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Measuring Women's Power
Does religion empower people, including women? Sometimes. But, as often, it oppresses. As well you could ask if economics or education or art or politics empowers or oppresses. The answer is the same: sometimes. So what makes a nonsensical question commonsensical when applied to religion and to religious women?
Religion, especially Christian religion, has a bad reputation in feminist circles of whatever definition. As the brilliant Elizabeth Cady Stanton opined more than 100 years ago: "The real difficulty in woman's case is that the whole foundation of the Christian religion rests on her temptation and man's fall. . . As the chief cause of this dire calamity, woman's degradation and subordination were made a necessity." The conveners of California's Women's Conference, too, don't seem to have much confidence in religion's contribution to women. Only Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister is included on a dais comprised of political, business and media leaders.
Chittister is an interesting choice for the California conference and not only because of her uniquely religious credentials. She is an accomplished figure: author, organizer, and leader. More significant to our question, she promotes a form of contemporary spirituality not appreciated by the orthodox. And, she may be most famous for her public clashes with Catholic authorities over their refusal to ordain women and over their disciplining Catholics who support decriminalization of abortion. Chittister is a powerful woman and that power is often expressed in resistance to the power structures of her own religion.
Evidence of resistance is the near universal way of measuring women's power. If women's "subordination [is] a necessity" of Christianity, their empowerment within Christianity can only be evidenced by acts of resistance or rebellion to their status relative to men. The logic is persuasive, but ultimately it fails to explain the variety of women's religious experience, their continuing choice to be religiously affiliated, and their explicit protestations of personal fulfillment and social empowerment.
Some women are empowered by their religious choices; some are not. This situation begs for a more nuanced question if we have any hope of finding an answer. More urgent than an open mind, however, is the need to recognize the complexity of power, that it need not always be defined in terms of dominion or "power over." "Power to" is equally as definitive of human agency, of fruitful self-assertion, and, yes, of empowerment as the capacity to effect change.
By
Kathleen Flake
|
October 27, 2008; 12:16 AM ET
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Posted by: Paganplace | October 28, 2008 5:50 PM
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It seems to me, Ms. Flake, that much of this kind of discussion revolves around some artificial dichotomy: Either Women Must Be Forced Into Women's Work And Breeding Or Women Must Do 'Valueless' Women's Work, Breed, *And* 'Compete' With Men At A Disadvantage.
I think the real way out of this silliness for society is to recognize, that yes, traditional 'Women's work' *is* real work, and that rearing and raising children *is* real work, *but* that one needn't be forced into it and be 'complementary' to a male for there to be any value to the female sex.
That's *ludicrous* when you spell it out, but people *don't.*
People trying to enforce monotheistic, monolithic moralisms try to set these things at odds, or else say, 'No, ladies, you can 'have it all,' both compete at horrific disadvantages with males who get paid more for less work *and* go home and blame music for any disappointing results in mandatory child-rearing.'
It's why they love Palin for having enough money to dismiss her pregnant teen daughter with a 'Just say no' 'abstinence only' line and when that fails, blame outer society and pressure a (theological at least) shotgun wedding,
....But if you're a *poorer* single mother, they want to criminalize the results of their ideological laziness and say resulting mothers and children are SOL when it comes to obeying their wishes.
Now.
In a conservative world, I had to 'prove' I could be independent by making my way in fields I wasn't really interested in, in order to *not* fall into the 'lesser' roles a queer girl's supposed to occupy in that scheme.
Everyone wonders why there's no good teachers, for instance, but financial disincentives aside, but try to get on a track to teach high school, and certain Christians'll flip out at you ...blacklist you, for *not* dividing your attention between educating a future generation, getting certified, *and* raising a litter of your very own.
It's not about a 'glass ceiling,' it's about someone greasing perfectly ordinary stairs and making you run a gauntlet up em.
It's not about 'Should women be forced into certain roles so we can say they're valued,' ...It's about recognizing the value of work, whoever does it.
Not trying to define people's value as adults by what the doctor saw when he or she looked at your crotch when you popped out into the cold and bright. ;)