot surgery, including shortening or otherwise altering toes to fit pointed shoes as well as special procedures for wearing stiletto heels.  And speaking of extremes in cosmetic surgery, I also saw an article in the past couple of weeks about a woman who is determined to have her breast size increased until she has the world’s largest breasts by having multiple surgeries and silicone implants. She was already a size triple-K and said she planned even further enhancement.  (It makes me wonder about her surgeons!)

Other media items that have kept me reflecting on your letter are some that I included in my Winter-Early Spring, 2009 edition of Web Explorations for Christian Feminists.  For example, I mention a program I heard recently about the 50th anniversary of Barbie dolls. I also provided a  link to a movie about weight issues in which a woman, feeling judged because of her plus size, asks an anorexic woman for lessons on becoming anorexic.   The characters in that movie didn’t realize at the time that they were actually attempting to deal with feelings about their personal self-worth rather than the numbers on a scale or their reflection in a mirror.  In addition to all these reminders about women and physical appearance, I read some advance reviews of Susie Orbach’s new book, Bodies, which again deals with issues of “body shame” and today’s emphasis on “fixing” any physical characteristic that is considered even the tiniest bit imperfect.  Men are affected by this attitude, too.  Susie Orbach herself has explained why she wrote the book.

I appreciated your reminding me of Mary Pipher’s term “lookism” (from her book Reviving Ophelia, which she also talks about in a short video). Lookism hurts people just as  other “isms” do –  “isms” like sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, able-ism, ethnocentrism, classism, and so on.  Lookism not only causes women to feel they are never quite attractive enough but also convinces them that physical attractiveness and sex appeal are what counts more than the unique qualities they can offer the world through their talents and intellect. Susan Campbell had a blog post recently about how the news media often seem to think they must talk about details of an accomplished woman’s appearance in a way they do not talk or write about men. (The day after President Obama’s February 24 speech to Congress, The New York Times had a commentary pointing out that Michelle Obama had worn a sleeveless dress to the event. The writer said, “Already, a debate is brewing about just what the First Arms signify”–self-discipline,  achievement,  attention to physical exercise in the gym, the pride women can take in athletic bodies after Title IX?  The attention was still on appearance, but in this case the spin seemed to be an attempt to see it as more of a personal positive statement than as conformity to a certain prescribed image.)

Young girls get the message about physical appearance early in life.  Remember the ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in China in which a seven-year-old girl with an angelic voice sang but was not visible because her teeth were not perfect?  Instead, another girl was considered “cuter” and was chosen to stand in front of the audience and lip-synch the other girl’s voice. “The main consideration was the national interest,” the music director of the opening ceremonies later explained, adding that the Chinese politburo insisted that “the child on screen should be flawless in image,”  even though the voice that was heard was the recorded voice of the other little girl who had won the national singing competition.

When my granddaughter Morgan was 3 years old, I wanted to immunize her early against the forces that she’d run up against that would emphasize physical appearance over intellect and achievement for girls, so I gave her Robert Munsch’s The Paper Bag Princess and Shana Corey’s You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! Morgan’s parents appreciated the books, too. (I’m providing links to Amazon.com because of that site’s excellent editorial reviews of these two books, in case you’re unfamiliar with them.  Both books relate to the topic we’re discussing in this blog.)  In brief, The Paper Bag Princess is a very different kind of fairy tale. It tells the story of an elegantly dressed princess who was engaged to to be married to a prince. One day, a fiery dragon invaded the castle and kidnapped the prince. The dragon’s fiery breath had burned the princess’s clothes, so the princess dressed in a large paper bag, went after the dragon and, through a series of clever tricks, defeated the dragon and rescued the prince.  Was the prince grateful?  No. Instead of thanking her, he immediately criticized  her appearance.  He complained that she smelled smoky and looked dirty and had messy hair and wasn’t dressed in the beautiful attire a princess should wear.  Seeing him in his true colors, the princess called off the wedding. She was wise enough to know there are other ways to live happily ever after than to be married to someone like him!

The other book, You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer, starts out by humorously stating that Amelia Bloomer “was not a proper woman” and that her behavior was considered shocking. Why was she judged that way?  Because she dared to believe that women should use their minds and develop their skills and not be limited to housekeeping and child-care but should contribute to the world in many other ways as well.  And she believed women should be allowed to vote!  Furthermore, she saw that the clothing of her time was restrictive and uncomfortable, the designs preventing girls and women from being active in the way men could be, so she dared to join with a few other women in challenging women’s dress by wearing a new style that was originally adapted from a Turkish outfit and consisted of baggy trousers under a shorter dress.  Some of the early feminists called this outfit by what it signified to them, “freedom dress,” but the name that stuck was “bloomers,” after Amelia.  The children’s book introduces the topic to a young audience, but if you really want to see an in-depth account of the outrage this new clothing style stirred up, read Galye Fischer’s scholarly but entertaining book, Pantaloons and Power (Kent State University Press).

