women

Notable News: Week of September 29-October 5, 2012

Blogs, Cool Stuff, Doctrine, Faith and Spirituality, Gender Roles, LGBTQ+, Links, Music, News, Women

Lots of around-the-web goodness for you all today. This week’s best posts are all over the map for content. Enjoy!

1. Roger E. Olson on “Evangelical Inquisitions”

This timely post is spot-on about the way that some Christians like to play Doctrine Police with other Christians. At our house, we call it doctrinal purity. It’s the idea that there is one absolutely correct way to interpret Scripture and if you don’t do it that way, you are in error and must be disciplined. I have to admit, I’m not fond of the term “evangelical” in this context. This is not necessarily a hallmark of evangelicalism, only of extreme conservativism. There are plenty of wonderful evangelicals who hold Scripture in high regard but don’t adhere to a strictly conservative reading. Rachel Held Evans, Brian McLaren, and Mel White come to mind, for example.

Which brings me to…

2. Denny Burke is an idiot

Or at least he isn’t very kind to Christianity Today’s article on women to watch. Instead of appreciating the diversity of women on the list, he goes off on how CT didn’t do enough to highlight the differences in belief about women’s roles. Well, of course, Burke, you fool. The point of the CT article was to honor Christian women and what they’re doing, not point out their doctrinal error (see above). I don’t normally read the comments, but the first comment says, “Rachel Held Evans — what do you mean, ‘non-evangelical’?” This got my attention, so I read on—only to discover a long, long discussion about whether Rachel Held Evans is or is not evangelical. Because that’s the real point, of course.

And speaking of women…

3. Slacktivist shreds Kent Shaffer

Oh, Slacktivist. You are so many, many kinds of awesome. This post quotes Shaffer’s disgusting response to Christian women bloggers and links every single word to a blog written by a woman. And in case you missed my mad tweeting about it, I’m on that list too! (It’s in the last set of links, the final word “always.”) I am honored to be counted among the likes of Alise Write, Andrea Cumbo, Grace, Kimberly Knight, Crystal St. Marie Lewis, and others. Many thanks to my cousin for pointing this out to me, I would have missed it otherwise. (And double points for this being posted on my birthday!)

4. If only

If only this were a sign that Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill were moving into the 21st century. I agree with this woman’s points, but I doubt that her actual presentation at Mars Hill will be anything outside of the narrowly defined roles that church expects from women. Still, nice to see another woman who doesn’t like women’s conferences.

5. On juggling

Shannon M. Howell says it nicely. We all have a lot of plates to keep in the air. If anyone figures it out, please email me. I’ll get to your message sometime next month.

6. Boy Scouts of America are idiots too

And right here, folks, is exactly why my son is not a boy scout. (Not that he is or isn’t gay, but I won’t give my money to an organization that actively discriminates against people who are non-het and non-religious.) Keeping a hard-working kid from being awarded his Eagle Scout is just not cool, I don’t care what your policies are. Seriously, BSA? Get a new hobby. Also, if your kid is a scout, sorry, but I’m not buying your popcorn.

7. Jonathan Zeng: heartache and hope

This piece is beautifully written. It breaks my heart that there is still such discrimination against people for who they are. At the same time, Zeng captures the spirit of creativity and working out our pain. I am reminded again of the importance of standing alongside people in the midst of trials. I hope that we are teaching our children to do the same.

I hope you all have a great weekend, see you Monday for the next installment of 50 Shades!

Notable News: Week of September 22-28, 2012

Cool Stuff, Links, News

Not so awesome this week in terms of progress towards women’s equality. We make up half the population, so why aren’t we making up half the featured blogs and authors lists? More classic examples of “Men are universal, women are specific.” Also, a just-for-fun article from the BBC news magazine (hey, I can’t just depress you all, for heaven’s sake!).

1. The title says it all

Insert major eye roll here. This article, Jeffrey Eugenides: I don’t know why Jodi Picoult is bellyaching, is an exercise in stupidity. It starts off just fine, a discussion of Eugenides’ work and his latest novel. Read it if you like; it’s long and not terribly interesting. About two-thirds of the way through, it turns into a random bashing of Jodi Picoult and a bizarre conversation about the way works by men and women are received. To refer to Picoult as “bellyaching” reminds me a lot of the way women who rise up against our inequality are usually branded as “shrill,” “bitchy,” or “whiny.” Eugenides says that Picoult isn’t “starved for attention,” as though that’s what she was after in her criticism of review coverage of women. Good going, guys. You just proved her point.

