Tag: Historical Feminism
Heather Cox Richardson on the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution
August 26th is the anniversary of the day the Nineteenth Amendment (giving women the right to vote) was ratified. Read Heather Cox Richardson's historical report about the events leading up to it.
Matilda Joslyn Gage: The Coolest First Wave Feminist You’ve Never Heard Of
"She propelled women's rights, admired Indigenous societies and sought to impeach the US government. So why has history all but forgotten her name?"
Women Serving as Clergy in the Early Church
August 26, 2019
Women serving as clergy in the early church may have been more common place than has previously been believed. Backed by research...
Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership
In her book Kateusz is able to expose “the intentional scribal activity associated with the redaction of the markers of female religious authority, the attempt to erase the memory of powerful historical women has weakened.”
Why Religion?: A Personal Story
"Why Religion?" should be of interest to people who are ready to give up on religion, wonder if, or why, religion matters, or, due to changing life experiences, seek new pathways, processes, or interpretations to sustain or renew their spiritual and religious practice.
A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and...
"...reading the first few chapters left me wishing I had been part of the early second wave feminist cultural phenomenon. Chesler’s stories give a clear impression of the excitement and energy surrounding the efforts to define reality and create sweeping changes."
A History of the World in 21 Women
Jenni Murray's book 'History of the World in 21 Women' provides a look at several women, each of whom has, as Murray puts it, 'faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve her ambition...'
Lesbian Power Couples Who Changed History!
September 5, 2017
From Autostraddle comes an interesting post about a few historical feminists, all of whom were in relationships we might label as same-sex...
New Box of First Wave Feminist Letters Found
April 3, 2017
The year is 1869. The issue is whether to support a proposed 15th Amendment to the US Constitution giving black men the...
I Love to Tell the Story: 100+ Stories of Justice, Wisdom, and Hope
How would you like to own — or give to someone you love — a book that carries you along on its own joyful stream of stories? Yes? Then I have just the perfect book for you: the Reverend Dr. Nancy Wilson's I Love To Tell the Story: 100+ Stories of Justice, Wisdom, and Hope.
A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism
Bushnell (1855–1946) was a stalwart advocate of women, a missionary, a doctor, a researcher, a writer, and a theologian, and an engaging speaker and an unrelenting advocate against human trafficking around the world. Du Mez skillfully reveals the influences of time and place that molded Bushnell into the socio-religious force she became.
Suffragette
We encounter the women’s suffrage movement in Britain through the eyes of a fictional young woman working in an industrial laundry about 1911–13. Maud Watts is movingly portrayed by Carey Mulligan as she transforms from an overworked laborer, wife, and mother into a woman repeatedly jailed for attending demonstrations.
American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman who Defied the Puritans
As an evangelical feminist, I found fascinating the details of the religious controversies in which [Hutchinson] participated. Are believers “elect” from the beginning of time? Can we know whether we are one of the elect—or whether someone else is? Does sanctification (the outward appearance of grace) prove we are saved, or are outward appearances simply “works,” not evidence of a heart that is right with God?
CBE and EEWC: Sisters after All
Though the biblical basis for women’s equality has been accepted in many churches in the US, there are still denominations that teach gender hierarchy and oppose women pastors, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.
Women’s Bodies as Battlefield: Christian Theology and the Global War on Women
Delving into topics such as the religious, philosophical, and Christian roots of both war and the War on Women allows Thistlethwaite to educate the reader on the complexity of the historical indoctrination surrounding the topics of war and women, without entirely overwhelming those readers who may not yet be aware of the history surrounding these issues.
The Awakening
Well, as a feminist/humanist Christian I can only hope that Kate Chopin’s artistic inspiration carried her farther out and farther in than she herself realized. I also hope that many other feminists will read or re-read this amazing novel and will share their understanding of its significance with one another.
The Feminist Reformation, Episcopal Style
So there we have it: three excellent books celebrating 40 years of an Episcopal feminist reformation. Any one of them, or all together, they will serve to inform and stimulate the minds of Christian feminists everywhere.
The Invention of Wings: A Novel
The combination of engaging fictional narrative with the outlines of the historical record provide an enjoyable means of learning more about the Grimké sisters, the early abolitionist movement, and the early women’s rights movements during this period.