The intertwining of clothing reform and the politics of gender-based power issues showed up in public reactions to women who wanted to be free of their tightly laced corsets, long billowing skirts, and 14 pounds of layered petticoats and other underwear, which the Rational Dress Society argued should be reduced to no more than seven pounds.  (See the Fashion.era website for more information, including fascinating pictures, about all this.)

Restrictive clothing, as well as social conventions about what was proper for women, kept women from exercising and participating in sports.  I recently heard sportswriter David Zirin on NPR, reading from his new book, A People’s History of Sports in the United States.  He quotes from a 19th century Christian magazine which predicted the moral downfall of women who played croquet!   Women were expected to be frail, delicate ornaments.

Of course, such attitudes applied only to women of means and privilege.  Poor women were expected to do society’s drudge work and to somehow find the strength to do it because they had no other choice.  Society’s definitions of womanhood and the limitations imposed on women were conveniently ignored when it came to poor women — a point former slave Sojourner Truth made so powerfully in her 1851 “Ain’t I a Woman” speech.

As you’ve said so often, Kim, reading women’s history is ever so enlightening!  One more article you might like to check out is this one from the University of Virginia’s American Studies department.  It’s a fascinating essay about the part the bicycle played in providing women with new freedom.  Susan B. Anthony claimed that the bicycle had done “more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”  It not only provided good arguments for more comfortable and practical dress styles;  it gave women mobility and a new sense of freedom and empowerment.  Women could now, on their own, pedal their way far beyond the home. And they did.

Well, we could go on with this topic, and I hope we will in future posts. It’s hard for me to stop. But I also want to introduce briefly the other topic I mentioned that struck me in recent news reports: the Catholic survey about the differences in what sins Catholic women were found to confess to priests as compared to those that men confessed. I suggest that we may want to have some future discussions about some questions it has raised in my mind. And I’d love to hear what you think.

Do Men and Women Sin Differently?

The Bible does not provide a specific list of “seven deadly sins,” but such a list was formulated by the church between the fourth and sixth centuries.  On this list were pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth.  In the recent news reports of a Jesuit priest’s survey of confessions in which penitents sought absolution in the confessional, the top three of the sins reported by women were pride, envy, and anger.  For men, the top three were lust, gluttony, and sloth.  The Pope’s personal theologian, as quoted in the Vatican newspaper, said there is “no sexual equality” when it comes to sin.

But here are some questions the survey raised for me (aside from the fact that this was not a scientific study of Catholics in general but only those who go to confession, and 30 percent said they don’t). And so I found myself wondering:

1. If women are confessing pride as their major sin, could it be because they have been traditionally encouraged to put themselves last, curtail ambitions, and defer to others’ wants and needs disproportionately to what is expected of men, causing a woman to believe that when she does aspire to achieve or meet her own needs, she should view such aspirations and any delight in her successes as sinful pride?

2.  If women yearn for opportunities, privileges, and earnings equal to those granted to men, might they mistake that desire as a sign of sinful envy — that they are coveting what men have and should instead be content with their subordinate role, viewed as having been assigned by God?  (Of course, I realize there are many other kinds of envy which may indeed choke off our closeness to God.)

3.  Could it be that women confess anger as one of their top three sins because women have been traditionally taught that they must never be angry, that any indication of anger is not “ladylike,” and that they must not allow themselves to experience such feelings and certainly not express them — even when anger is perfectly justified as a response to unfair treatment?   Could it be that many women have never been encouraged to recognize the difference between exploding over petty annoyances or frustration and what is truly righteous anger over social injustice?

Just wondering.

(I’m not going to go into the list of sins men confess, topped off by lust at the top and pride as down at number 5 on the list.  Maybe we could talk about the concept of sin in general sometime).

But I must stop. This letter has gone on much too long.  I have a feeling I’m leaving us both with more than enough to think about, Kimberly, and I  hope we can revisit some of these issues in future discussions.  I already have more ideas.  And I’ll bet you do, too!

Your friend,
Letha

Dear Letha,

Now it’s my turn to apologize for a late response to your last letter! As you know, my life has been rather busy the past month with my applications for graduate school. However, I did want to take the time to get back with you and let you know that I was quite impacted by what you shared.

Two specific issues were raised for me that I want to respond to: the general lack of knowledge about women’s history and the oppressiveness of beauty ideals.

The Importance of Women’s History

Every time I learn more about women’s history—and realize how misrepresented and untold it is—I have a strong and mixed reaction of anger and sadness. When I listened to the NPR segment you recommended about the 1968 Miss America pageant, I was reminded that it is the sensational and titillating that gets media attention. So, instead of young women growing up learning about courageous feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s, we get this false image of militant women burning their bras. Instead of understanding why the pageant was a symbol of oppression, we just keep buying into the same belief that a woman’s value lies in how she looks in a swimsuit and high heels. Because history was not told, we’ve completely missed the point of why women needed to protest that event!

In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, she writes of the absolute necessity of women knowing the history of their foremothers. She is hopeful that the teaching of women’s history is expanding, and that such knowledge will have a significant impact on our consciousness. Ulrich writes, “If Gerda Lerner is right in claiming that the core of women’s oppression has been an inability to access their own history, then this explosion of resources may presage more lasting change” (226).