2. Gender bias and Facebook

Oh, goody. So it’s not okay to be a racist, but it is okay to be a misogynist? Well, gee. Hey, women? I think we need to fight harder against this kind of thing. Slut-shaming? Not cool. Using pictures of strangers without their permission? Not cool. Facebook pages about punching women? Not cool. And again…we make up half the population. How is it that we haven’t stopped this shit yet? Let’s get busy making sure that it gets taken down.

3. Keep digging, Kent Shaffer

Last week I was critical of Dianna Anderson’s post about privilege. This week, I am once again in her debt for voicing exactly what needed to be said in exactly the right way. She offers two posts in response to Kent Shaffer’s Open Letter to Women Blogs, which you can read here and here. Shaffer seems to think that there aren’t enough popular “church” blogs written by women to make up—again with the 50% thing—half the list of top blogs. Of course, the definition of “church” blog is pretty nebulous, and, as is typical, the idea is still that men are—you got it—universal, while women are special. And of course, we who make up 5o freakin’ percent of the population are eager to read only blogs by white men. Gah.

Finally, before I get too worked up about this, I offer you…

4. Britishisms in American casual speak

Apparently, we Americans are letting common British terms and phrases creep into our own speech. While I think it’s fun to take note of the ways in which our language may be changing or blending, I think this particular article is kind of…crap. For example, I’ve never considered the term “sell-by date” to be particularly British, especially since I’ve used it, oh, since my own childhood. Friends who are from/have been to England assure me that the common term is “expiry date” (though if anyone has another experience, by all means, let me know). Also, whoever wrote this seems blissfully unaware that there is indeed still some lingering prejudice here toward people we would call redheads (but are referred to as “gingers” across the pond). According to the article, there’s been an “uptick” of people using the word “ginger,” possibly attributed to Harry Potter (again, someone can correct me here, but I don’t think the word appears in the American versions of the books). Ah, well. The article is still an interesting read, and it doesn’t change the fact that UK English has better slang than US English, as you can see here and here.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

That which makes us men (and women)

Gender Identity

boy as a girl — Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856-1931), Sicilian dress (a boy disguised as a girl). Taormina, circa 1895.

Over the weekend, I read two blog posts, both of which contained phrases that made me cringe a little. Overall, I liked the posts. I thought both writers had good things to say. So my desire is not to be critical of the bloggers or their opinions. And I do understand the place they were coming from, given the fact that it’s really hard to think outside a small circle of personal experience. I also want to be sensitive to this issue of privilege, especially after turning my critical eye on a fellow blogger for how she treated the problem.

But here it is: Both blog posts had obviously cisnormative bias in their writing. Probably unintentionally so.

In the first, About a Boy, Meg Lawton talks with her son about the harsh words used against him at school. It is otherwise a beautiful, wise, gentle post both about the nurturing of our children and about the feelings we as parents experience when our children are hurting. But it contained the unfortunate phrase,

The only thing that makes you a boy, is your penis.

The second post was The church is not feminised – blow your noses on your man sized tissues and get over yourselves! The blogger, Jenny, writes about the tendency of some men (ahem) to complain that the church has been emasculated. I don’t entirely agree with her theology, but she makes a good point: Since men still have the bulk of power in the church, they can’t complain about it becoming “feminized.” This post, too, had a phrase that bothered me:

If you have a penis you’re a man.

Not to sound like I’m obsessed with penises, but what the heck, people?

Neither of the statements made by these bloggers is strictly true. Certainly, it’s true most of the time. But not all. It isn’t the penis that makes one a man. There is more than one reason a man might not have a penis, and more than one reason a person with a penis might not be a man.

As I said, I can entirely understand the bias of the writers. In their experience, the people around them are likely to be cisgender, and they are probably unaware of anyone whose medical condition necessitated the removal of the penis. They probably don’t know (or don’t think they know) anyone intersexed. So of course they are going to speak from that perspective. And in the case of the first post, Ms Lawton was also dealing with how to help her non-gender-conforming children process the world around them, which in itself is admirable.

