feminist anthropology

Beginning to read a year's worth of Godey's Magazine for women from 1896 has set me on a little research tangent. It is at first remarkable simply to read about conceptions of the "new woman," or independently thinking, outward peering woman of the late nineteenth century:

"The new woman of today represents the first great intellectual harvest which has ripened since that seed-sewing long ago. Old prejudices, one after another, have been overgrown, smothered with the ever-strengthening force of woman's intellectual power, until there hardly remains to-day an old original obstacle which has not been overcome; and the development, gathering force as it grows, is destined to uplift the race to heights undreamed of." (p. 23, Godey's Magazine, January, 1896)

But, after looking at the various articles on the modern woman for several minutes, I began to sense a unique authorial voice. I looked at the names of the writers. They were largely men. The articles I've skimmed so far are "The New Woman, Athletically Considered," "The New Woman in Office" (meaning merely to have a job outside the home), and "Music in America: The Women Composers." The first may have been written by a woman, as the author's first name is listed only as "W.," but the others have decidedly male voices - male voices that wonder at the strange and newly discovered talents and strengths of women, so long held captive by their households. It is clear that I have access to a document that presents a very interesting crossroads in women's rights and feminist theory. Women have jobs, but only men record it. Women compose successful pieces, but only men critique them.

The document I have represents the first wave of feminism in the U.S. I find it baffling that women can hold high positions in their communities at this time, but still don't have the right to vote.

I was talking to Daniel this morning about how disappointed I am in myself from day to day. He suggested I pursue independent research of some kind (of course it's a man telling me what to do). He asked me why I think women have historically submitted to patriarchy. My hypothesis from a biological or anthropological standpoint, I suppose, is that all humans have a desire for power and that men are more physically capable of demanding it in the sense that they tend to be stronger, larger, and more physically aggressive than women. I've going to start with a collection of anthropological studies, not all of them specific to gender.

So far on my list are:
The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
Writing Women's Worlds, Lila Abu-Lughod
The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan
The Western Illusion of Human Nature, Marshall Sahlins

I'm sure there are tons of others that may be more useful than these, but I want to read a few of the books and writings that were most transformative for the field before I delve into more specific readings.

meaning

I want to live a full and meaningful life. I want it so badly that every moment I'm not doing something meaningful, I'm waging a silent verbal battle against myself for being lazy, incompetent, and unmotivated. Each morning, I wake up and lay in bed thinking about what the day holds. I dread getting up because I know that, as soon as I do, I am fully responsible for how my day turns out. When I finally do get up, I am angry with myself for sleeping in too long. I worry that I won't get the things done I obligated myself to complete. Whether I get everything done or not, I feel like I should have done more.

A girl in my small group told me my problem sounds like the plight of the intellectual, meaning that I'm so driven to pursue intellectually stimulating activities that I can't allow myself to sit still. It's a hidden compliment, but it doesn't really resolve the problem. The fact is that I have always been disappointed in myself; being in school doesn't change that; being out of it certainly hasn't. To live a full and meaningful life I need to start seeing the beauty of spare time, moments of inactivity, and thinking in bed. Don't they contribute to a well-lived life?

I am often rather nostalgic about my freshman and sophomore years of college. I've let go of the romance for the most part because it is not useful to dwell on a hazy and exaggerated narrative of the past. But I do think I was in a stage in my life where I naturally accepted the beauty of just sitting on grass or talking to a friend or writing a poem about what I had for lunch. As I've grown more self-aware, I've turned inward to the point that seeing sun-dappled leaves out of my window can't overshadow the nagging feeling that I'm not good enough.

It does make my heart a little warmer to be able to contribute something higher than fashion to the blogging world as of late. This blog will always be more meaningful to me than someone's water lily. To be honest, I'm about to give up on making the other blog popular or monetarily successful.

an explanation

For those of you who read my fragmented previous post on someone's water lily in puzzlement, I apologize. The college minister at our church lost his parents in a car accident on Friday. His daughter, who is three, was in the car and as a result suffered head trauma and other internal injuries.