I am glad Ulrich is hopeful, but from my own experience, I know that I often felt as if the only way to learn women’s history was to take classes in “women’s studies” because we were still somehow left out of the story of “real” history. In my late twenties, I am only now learning about the details of the suffrage movement and discovering women who should be household names, like Lucy Burns and Alice Paul. Or, just recently, I was reading the book you sent me—The Feminist Papers —and I could not believe how little I knew of Margaret Sanger’s work to make birth control legal! I kept asking why I was just now hearing about such important events in history.

The Continued Cruelty of Beauty Ideals

In discussing the protest and the bra-burning myth surrounding the 1968 Miss America Pageant, you briefly mentioned we should talk more at length about the topic of beauty and fashion, too. I totally agree; it’s an important subject, especially for second-wave and third-wave feminists to be discussing together. I am going to just touch on it here and begin the conversation. There is so much to say on this topic!

Recently, I feel like I have been becoming more and more aware of how toxic it feels to live in a culture that dictates such a narrow and constricted ideal of feminine beauty. I am sure you have seen Jean Kilbourne’s work on the image of women in advertising? (I will link her site here. It is really worth taking the time to look through.) The media’s image of a woman is a version that is not even a human being anymore, but a mismatch of body parts and photoshop. The ads are communicating over and over (Kilbourne says the average person is exposed to 3000 ads a day!) that a woman’s value is placed in an eroticized version of herself.

There is an internalized oppression that plays out for women who have the means to “buy” the look, or who may not have the means but still are sold that image. Women spend so much time, energy, and money trying to sculpt themselves. False beauty standards drive our consumerism. We don’t ask about the effects of these industries on the earth, or where the products come from and what kinds of companies are selling us this image we are desperate to attain.

False beauty standards drive not only consumerism, but also a mess of insecurity and misplaced value. As a culture we lose the beauty of particularity—only certain bodies and faces and skin color become what is defined as beautiful. This obsession with “lookism,” as Mary Pipher calls it in Reviving Ophelia, keeps us from being reflective, acting as agents, and using our voices to address real, pressing issues in our world. It is an insane distraction.

Personally, I enjoy clothes; I like wearing clothes that reflect my personality or how I am feeling that day. I love scarves, earrings, skirts. I think clothes are artistic and expressive. But, obviously what I am arguing against is an obsession with a narrow, mass produced image of beauty. I am arguing against losing the person for an image.

I realize in many ways this particular beauty ideal I am describing is the product of a highly affluent culture with the time and the means to obsess on such things as thinness and the latest fad. I am complaining about the “oppressiveness” of the fashion industry making commodities of the female body while there are girls in the world who literally have to sell their bodies to eat or afford books for school. I just recently read about young girls in Kenya who sell sex just to afford to buy their sanitary napkins so they can stay in school while the are having their periods. (You can read more about that here.) 

Obviously, the commodification of the female body is on a spectrum. As a middle-class, North American, white feminist, I should use a word like “oppression” very carefully. But, I still do believe there is a kind of internalized oppression that comes from living in a culture with such restricted beauty ideals, and that those “ideals” are profoundly harmful, though they affect different women in different ways.

I wish young girls in America would grow up learning about why feminists of the ’60s and ’70s had to do what they did, instead of being fed such false images. The protest of the 1968 Miss America Pageant is a perfect example: the true substance of the historical moment was traded for a media-created fabrication. 

Your friend,

Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your November 22 letter; but as you know, I had some health issues come up and then was swamped with the editing and layout for the latest issue of Christian Feminism Today, which has just come off the press.

I want to pick up right where we left off, however, and comment on your thoughts about feminism’s image problem.  It troubles me that you’re finding so many young women who think feminism falls into the “women against men” category of Yates’s three-part typology (as described in my November 13 post).

Given the fact that any social movement is likely to have some extremists whose words or actions may reflect negatively on the movement, I don’t think that’s the primary explanation for the misperceptions many younger women have about feminism.  I believe there are at least three reasons such misperceptions have originated and persist.

Media Sensationalism and Misinformation about Feminism’s History

First, the mass media have a tendency to look for a good story to sensationalize, and a protest at the 1968 Miss America Pageant provided them with just the sensationalism they relished.  Earlier, the media had taken some note of Betty Friedan’s book and the controversy generated by the publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1963, and no doubt there was some awareness that women were gathering with other women in consciousness-raising groups to share experiences and talk about the restrictions of rigid gender roles.

But newspapers, radio, and television reporters showed scant interest in small pockets of women getting together to voice their grievances and their questioning of the status quo. Apparently, it didn’t yet seem to be the birth of a social movement, even when  the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966 as a civil rights movement, concerned especially with ending discrimination in employment at that time.  NOW’s goal, in the words of Analoyce Clapp, was  “to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, assuming all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.”

But, according to Judith Hole and Ellen Levine (Rebirth of Feminism, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1971), the media’s interest perked up after a few loosely organized groups, led by one called New York Radical Women, staged a protest at the 1968 Miss America Beauty Pageant in Atlantic City.  It was then, say Hole and Levine, that “the American public learned for the first time that there was a new thing called the women’s liberation movement” (p. 122).