In reading these posts, it occurred to me that I don’t have any idea what makes us men or women. Obviously, I personally don’t believe it’s the presence or absence of certain genitalia. Nor do I think it has anything to do with our interests. I have two non-conforming children, yet both of them (at least at this point) seem pretty clear that their outsides match their insides in terms of gender. So what does make us men or women or both or neither?

I don’t think I could tell you, even for myself. Because I’ve never had to struggle with this personally, I’ve never even had to think about it. I am the possessor of breasts and a uterus; I also just feel like a woman. Yet I wouldn’t be any less of one if I lost my breasts or uterus to cancer. I might miss those parts, but not because I had suddenly become a man without them.

It’s probably something worth considering, especially if I want to be able to understand how others think and feel. It’s worth figuring out why I feel so distinctly womanly, in the same way it was worth thinking about why I feel attracted only to men. (I think this exercise is worth it for any area of our lives in which we differ from someone else, in order to better understand their experiences.)

If anyone wants to chime in, feel free. When you think about your masculinity/femininity, what makes you feel that way? Is it just a matter of “knowing” who you are, or is there something specific?

Notable News: Mutuality Edition, Week of June 1-8, 2012

Blogs, Cool Stuff, Doctrine, Gender Roles, Links, News, Relationships

My apologies for posting this so late in the day. Here are my favorites from the week of synchroblogging inspired by the week of mutuality.

1. First, kudos to Rachel Held Evans for her outstanding work. She will be continuing to post over the weekend, so be sure to check out what else she has in store (including her own highlights of the best). Her series has been fantastic. Here are the posts, in order of appearance:

2. Christian Marriage: Fail? Pam Hogeweide is one of my favorite bloggers. In her post My Failed Christian Marriage, she talks about the struggle to fit the ideal for Christian marriage and the joy in finding freedom from those restraints.

3. Fabulosity on Alise Wright’s blog. Another blogger I just can’t get enough of. First, Alise catches our attention by reminding us that You Don’t Have to Take Your Clothes Off to Be Egalitarian. Then, she has the always wonderful Sarah Moon share her thoughts on Too Much in a fantastic guest post. If you don’t read anything else, read these posts!

4. A couple of men weigh in. I always like the way Travis Mamone shares his heart. This post is a good way to introduce some deeper theological constructs without getting bogged down with terminology; it’s nicely put. Through the trending topic #mutuality2012 on Twitter, I discovered Jonathan Aigner’s post sorry, little girl: a patriarchal response. Great thoughts on the deficiency of the female gender and faithfully following God’s gifts in our own lives without causing guilt in others.

5. The Best of the Rest. I could go on and on, listing everything I like and why. Instead, I will simply list the several other posts that I found meaningful. Even though we’re all writing on the same thing, each person has a unique voice, an interesting perspective. What an amazing week it’s been!

Sarah Bessey, In which you are loved and you are free
Jennifer Luitwieler, Women Preach and Men do VBS
word of a woman, When Did I Become Such A Dangerous Woman?

Feel free to leave a comment with any blog posts you like on the subject of mutuality/egalitarianism, whether they’re from this week or not. Don’t forget to link to your own if you wrote something!

I don’t want to be a man.

Gender Roles

The idea that men are superior to women reminds me of a blog post from many moons ago. The post itself, about women in leadership, was ho-hum. But the comments were interesting. Among them was a discussion that ran along these lines:

He:

Women in leadership really just want to be men.

She:

Unless you’re talking about transpeople, that’s not true. We want to do the same jobs, but we don’t want to be men.

He:

Yes, you do.

The thing is, I have no idea what that means, “you want to be men.” It sounds vaguely Freudian. We all just wish we had the Fabulous Power of the Penis. There seems to be this idea that there is something magical about testosterone that makes men capable of certain things, and women just can’t do them. Well, I have two things to say about that. One, there is nothing (aside from producing sperm) that a man can do that a woman can’t, and there’s nothing a woman can do (aside from growing and breastfeeding a baby) that a man can’t do. Not that we’re interchangeable, just that in terms of capability, we can absolutely do all the same things. (And research bears this out, there is almost nothing different between the brains of men and the brains of women, among other non-differences.)

Two, I do not now, nor have I ever, wanted to be a man.

