Equally Shared Parenting · Half the Work … All the Fun

Equally Shared Parenting · Half the Work … All the Fun

I thought some of you might be interested in this website.

why the “christian” qualifier?

In another online conversation I had recently, the question came up of why we need “christian” feminism, why can’t we just be “feminism”?

This was part of my reply and I wanted to post this also to provide a forum for discussion of this. Feel free to add to my explanation or challenge me on it or completely disagree :)

I would say that “christian feminism” is a label for an approach to feminism within the christian sphere, I’m not sure I would say that “christian feminist” as a label for a person is really used. We all call ourselves feminists…and we happen to be christians.

christian feminism as a label for a conversation is a way for christians to talk about a kind of feminism that is very aware and respectful of Scripture, holding the Bible in high authority and a valid and adequate guide toward a feminist response to issues of gender and sexuality in culture. So yes, this is different from feminism in other spheres but not exclusive in any way.

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the world handicapped by half

**crosspost from my blog

This came in my reader today, it’s fantastic and I encourage you to read the whole thing. 

A world whose favored thesis just a few years ago read, “the personal is political” is now chasing the idea that “the global is local.” Conferences on global change, global development, global needs, global politics, global economics and global agendas swirl around the planet.And yet, little changes.

The question is why? And the answer is hiding in plain sight.These conferences will never solve the major problems facing the human community because half the human community is being left out of the conversation. Half the wisdom of the world is being ignored. Half the concerns of the human race are not even being taken into consideration. Half the resources of the world, women, are not being tapped to solve the problems that face us all.Both halves are suffering from our failure to approach both problems and solutions from the vantage point of the entire human race.

The fact is that the experience and insights of women are glaringly and regularly absent from global conferences that purport to be concerned with both the problems the world faces and their possible solutions.

We are not going to change the world by repeating old and ineffective answers over and over again while leaving new ones out of consideration.

The world’s greatest, untapped alternative resource: women | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

* note: when I say “church” in the following piece, I mean the church with which I have experience, the conservative, evangelical church in America.

I have had women ask me why I care so much about women being in leadership positions in churches, they often will say things like “we should be humble and we shouldn’t care about titles anyway”.  So I will say that this is the main reason why I insist on continuing to push back the patriarchalism (aka complementarianism) that still dominates the American Christian landscape.

We as Christians should be the loudest voice for justice and mercy, we should be the loudest voice in ensuring that women around the world give their voices wings, we cannot do this when our churches are run by elder boards that are 100% male, when the person “up front” is always male and when 99% of what goes on in the church is ultimate determined by those “lucky” enough to be born with reproductive organs on the outside. In the best case scenario, those men will at least pay attention to the women in their congregations, the Sunday School teachers, the wives of the leaders, the singers, etc. But more often than not, churches are crippled by losing the input, leadership and gifts of half of their population.

Ultimately, it’s more important to me that women around the globe are heard so they and their children can receive humane treatment, clean water, shelter and property rights, decent health care and enough food to sustain them and my little annoying experiences in the American church pale in comparison to those issues -  however, in order to care about those issues, I must also address the manipulation of Scripture for the benefit of male power in my local area of influence – the Christian church, so that women here can help women there.

I genuinely believe that one of the major reasons women and children concerns across the globe are not given proper attention in our local churches is because the decisions about where the money goes and what the preaching is about are made by primarily and often exclusively by men. I believe this is a major reason why the mainline has been better at addressing these issues esp. in the last couple of decades – they have had more of a female presence in the decision-making processes.

I have also had women ask why I don’t just leave evangelicalism for good and join a group that embraces women more fully and then leave conservative evangelicals to their own devices – that’s a very simplistic question in a very complex issue. The main answer to that is because, as in politics, I’m not a one issue voter. But trust me, if it weren’t so hard to get ordained in most mainline denominations, I would probably do just that.

In this week of women, I want to challenge my women readers to give their voice wings, to find a cause where they can help other women find their voice and I want to challenge men to critique their own views of women, power, leadership, etc. in the religious and secular world as well as the home.