Looking Back

Forty years later, National Public Radio (NPR) decided to take a look back and broadcast a feature on that pageant as part of its series, “Echoes of 1968.” Nineteen-sixty-eight was the tumultuous year in which Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the Poor People’s Campaign took place in Washington, DC., protests against the Vietnam War were widespread, and riots broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The echoes of that year are still reverberating.

In telling the story of the pageant from the vantage point of 2008, NPR interviewed organizers of the protest.  They were women who had planned to call attention to the women’s liberation movement by employing methods used in other protest movements during the 1960s.  NPR also interviewed the 1968 outgoing reigning Miss America,  Debra Barnes Snodgrass, who had come to the pageant to give her farewell speech and crown the new Miss America. That speech was interrupted, however, by some of the protesters who had purchased tickets for the actual show, so that they could — at the right moment — unfurl a banner saying, “Women’s Liberation,” and shout comments against the beauty pageant, which they believed was oppressive to women.

Debra Snodgrass says she was offended and hurt by their actions, because she had considered the Miss America contest to be a scholarship opportunity and primarily a talent competition open only to women in college, a requirement that she felt showed that the pageant respected what women could do rather than just being about how women looked.  But she now says that she also sees how she has benefited by the gains made because of what the women’s movement fought for.  You can read about NPR’s coverage, listen to it and to related clips, as well as see still photos and videos here and through American Public Media here.

Carol Hanisch, one of the main organizers of the protest, later wrote that she regretted the way certain aspects of the protest gave a wrong impression of what the protesters were trying to convey at the Miss America Pageant. One problem was what she called “egotistical individualism” on the part of some who did not comply with group decisions.  She writes:

Posters which read, “Up Against the Wall, Miss America,” “Miss America Sells It,” and “Miss America is a Big Falsie” hardly raised any woman’s consciousness and really harmed the cause of sisterhood.  Miss America and all beautiful women came off as our enemy instead of as our sisters who suffer with us.  A group decision had been made rejecting these anti-women signs. A few women made them anyway.” (Carol Hanisch, Notes from the Second Year, 1970, as reprinted in Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism, edited by Dawn Keetley and John Pettigrew, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005, p. 170)

Hanisch reports that both positives and negatives came from the protest.  Many women wanted to join the movement and work for women’s equality.  At the same time, Hanisch says she learned from mistakes that had been made in the protest and saw some ways to do things differently in the future. One of the main lessons learned was a recognition that the women needed to communicate more simply and clearly what the women’s movement was all about and to state its goals in language the general public could comprehend and receive.

Some of the mass media understood the message the women wanted to convey and spoke positively about it, although other representatives of the media ridiculed the protest.  (Ridicule is a favorite weapon used against any social movement that dares to challenge the way things have been.  It’s nothing new, as you’re well aware from all the study you’ve been doing on women’s history and especially the efforts of the suffragists to gain the right to vote.)

Bra-burners?

The term “bra-burners,” a derogatory term that continues to be applied to feminists today, was coined in reporting on the pageant protest.  Never mind that no bras were burned by those picketing the Miss America pageant, nor were bras singled out in any way as the main focus in a symbolic gesture in which women were asked to bring items they considered  “instruments of torture” that were part of society’s expectations for girls and women.  A large trash can, the “Freedom can,” was supplied for depositing what various women brought. Among the items tossed into the trash can were high heels, girdles, magazines (especially Playboy with its image of women), mops, cooking pots, and yes, bras — whatever individual women considered a symbol of oppression in their lives as women.

But no one labeled the women magazine-burners, or shoe-burners, or mop-burners.  They became known as bra-burners. (I’ve wondered sometimes, if men had tossed neckties into a trash can as part of a protest against men’s fashions, would they be mocked and ridiculed as tie-burners?  Or would other men have rushed to join them?)

Even if a fire had been lit (and the protesters had considered it but knew they could not get a permit), it would not have been a “bra-burning” ceremony but rather a burning of all the varied items in the trash can!   Different ideas abound about why the “bra-burner” mythology has been perpetuated. Perhaps it was a photo of a woman tossing a bra into the trash can that stuck in people’s minds.  Perhaps male reporters found the bra-discarding imagery titillating.  Perhaps it was a handy term to parallel the draft card burning of Vietnam War protesters.  Whatever the reason, some people who continue to misunderstand or oppose women’s equality still regard “feminist”and “bra-burner” as synonymous.

(By the way, Kimberly, sometime we need to discuss the history of women’s fashions and the way certain styles and clothing expectations have limited women’s activities.  Think of those extremely tightly-laced corsets of the Victorian Era, for example.  But we can save that for a future post.)

Accepting the Opposition’s Definitions of Feminism

A second reason why some people are suspicious of the word feminism is because they have accepted the definitions of feminism put forth by those who oppose full equality for women.  Words like “strident,” “shrill,” “man-hating,” “anti-family,” “unwomanly,” “mannish,” “anti-God,” “feminazi,” “castrating,” and worse are tossed about freely in describing feminists.  It’s no wonder that young women would not want to call themselves feminists if that is what feminists are perceived to be!