I don’t want to shave every day. I don’t want to have to wear a tie to work. I definitely don’t want any dangly bits between my legs, that sounds . . . awkward and uncomfortable. I absolutely think men’s bodies are beautiful (my husband’s in particular), but I don’t want to be in possession of one.

I like being a woman.

I like the things my body can do. I didn’t enjoy pregnancy, but I sure did like the fact that my body could grow a kid. I like having breasts. I like having a husband who enjoys them, and I like that they were extremely useful for feeding a kid in the dead of night without getting up. Sure, there are things about being a woman I could do without. But overall, I wouldn’t want to be any other way.

What I do want is to be valued as a human being. I do want it acknowledged that womanhood does not make me less as a person. I also want women everywhere to be able to have the jobs they want, the sexuality they want, and the families they want. I want women to know they don’t need a man to do the rescuing, that they are capable of fighting the dragon alone, with their friends, or as equal partners with their spouses. I want girls to be encouraged to study math, science, and technology. I want girls to grow up knowing they can be brain surgeons or CEOs or construction workers or world-class orchestral conductors. I want women acknowledged in the church as “God’s fellow workers,” and that their hormones and vaginas don’t disqualify them from pastoral leadership.

And guess what? I want them to be able to do all this as women. Not as men in disguise, or wannabe men, or people men think wish they were men. I want women to do all those things not in spite of being women, but because women are just as qualified. I don’t want women esteemed above men, I want men and women to be treated equally with respect.

You know what else I want? I want men to stop believing that those women who are ambitious and driven “want to be men.” Ambition and drive are not male-exclusive traits. Do you men who say those things have any idea—any at all—how demeaning that is? It’s not good for women, because it implies that men are superior. It’s not good for men, because not all men have the leadership qualities and personality traits you associate with masculinity. And it’s certainly not good for transpeople, who are already marginalized and misunderstood. So stop it. Stop saying it. Stop posting it on web sites. Stop believing it.

Women, if this is you, and you’ve been victimized by this kind of language, then let’s make our voices heard. We can’t just sit idly by and allow anyone to think that we just “want to be men.” Men, if you consider this shameful behavior on the part of your fellow men, then say something! Misogynous men need to know they don’t speak for you. If they go on thinking that they are representing all men, they will never be silenced.

Not only do I not want to be a man, I don’t want to lose my voice as a woman.

More than a Dress-Up Doll

Women

There was a lot of backlash after Sunday’s Super Bowl ads. I admit that I didn’t pay much attention to most of the event, the game or the ads. But the one commercial I saw disturbed me, and the ones I heard about the next day even more so.

Sometimes I feel like we women stand up on the rooftops of the world, screaming our lungs out, only to be drowned by the voices of so many people who think we’re just being bitchy. I’ve had more than enough of the way that media exploits women. From the ideal body to the ideal sex partner to the ideal career woman (attractive, able to balance it all, and not too “mannish”), we’ve been whored out to the public long enough. And don’t even start on me about how it’s happening to men, too. No, it’s not, at least not in the same way.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am.

There are dozens of ways in which we have been reduced to little more than elegant mannequins (or possibly blow-up dolls, to be a bit more crude). A few points of comparison (and if you think I’m making this up, try using Google):

•Female nudity is played up for sexuality, male for humor:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlupKmjFOw4&w=560&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWrJgFjxlS0&w=560&h=315]

•On film, full frontal female nudity earns only an R rating. Any full exposure of male anatomy is an NC-17.

•Women’s bodies are used to sell just about everything.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY&w=560&h=315]

•Half-clothed women are often seen in the company of fully dressed men.

Is it any wonder that we have trouble distinguishing between when a woman is being modest and when she isn’t? We’re training ourselves to view women as objects, rather than people. We’re continuing to allow women to be viewed as the property of men, available 24/7 for their enjoyment.

We’re not going to get anywhere when we talk about women in leadership (of any type) if we don’t get this problem under control. Those of us in the church must first talk about the ways in which women are exploited before we can begin talking about purity, modesty, and the role of women in the church. We can’t be silent on this as we have on so many other cultural issues. Once again, we are being called on to stand up and be the church.

The degradation of women must stop.

Notable News: Week of September 29-October 5, 2012

Notable News: Week of September 22-28, 2012

That which makes us men (and women)

Notable News: Mutuality Edition, Week of June 1-8, 2012

I don’t want to be a man.

More than a Dress-Up Doll

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