And to my fellow women – SHINE ON!

Tags: feminism, women, joan chittister, equity

Our stories matter – giving voice to Kathleen

This was in the comments of my question about disrespect for those who have gone before and Kathleen gave me permission to post it as its own post. Our stories matter, they need to be heard, especially when our voices have been silenced and they are all we have.

by Kathleen M. Ball (reprinted with minor edits with permission)

I first have to say that I am very, very thankful that there is a website such as this. I have only fairly recently become a feminist and I sometimes find it a bit difficult to reconcile it with my Christian faith, but as difficult as it is, I have found greater freedom and reward than I ever thought possible.

I was one of the new generation which did not appreciate the sacrifices of the women before me–the women who made it possible for me to vote, to get a college education, to make a life for myself independent of male authority, to be accounted a person and not a piece of property. Growing up, I had mixed teachings on the role of women. My mother mostly had to raise me and my brother on her own because my father was in the Navy and so was gone most of the time, and I think that had a lot to do with why I was able to so easily become a feminist in my 20s. However, the same sort of impression still remain: women were subject to men, a woman’s main role was that of wife and mother, women could not be ordained (I still struggle with this one), women had to be chaste, etc.

True, I was taught that I could have a life of my own, but it was always made clear that I would one day marry and have children. However, while I was all right with the idea of marriage, I was never all right with the idea of having children and relinquishing everything I was for their sake. Selfish, maybe, but I have always been sort of independent and now that I have new direction in life, I am even more reluctant to have children. College is truly wonderful. After a course in Literary Criticism (I am a double major in English and History), I was made more fully aware of the feminist movement and what it did. I finally knew the truth. Growing up, feminism was sort of an anathema on par with everything else conservatives fear and with everything a Christian should fear. I found out that it was all false. There is very little to fear from feminism and very much to glean from it.

However, my real “conversion” was last semester. I took a course on women and literature from a professor who I have come to know and respect almost as a second mother. That course changed my life because it opened my eyes to everything that the patriarchal, misogynist Church had done and how I had fallen for it all hook, line, and sinker. I came to terms with my own rebellious feelings towards the feminine mystique which had characterized the fundamentalist and biased teachings of my youth and I realized that I had, all along, been a feminist without realizing it. Feminism was not my enemy, I realized, but it was my ally. I have come to treasure that ally and I have to say that it has actually improved my relationship with God. It has forced me to see Him in a new light, to look at His Word again to see for myself what He says and to see what the patriarchal theologians have deliberately misinterpreted for centuries upon centuries.

Sadly, many other young women suffer from the delusions and the prisons built around them by the extreme conservatives. As wonderful as the homeschooling movement is–I certainly benefited from it as a homeschooled student–I have seen within this movement the strongest enemies of feminism. As much as it provides educational freedom, it also allows extreme conservatives to try to put women back into the dark ages. Home economics courses abound, and while I have no problem with this since home economics is a very useful thing to know, these courses often go too far and place women back into a Victorian, feminine mystique-like existence and say that such an existence is necessary for true believers and for a truly Christian life.

I have had at least two friends in the past who have only wanted to get married and have children, even though one of them was smart enough to get a full ride scholarship. One of these friends, to the best of my knowledge has refused to learn how to drive and to leave her parents’ house as a result of this belief system. She is so brilliant and she could do so much, but she squanders it. The other blindly followed whatever her parents taught her and last I heard, she hadn’t completed high school. It’s sobering to think I could have become like that. God is very good. He gave me a new chance and He gave me peace–a peace that I have been searching for, even without realizing it. But, yes, I do see a disturbing trend to dismiss feminism as a dead cause.

The only question now, is where to go next, what battle to fight next. I think that is our generation’s greatest decision. Whatever battle it is, as long as it pleases God, I will be as much a part of it as possible. My ambition is to be a college professor somewhere in the English field and regardless of what my concentration is (I am leaning more towards a Renaissance concentration) I have pledged to myself and I pledge to my fellow women that I will try to spread the truth of feminism and try to break down the stereotypes which surround it in the fundamentalist community.