One of the most egregious examples of whipping up hatred toward feminists by those who are against women’s full equality was a fund-raising letter sent out by Pat Robertson to Christian Coalition supporters in1992, urging them to help defeat a state Equal Rights Amendment being considered in Iowa.  Robertson claimed the E.R.A. was not about equal rights for women but was an effort to destroy the family.  “It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians,” claimed Robertson.

We need to help women realize that to understand what feminism is all about, it’s important to see what feminists themselves are writing about and working for.  Only by reading actual feminist writings can young women find out what women committed to equality are saying and doing — and why they are pursuing certain goals.

No one will  learn what feminism is by accepting without question what someone else claims feminists are saying — whether it’s said on a radio talk show or from the pulpit.  It takes courage to find out for oneself.  You’ve been doing so much of this investigating yourself, Kim, and I admire you for it.  You’ve spoken honestly about your anxieties as you read the opening pages of The Feminine Mystique, after having heard it and its author demonized by fundamentalist leaders.  Reading articles and books by Christian feminist authors can help young women see how the Bible’s basic teachings are supportive of gender equality and how the message of Christian feminism can be applied to everyday life.

Woman as Agent

The third point that needs to be considered in forming an image of feminism is the realization that at its most basic, feminism is rooted in the idea of women’s agency.  Many people have erroneous ideas because they have no idea that this — women’s agency — is what feminism is really about. The word agency comes from a Latin word for doing, acting, leading, driving, having power.

Patriarchy is built on the idea that women are not agents on their own behalf but are controlled by the agency of men.  Men act; women are acted upon.  Men decide what women may or may not do; women do as they are told.

Feminism’s goal is to change that — not turn it upside down with women over men, but rather to level the playing field so that women and men are equal to each other.  In the community of faith, women and men can view themselves as partners in the realm of God, working together to see that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, with each person bringing her or his individual gifts and talents to serve God rather than being seen as simply a member of a category, as traditionally has been the case with women.  In the Body of Christ, “there is no longer male and female: for all of you are one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28).

I remember reading a letter to the editor in a news magazine (Newsweek, I believe)  many years ago during debates about whether women could be ordained as pastors, priests, or rabbis.   The letter-writer, a woman who was obviously aware of men’s fears about losing power if women were to be ordained or hold other leadership positions in religious institutions, said something like this:  “We’re not saying that you should move out and let us take over.  We’re just saying move over and let us help.”  That sums up my point nicely.

In your last post, you mentioned that one way that some Christians dismiss feminism as being unworthy of serious consideration is to link it to abortion rights.  Again, this issue must be considered from the standpoint of women’s free agency as being essential to any understanding of what feminism is about. It is about what we discussed in our earliest letters about recognizing women as fully capable human beings with free will and full humanity in the same way that men are considered fully human, which includes the freedom to make choices.  We do not call it selfish for men to want the power to make choices in their lives, and neither should we call it selfish for women to want the power to make choices in matters that concern them.

Incidentally, Kimberly, I thought the paragraph about a much broader definition of support for life issues in your last letter was excellent.  You said some profound things and said them really well.  And you’re also right that feminists are not a monolithic group with only one view on abortion or on anything else.  Pastors are wrong if they insist that feminists are people who are ipso facto “pro-abortion.”  They are pro-choice.  They believe in women’s agency.

Most feminists I know are very much aware of the complexities of abortion decisions, and they are not cavalier about the matter.  Many I’ve talked with have said they could not imagine themselves ever having an abortion.  But at the same time, they realize they would not want to insist that all young girls and women in all circumstances make the decision they think they themselves would make.  And perhaps under certain circumstances (rape, for example) they might make a very different decision for themselves as well.  In any case, the question of abortion, like all other questions related to women’s lives, must always take into account the moral agency of women.  Otherwise, their full humanity is not being recognized.

As you know, Kim, I’ve written at length about reproductive issues in two chapters of the book Nancy Hardesty and I coauthored, All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, so I won’t take up more space to talk about these issues here.  But I do want to close with the very simple definition of feminism that Nancy and I provide in that book, namely that feminism is “a belief in and a commitment to the full equality of men and women in home, church, and society” (p. 1, 1992 revised edition). Perhaps some of the women you’ve talked with about feminism may be willing to give some thought to that definition.  On the other hand, maybe they’ll reject it.  As we’ve said in earlier posts, some Christians think women can be equal in society but not in the home or church.

Wow! This has been a long letter.  I guess I’m making up for the several weeks I was absent from this blog.

Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas.

Your friend,
Letha

Letha,

I really appreciated what you touched on in your last letter, especially your explanation of the typology Yates uses to understand second-wave feminism. The “women over against men” category—which describes the more extremist segment of the movement—struck a chord with me. As you know, the perception that feminism is about angry women wanting to dominate men gets a bit of leverage from conservative pulpits! I could share with you some excerpts from sermons I have heard, but we’d probably both experience a rise in blood pressure. So, I think I won’t!