My first response was horror, that chaotic wave of confusion and sadness. I spent much of last weekend brooding over both the weight of grief the family must be experiencing and over the fickle nature of life and death. I'm a bit terrified to drive at all, because the accident could not have been predicted or prevented by his parents. It was completely out of their control. And for the first time in a long time, I became afraid of death.

I tend to operate from day to day on the idea that as long as I have long term obligations I will have to live long enough to see them through. But the truth is that death is not respectful of commitments; it does not choose on the basis of merit; it makes no distinctions at all - we personify it so often we've started to think it actually has the ability to rationalize. As I stated in my previous post, we forget that we are not living out predictable narratives. We are not the protagonist in a formulaic tale who, almost by definition, cannot get killed before the falling action. We are people, among a billion, who interact with our environment and with one another on a daily basis - always moving, always at risk.

The only thing I can figure is that the way to move on is to stop asking the irrelevant question, "Why?" and get on with this task of living with no certainty of tomorrow - of living only with the certainty that God is watching if not controlling our motions, that some joy may grow from the ashes of grief.

Please pray for my friend's family and for the full recovery of his daughter.

on Christian feminism

I originally posted this on someone's water lily, but I also wanted to file it here:

Feminism is not about saying, "I don't want to submit." It's about saying, "I take full responsibility for myself as a thinking adult."

Sometimes, oftentimes, it baffles me that the fight for gender equality in the church is still going on. Women are educated, willing to take on leadership roles outside the church, and responsible for themselves. Daniel recently stumbled upon the Baptist Women for Equality blog. I am so happy he found it; it's nice to know women in conservative denominations are taking a stand. It enlightened me to some of the hateful things people are saying. "They've Stolen Jesus! Will you help us find him?" is particularly enraging. In it, John Piper is quoted as saying: "You are just like the homosexual; right desire, wrong gender." I'm not going to get into the church's view on homosexuality in this post, but it hits particularly hard to insult two groups of persecuted people in one sentence by using them against each other.

I know no one who thinks women shouldn't be leaders in the church considers this argument valid, likely because it actually makes sense, but there are a number of things that are considered culturally and historically contextual in the Bible. Examples include polygamy and slavery. Cultural norms change over time. Social relationships grow and develop. Whether you like it or not, you are interpreting the Bible through layers of contexts, conversations, and narratives.

Plus, the New Testament says that under the banner of Christ, societal barriers are disbanded. If all are equal in his eyes, they should be equal in his church's - his body on earth - eyes. Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were transformative. They were meant to bring about positive change. Women have, for centuries, been at the forefront of positive change in the church and elsewhere by sneaking into leadership roles and joining forces. Why are we still arguing about whether women can be leaders when they clearly have the inborn qualities to be movers and shakers, when they clearly already are?

I know more about religious history, comparative religions, and ethics than most pastors who have taught over me. Am I supposed to share it with only other women? Am I not called to share my knowledge with everyone in the church? That's the whole point of a community.

I am a Christian and I am a feminist. Feminism isn't man hating. It isn't anti-femininity. It isn't naive or stubborn or prideful. It is the acknowledgement that I have a voice that should be heard, that I have a brain that should be exercised, that I have responsibilities to call my own, that God made me equal.

Separate but equal is a falsehood. If that were the way God intended it to be, I would have to find a different God.

written on my trip to Chicago

I wrote this in a Catholic cemetery outside Chicago on August 13, 2009 and just discovered it in a journal:

The silenced sleep as
the EL screeches on
its track, carrying the tardy
to Wrigley field.
This cemetery is not a town
it is a cathedral in
purgatory
where the dead grow
old waiting for Heaven -
stained glass enshrines Mary
and her tormented, savior
son. Stone angels bow
at her feet, this queen
of the Catholic deceased
Irish born and Chicago raised.
You strip the dry, northern grass
and hundreds, thousands
a congregation of suited, flowered, good
Catholics crossing
themselves in dirt and darkness
waiting for their promise of infinite light.

tree tops

If I were God, or a giant,
I would, primarily,
brush the palm
of my large right hand
against the bristly brush
of the lizard green
tree tops.

march.

skirt

Fluttering, ballooning, brushing, blooming -
whispering kisses over bare skin
like parched leafy appendages tossed in the wind
or flowering bushes fragrant and looming



I love

shade and light
squinted eyes