Tags: feminism, christian feminism

disrespect for the women who came before

I’m writing a lot on here…I guess I had more to say lately than I though hehe…

Please don’t let me monopolize but I’ve really enjoyed the discussion so I thought I’d keep the momentum going.

So I was talking with the mom of one of my daughter’s friends at a recent play date and we got to discussing politics and religion. She’s Episcopalian, a liberal and about 15 years older than me. She said something I thought was very well put and something I had not thought of. She grew up “watching women’s liberation unfold on TV” and she talked about how disturbed she is at the rise of the young, conservative, mostly evangelical women who proudly shout about male headship and female submission…from a college campus where they’re receiving a masters degree.

She said it’s an insult to the women who fought for the rights of women in this country, for the right of those very same women to attend that very same campus and get that coveted masters degree so they could actually have a chance at getting hired. Young women who know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of what it means to be in an oppressed system are now encouraging even younger women and girls to place themselves “under submission” of men, to do things like the pastor suggests in my other post – allow their boyfriend to firm up the boundaries in their relationship. She was passionate about her frustration and I don’t blame her. It’s a perspective I hadn’t thought of being young myself and enjoying the benefits of a revolution I did not have to fight in.

Have any of you experienced this new conservatism? Specifically with very young women? Is it because they were raised by radical feminists and suffered because of it? Is it because they have to have SOME WAY to rebel? Do you see it as something we should be concerned about or is it the typical swinging of the pendulum?

She also said she is waiting to see a new generation of hippies rise up. Hehe… I had to laugh because we always say that had our 5.5 year old been born in that generation, she likely would have been a pacifist hippie flower child. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not naive enough to think that “women’s lib” did no wrong (that’s a discussion for another day) but the fear of “going back” is very real for women like my friend who also has 2 daughters the age of my girls.

modesty as evangelism?

I’m curious to know what you all feel about this. I was going to blog about it on my blog but thought I’d get some good conversation here.

Anna is on the daily scribe – an aggregate of Christian writers that I am also a member of. She’s a wonderful young woman with a big heart so this isn’t knocking her at all and she’s not shy about her conservative, male headship ideals and I’m not shy about how much I disagree with her hehe… So I want to focus on this IDEA rather than on HER. She just happened to be the one to blog about it but I know it’s not a unique idea.

single Christian women don’t want sex?

Some guys at my CLB (church left behind – conservative, charismatic, word of faith, evangelical) started a website called comanionship.com – now, before I go any further, I’m curious to know what first comes to your mind when you hear that name.

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ok moving on hehe

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I usually don’t read there because it’s the same old tune – men are the head, there are godly gender roles and this is what they are, men like video games and fixing heating and air conditioning systems, men shouldn’t act like women…blah blah blah… but I get curious sometimes esp. since I know most of these men from my 3 years in “leadership” at that church.

The pastor posted a piece recently about men as the head and what that means in a dating relationship – basically he was saying that it’s the man’s responsibility to put the breaks on, that he needs to set the boundaries (which is disturbing to me but let’s assume he means that in a healthy Christian dating relationship and that the boundaries are respectful and healthy).

The whole premise of the piece concerns me but it’s this one sentence I wanted to talk about (and I *do* mean talk about – I really would like your input).

100% of the time I am convinced that a girl really does not really want sex. Fearfully she uses sex to keep you from leaving the relationship

ok, now first of all I’m not sure it’s too smart to say 100% of the time for anything esp. when talking about people. I’m not sure you can say that anything is 100% of anything when talking about people. But really?! 100% of the time the girl doesn’t really want sex?! Really?!

Was I just a horny girl or do some of you other women think that’s an ill-informed statement? And does anyone else find this view and approach to sexuality in singleness a bit disconcerting?