Instead, I want to begin this letter by looking at some thoughts you stirred in me with Yates’ categories—namely, how I feel about my own generation’s perceptions of the term “feminism.”

A Limited View

I have mentioned this to you before in previous posts, but I do feel as if women my age have been socially conditioned to see almost all feminism as the second of Yates’ categories—the “women over against men” way of thinking, and they understandably resist that image of feminism, and often have not been given more positive images. And yet the irony is, I wonder how many of us have actually met that man-hating feminist, though it seems that she must lurk around to keep getting all this attention in people’s minds! All the feminists I know (and I know a lot of them) actually like men—we like them so much we believe in truer, more vibrant partnerships with them, and we believe in working for egalitarian societies in which both women and men can live more freely.

I don’t know what to do with the reality of people’s perceptions towards feminism within my own generation. I find it ironic that most young women take for granted that they can vote, attend universities of their choosing, use the libraries in those universities, have access to birth control, open a checking account as a married woman, own and inherit property, etc., and yet when asked if they are feminists? Oh dear. Not one “of them.” To a certain extent, I understand. The “women over against men” model is too often the popular image—it is that image which is so sensationalized in the media and spoken of from the pulpit.

I get so frustrated that the term “feminism” is often used pejoratively, outside of a historical analysis, and with the assumption that it is somehow one monolithic movement—not many different movements, always shaped by historical and contextual variables. In Christian circles, the use of the term gets even more shallow, perhaps in an attempt to keep out the ambiguities and questions. Not only is feminism often equated with being anti-male and anti-motherhood, but it is also represented as being anti-God. (Eve, of course, is then seen as the first feminist!)

Furthermore, the problems in these perceptions only get worse because some Christians hear feminism spoken of mostly in relationship with abortion, so that in the end, the “f-word” is seen through a very constricted lens. I do understand that many Christians fear the association of feminism and abortion, and might want to write off feminism for its role in Roe v. Wade. However, it is time for Christians across party lines— and those who embrace the word feminism and those who reject it— to come together for more productive conversations on “life” issues. I was appalled at the recent election and how many evangelicals seem to limit the meaning of whether or not one is “pro-life” to how one feels about the legalization of abortion in America, as though there is one “life” issue. Yes, I am “pro” the lives of American children—as I am pro the lives of children in Iraq and Darfur— and pro the lives of the thousands of children dying every day from lack of clean water. I am also pro the lives of frightened women in my own country who honestly feel that they have no options or resources for unplanned pregnancies. Changing a law (and going back to a world of back-alley abortions) is not going to help churches to actually start loving their neighbors in practical ways and offering hospitality, non-judgment, and a place of safety for difficult decisions. Being pro-life requires a great deal more of somebody than being passionately against abortion. But, feminism’s very association with the polarized issue of abortion gets simplistically used within faith communities to write off the complexities of both abortion and feminism.

If the many forms of feminism are going to be understood by more Christians, than these two issues—fears of man-hating feminists, and the notion that abortion is a clear-cut issue or that all feminists think the same way on abortion—need to be looked at with a more nuanced view. But, as you explained so well regarding fundamentalist Christianity, religion is often not the place where ambiguity, paradox, and nuance are allowed to thrive. To quote your last letter, it is prone to “an ironclad construction of reality that does not let other viewpoints in.” Yet, for both the gifts and faults of feminism to be understood well, my generation must invite the complexity of the term, not be lazy in our analysis of it, or let ourselves fall into simplistic “either/or” thinking.

My Own Suspicions

Even in my own journey, I know that the process of wresting with the perception of feminism has not been easy. When I wrote you the letter while reading Friedan’s Feminine Mystique, I was struggling with my own ingrained biases towards second-wave feminists. Before I even opened the first page of her book, I felt suspicious of what I might find there, which I felt was rather odd.

My prejudgment surprised me because I knew I had always harbored questions similar to those of feminists, always sensed within me something was not right about the limitations women internalize about their own beings. I knew women’s voices were missing in the history books, and in my understanding of faith, and that this was a growing problem for me. Yet, something in me wanted to distance myself from “them”—those feminists who seemed so “other.” It wasn’t until I started reading their own words—not what others say about them—that I saw not only their diversity, but also their honest gifts and failings. “They” became humans to me, not a category; and I realized I had far more in common than in division. It was only then that I felt comfortable with the term. It was then that I realized I had been fed a stereotype and had not been exposed to different streams of thought within feminism. After making this discovery, I wanted to reclaim the word.

Some might argue that feminism is yesterday’s word—but I think we need to keep using it until we create tomorrow’s language. It is the word we have now to remind us there has been a ubiquitous, historical, and problematic relationship between power and gender; but in a crazy act of redemption, our world currently is experiencing labor pains, and we wait for the birth of a truer lived equality between men and women. We work as midwives to that equality. Will evangelical Christian churches in America be part of that? Or will they sit on the sidelines of justice? Will they miss this historical moment, convinced that the “agenda” of feminism (as though there is only one) is in essence anti-biblical?