I’ve never been discriminated against as a woman – why all the fuss?
Learn why feminism is still relevant now that there is less blatant discrimination than in the past.
What does EEWC-CFT stand for?
Learn about the meaning of the organization's name.
What we might learn about what comes next, from those who came before
From what I've observed, here in the middle, looking at the work of both generations, I have a suspicion that engagement with those who hold opposing views, at this point, does very little to move our cause forward. The biblical arguments put forth forty years ago are the same ones we are advancing today. We believe them. They don't. All our critique doesn't mean a thing to anyone. And who cares that they can't get their story straight? Clearly Biblical inerrancy or authority hinges on who is doing the talking.
Maggie Anton’s Historical Fiction Novels: “Joheved” and “Apprentice”
... in a class taught by Rachel Adler, Anton fell so in love with the Talmud that she has since written four novels about rabbis who broke with tradition by teaching their daughters the Talmud (i.e., the Oral law, including the Mishnah, that topically arranges all the laws from the Torah, and the Gemara, which records discussions about the meaning of the Mishnah).
A Strange Stirring: “The Feminine Mystique” and American Women at the Dawn of the...
Women who stayed home and raised their families and yet did not feel the corresponding presumed bliss were grateful to Friedan for enabling them to see beyond their self-imposed guilt and their anxieties that 'something was wrong' with them.
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
After detailing the cultural milieu of 1960 America, Collins provides a compelling story of the women’s movement, sometimes unwinding the narrative decade by decade, and sometimes year by year.
Classic Christian Feminist Books
Influential classic Christian feminist books, primarily (though not exclusively) from second-wave Christian feminism's early period (1970s through 1980s)
Compiled by Nancy A. Hardesty, Professor of...
Understanding Opposition to Feminism and What We Can Do about It
I think before we can dialogue with anti-feminists, we first need to try to determine which category they are in. Are they “warriors against feminism” who hate the very idea of gender equality? Or are they “worriers about feminism” who recognize the value in gender equality but are afraid to embrace it because of the falsehoods they have heard?
The Wisdom of Daughters: Two Decades of Christian Feminism
edited by Reta Halteman Finger and Kari Sandhaas.
Innisfree Press: Philadelphia, 2004.
269 pp, $17.95 softcover.
Reviewed by Anne Linstatter
In September, 1974, a daughter was born in Chicago....
Walking with Wisdom’s Daughters: Twelve Celebrations and Stories of Women of Passion and Faith
It is not often that one comes across a worship-related book so richly layered that it becomes a prized resource far beyond the parameters of corporate prayer. This volume, a treasure trove of both scholarship and artistry, is one of those.
Holy Boldness: Women Preachers’ Autobiographies and the Sanctified Self
Using the insights of modern critical work on autobiography as a genre, Stanley explores how the experiences of salvation and sanctification empowered her subjects. Since sanctification required public testimony to it, women were both compelled and theologically sanctioned to speak out.
The Red Tent and Good Harbor by Anita Diamant
In addition to the theme of women's friendships, both novels deal with the theme of choosing a religion... Clearly, the God that women worship and the communities in which women worship their God are unique and bind women, ancient and modern, together in Diamant's world.
Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements
It's amazing to see how our own times' distrust of conventional allopathic medicine and the interest in alternative medicines mirrors a powerful movement of the previous century that looked for healing methods apart from drugs or doctors.
Evangelical Feminism: A History
The academic study of EEWC helps to make certain that the story of biblical feminism will be included in the larger narrative of multivocal feminism in the United States. Each book and each dissertation, however, offers only one version of how to tell the story of biblical feminism.
Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmila Javorova, Ordained Roman Catholic Priest
Perhaps now that a woman has publicly claimed her priesthood, we will recognize ourselves within her story. Perhaps we will find each other and then, one day, like the walls of Jericho, and the Wall in Berlin, the wall between the men and women of the Roman Catholic Church will just come tumbling down.