Where to Go From Here

The battle over the meaning of the word feminism points out the importance of being willing to study the details of history, so that our words are not just lost to polarized discussions but are seen in the light of historical realities. This week I came across an interview with Ann Braude, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, who had this to say about a conference she helped put on a few years back that opened communication between feminists of different generations. In an interview with Wendy McDowell, she explained the rationale behind the conference:

“There are two aspects to the experience of younger women that motivated this project. One is that for those in religious contexts that have been very much influenced by the women’s movement, they assume that’s the way it always was and they don’t know that it was a struggle to get things to that point, and they don’t know that these are changes that could be undone, and have been undone in some venues. That was one set of concerns. The other is that they’re reinventing the wheel. This was brought up very graphically by Gerda Lerner, the historian of women who spoke at the conference, and who has written about religion and the rise of feminist consciousness going back to the Renaissance, but particularly focusing in the nineteenth century. She observed, and any historian could observe this, that many religious women today are fighting the same battles over particular biblical texts and church teachings that religious women have been fighting for over 100 years and in some cases 200 years. That’s very sobering to think that our nineteenth-century forebears resolved these issues in their own minds, but because we are not apprised of their stories and those resolutions, we have to reinvent them. We see this across the spectrum in religion and that’s why I believe that the writing and teaching of history is so important.” (Go here for the complete interview.)

Ann Braude and Gerda Lerner are right—we cannot keep reinventing the wheel! The stories of our pioneering foremothers need reception in the new generations. And as much as feminism is just a stereotype of a “woman over against man” paradigm, the positive stories have not been passed down. As one of our readers put it so succinctly, “It bothers me that this kind of fundamentalist thinking gets perpetuated generation after generation, and that women of each generation have to deal with it again and again.” That I myself would open Friedan’s book with more suspicion than gratitude is telling me something. That I am only recently discovering my connection to feminist evangelical women of the 19^th century is telling me something. The stories of women pioneers—in both secular and faith-based spheres—are still not getting told.

And I think that is an issue that third-wave feminists have to face.

Your friend,

Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

I appreciated your honest sharing in your last letter.  Your struggles during your teenage and college years are struggles that many of us have experienced.  But I wonder how many other bright young women have not chosen the path you  followed and instead have abandoned their faith rather than give up their feminism.  They thought they had no other choice if they were going to be true to themselves. That’s sad and unfortunate.  And oh, so unnecessary.

Your path has been similar to mine in that we both dared to question.  Somehow, we both realized that we had been confronted with a false choice — “Either you are a dedicated follower of Christ and obedient to Scripture OR you are a feminist.”  But each of us, two generations apart, somehow knew there was another way — that our faith and our feminism were not at odds. Instead, we found that our feminism supported our Christian faith and our Christian faith supported our feminism, contributing to an integrated whole.  Of course, it didn’t happen all at once, but a journey never does. We’re always in process, learning and growing.

Fundamentalism and Questioning

However, the strict fundamentalisms around the world — whether religious or political — do not welcome questioning and critical thinking.  They thrive on certainty, on an ironclad construction of reality that does not let other viewpoints in.

You and I were drawn to a form of Christian fundamentalism because of its emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus and our hunger to study the Bible.  And that was good. We have cherished that.  But at the same time, we were also exposed to the patriarchy, legalism, and rigid interpretations of Scripture that are characteristic of this segment of Christianity.  The fundamentalism that we were taught insisted on an imposed order (a place for everything and everything in its place, including women).  We became aware (perhaps unconsciously) of the view that questioning is a threat and that permitting it leads to chaos — the opposite of certainty and order in the fundamentalist mind.

Fundamentalists, like authoritarians in general, have a problem with ambiguity and paradox.  They yearn for the security of knowing everything is settled so that they don’t have to worry about gray areas. Everything must be clear-cut, definite.   As a group, they are characterized by dichotomization — the “either/or” style of thinking that you mentioned.  Persons who think outside that framework are threatening to the system, and yes, they can be labeled as heretics, as you mentioned.  The history of Christianity shows some pretty harsh treatment of so-called heretics!  At least you and I weren’t burned at the stake for our questioning (although years ago, I received a letter from an anti-feminist reader — a woman, incidentally — about a book burning for one of my books).

Being Part of an Ongoing Story

You indicated that when you talked to your kind and empathic college professor, you had thought your questioning of traditional interpretations meant that you were giving up your faith. But now you realize that this questioning was the beginning of a stronger, sturdier, more robust faith than ever.  That’s so wonderful, Kimberly.

I liked what you said about reading Alice Paul’s story and that of other early activists for women’s rights and how you were able to identify with them and feel that you are continuing the story.  You definitely are!  (Upon reading that statement in your letter, I remembered that after Nancy Hardesty’s and my book, All We’re Meant to Be, was published in 1974 and we were invited around the country to speak about it, we used to half jokingly, but half seriously, identify our teamwork — in regard to our respective life circumstances — with that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the 19th century.  Since I was the married coauthor on our team and was a mother, I identified more with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had married an abolitionist and gave birth to seven children; and Nancy, being single, identified with Susan B. Anthony.)

You are so right, Kimberly, work for equality is ongoing over history with all of us playing a part — not only in working for equality for women but also for social justice for other groups that have been and continue to be discriminated against.

Forms of Feminism (The Work of Gayle Graham Yates)

One reason some Christians (and others) have a problem with feminism is that they don’t understand it and have formed their opinions on the basis of faulty definitions promoted by those who oppose full gender equality and who consider it harmful to families and to the church.  We’ve already discussed that quite a bit in previous posts.

I think it might be helpful to look at a typology suggested by Gayle Graham Yates in her book, What Women Want: The Ideas of the Movement. Her study concentrated on the years from 1959 to 1973, when second-wave feminism was emerging. She said the movement for gender equality showed evidence of three different perspectives:  (a) women equal to men, (b) women over against men, and (c) women and men equal to each other.

“Women equal to men.” Yates calls the women-equal-to-men paradigm the “feminist perspective.”  This is the category that describes the pioneers who have worked to obtain the same rights, privileges, and opportunities for women that have been enjoyed by men — voting rights, property rights, educational and employment opportunities, and so on.  Some of that work has been accomplished, as we know, and some of it continues today in many areas.

“Women over against men.” Yates associates this view with the women’s liberationist paradigm which she defines as a “pro-woman antimasculinist model.”  She is talking about a more extremist segment of the second-wave movement for gender equality. “Theirs is a woman-over-against-men or women-separate-from-men stance,” Yates writes. “These women — and the feminists informed by this model are all women — are sometimes quite angry with men and assert that women should separate from men, either permanently or temporarily, to establish female identity and to support each other psychically as women.  This is the old masculinist concept turned upside down. . .” (p. 19).

Unfortunately, it is this model that some people believe represents all feminism, and an extreme caricature of this idea is spread by anti-feminist radio commentators, as summed up in Rush Limbaugh’s term “feminazis.”

In your letter, you alluded in passing to the comment of one of our regular readers who recently expressed concern about a statement he had read in a professional journal. The quotation was from the director of a rape crisis center that does not permit male volunteers to work there. (I did ask the reader who wrote the comment to send the complete article, as he had offered to do; and I am deeply appreciative of his sending it. See his comments with our Oct. 25 post.)

The research data presented in the article he referred to indicated that the quotation he shared with us was from only one out of the six centers studied.  It alone had a policy against male staff and volunteers.  All the others had male volunteers (or in one case, had had them in the past, even though none were there now), and one of the centers surveyed had male paid staff members. The article also indicated that the issue of rape crisis centers accepting males as staff members, volunteers, and victims is being much discussed at this time, and attitudes seem to be changing. As the article’s author notes: “As society increasingly recognizes that males are rape victims and that services should be made available to male victims, some rape crisis centers and programs may need to come to terms with the idea that they can maintain feminist ideals while serving male victims (Shana L. Maier, “Are Rape Crisis Centers Feminist Organizations?” Feminist Criminology, Vol. 3, No. 2, April, 2008, p. 97).  She goes on to say that an important opportunity is also being missed when rape crisis centers and programs do not include male staff members and volunteers, because they could lead programs that could “educate other men or boys on their responsibility in ending sexual violence against women” (p.97).

Of course, not all cases of set apart “women only” space should be assumed to indicate an anti-male stance promoted by more radical “women-against-men” feminists.  Sometimes, there is a need for women to have safe, healing space and a time with their own in-group because of specific needs, including a need to listen to each other and help each other feel free to express long pent-up feelings that they don’t feel free to express when men are present.  Social movements begin when people become aware that the painful, unjust treatment they have experienced  is not theirs alone and begin to find others with similar grievances. The personal becomes political and they can work together for systemic change.  That is what happened in the consciousness raising groups of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Still, it hurts if one is a member of any privileged or dominant group (for example, males in a patriarchal society) and wants to help those who have been treated unjustly (the females in that patriarchal society) but is turned away by that group because group members want to effect change without assistance from persons outside their own group. There have been instances where this has happened in various civil rights movements seeking to correct and overturn social injustices — whether on the basis of race, gender,  sexual orientation, or anything else. But most such groups realize they need allies who join with them in striving for social justice and equality if change is going to happen.

But I have digressed and need to get back to the final category of the Gayle Graham Yates typology.

“Women and men equal to each other.” Yates describes this model as the androgynous paradigm — one in which women and men work together to define the way they want society to be. “It holds that tasks, values, and behavior traditionally assigned to one sex or the other should be shared by them both, except for behavior dictated by purely physiological differences.”

In other words, it’s what you and I have been talking about in this correspondence, Kim.   It’s just letting people be who they are and encouraging them to express their humanness in whatever way it fits their own personalities, talents, interests, and abilities as individuals.  According to this paradigm, neither women nor men have to fit into a particular role imposed by society. Rather, they work to change society together. In the words of Yates, “The focus for identifying the enemy of the women’s movement is on cultural forces, attitudes, and institutions, rather than on men. . . .” (p. 169).

That’s all for now.

Your friend,
Letha