Blessed the Waters That Rise and Fall to Rise Again
If this organization is to survive and persevere; if we as individuals are going to sustain our work of love and justice, we need to know that behind the ebb and flow of waves and water there is a Power, an Energy, a web of Wisdom we call God, creating, empowering, sustaining. "Blessed the waters that rise and fall to rise again."
Christian Feminism Online: A 1997 Interview with Pat Gundry
"Christian feminists haven’t even begun to tap into the full range of possibilities offered by the Internet, which may be the greatest communication tool ever devised," writes Pat Gundry.
In Memory: Margo Goldsmith, June 3, 1919 – August 24, 2010
Throughout her life, Margo Goldsmith served as a role model in demonstrating what women can achieve and how they can use their achievements to make the world a better place.
Being Feminist, Being Christian: Essays from Academia
... if we are to have engaging dialogue about Christian feminism with its skeptics, we may need to speak a different language, as it were, narrating our own lives’ experiences with faith, with the church, and with Christian institutions rather than speaking only in the realm of academic disciplines.
What Betty Friedan Did and Didn’t Do
Dear Kimberly,
You and I are so much on the same wave length and such good friends that I can’t recall our ever disagreeing, even...
What is the Role of Religious Feminists?
Dear Letha,
In your last letter, you discussed the sad reality that the oppression of women has been intimately interwoven with religious dogma. I would like...
Women, Education, and Expectations
Hi Letha,
Thanks so much for your last letter about “great and not so great expectations” for women.” Right now, I am thinking about how...
The 1968 Beauty Pageant, Women’s History, and “Lookism”
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...
They Didn’t Burn Their Bras!
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...
Faith, Rebellion, and a Larger Story
As a college sophomore I went into the office of my professor of Christian Doctrine, breaking down in tears and telling him why I was going to give up my faith. I could not submit to these expectations of submission and subservience placed on my femininity within the church circles I knew, and I could only assume there was therefore no place for me within Christianity. I was either committed to women’s rights or I was a “Bible-believing” Christian. I could not, surely, be both. (It seems that my black- and-white, either/or thinking, so trained in me by fundamentalism itself, was even at work in my recanting!)
Being a Feminist, Being a Mom (or Not!)
Dear Kimberly,
In this letter and my next one, I'd like to comment on two topics you brought up in your Sept. 24 letter. One...
Work-Family Balance: 1950s and Now
Dear Kimberly,
In my post last week, I promised to tell more of my own story and continue where I left off on July 30...
"Nothing New Under the Sun"
Dear Kimberly,
It's hard to know where to begin in responding to your last letter -- and especially the link to the video in which...
Quakers, Gender Roles, and “Chickified Men”
Dear Letha,
As I sit down to write this letter, I find myself sipping tea, listening to Rachmaninoff, and surrounded by many piles of books...
Human Being, Being Human
Dear Kimberly,
I thought I'd continue our dialogue about our respective readings of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique as we became familiar with it during two different...
“The Feminine Mystique”– Then and Now, Part 2
Dear Letha,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on what your world was like when you first held The Feminine Mystique in your hands. You are right...
The “Feminine Mystique”–Then and Now, Part 1
Since you've set the stage with the story of how we met and began corresponding, Kimberly, I'd like to begin our dialogue with an...
Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Nineteenth Century
Women Called to Witness suggests that the American women who led the battles over temperance, female ordination, abolition, and woman suffrage in the 1800s were motivated by their evangelical Christian faith. In the Second Great Awakening revivals, which touched the lives of each of these female crusaders,
The Message of EWC’s 1980 Saratoga Conference: Love + Justice = Reconciliation
Attenders of EWC's fourth plenary conference, "Women and the Ministry of Reconciliation," heard a strong, repeated challenge to demonstrate their Christian faith by working for justice in a world filled with injustices.
1978 EEWC Conference Recap by Diane R. Jepsen
Information-gathering was a valuable part of the conference, as was sharing in small groups, in conversations. Women talked of the relief of being with other women who are serving and trying to deliberately follow Jesus Christ.
Latest Posts on CFT
Damaris of Athens
September 2023 Poetry Selection
Damaris peered into alleyways, stumbled along porticos,
her eyes enflamed by the hot light of stones...
Damaris peered into alleyways, stumbled along porticos,
her eyes enflamed by the hot light of stones...
