Is it possible to be have faith and be a feminist?...

[onelittlefish]

This is a questions I am asking myself because recently I have started to feel more like a feminist in my view of world. However, I am also a christian and there are some elements that I find hard to reconcile with with feminism - particularly, where the bible says that a woman should submit to her husband. Also, most of my Christian friends seem to be stay at home mothers; not something I have an objection to in itself but I think they perceive that the Bible says they should.

However, there are parts that are fully conducive to feminism: there is one part that say one person should not objectify another - this something that is very relevant to feminism and goes to it's roots as women have always been objectified by men.

So please answer, do you think it is possible to have faith and be a feminist?

Yes, I'm sure it is. Think it's a lot more difficult to belong to one of the established religions and be a feminist because they are institutionally misogynistic. Certain faith communities are very old fashioned and not in a good way. But faith is a personal interpretation and is therefore whatever you want to make of it.

There are denominations which make equality part of their outlook, like the Unitarians and the Quakers. For the others, there's a lot of patriarchal baggage being carried, which they may or may not be trying to unload.

My faith came before my outlook so I never really thought about it until now. However, maybe it is because my church is more backward in coming forward that I have started to think about it. It does bother me. We do actually study the bible and there are some parts of it which I do believe are pro-feminism - the part which says a husband's job is to raise up his wife and enable her to be the best that she can (Corinthians).

But then I feel it lets itself down when it says a woman should submit. Also, I believe Paul said women should be quiet in church and Jesus saying that only men could be disciples (although I feel Jesus meant man as a generic male/female thing).

I would imagine Anne Widdecombe is a feminist, and yet she can accept the limitations that the church puts on women and the roles they can take. How does that work then?

'I would imagine Anne Widdecombe is a feminist'

Really? I would have thought her attitudes to sex, single mothers and abortion would make that rather unlikely.

There's a lot of cultural stuff that needs to be understood about the writings on women in the New Testament. For instance, Paul saying women should be quiet in church is most likely telling women not to sit and chat with their friends during the teaching! Also, Jesus had many women followers, he didn't name any as his disciples but women had a very different role in that society then than they do today. If you want a good female character from the Bible, how about Deborah, who was one of the Judges, the leaders of the Israelites?

It might be for some people, it definitely wasn't/isn't for me. I was raised a Christian and became very intense about it for about ten years - 'born again' (within a C of E framework) and really, really studied the bible, church fathers, etc.

I see my feminism as an important part of the analytical lens that kept on making me think "but, hang on a minute..."
Eventually I knew the bible so well, and learned so much about the foundation of the church, that I basically studied myself out of believing that (1) there is any god at all and (2) the church is a benevolent or indeed neutral institution for women and children.

So no, I can't be a feminist and a person of 'faith'. I tried to square the circle for years and years and years - anguished praying about it. Oh, the relief when I just stopped trying to hold on to my belief in the unbelievable!
I have so much more time! So much more energy! So much more joy!

(Though I have tremendous 'faith' in some things - spring will come! Things will pick up! A kiss will make it better! Well, a cup of tea will sort me out! But not in anything invisible, not any more. )

I think it is possible, and get a bit frustrated sometimes with the portrayal of being a feminist as an either/ or position. I think the great majority of people who self identify as feminists have aspects of their, lives, actions and thoughts that are not feminist. Either because they have not thought through something properly, or it is a genuine grey area, or it is something that they accept is not a feminist position, but for whatever reason they like doing it or don't consider it worth their energies to take a position that is against the status quo.

For me, the institutions in which most of the major religions are promoted are patriarchal and anti-feminist, but I don't necessarily see that it would be impossible to have your own private view of your faith that is possible to reconcile with your own feminist beliefs. That wouldn't prevent you joining in collective worship, for example, provided that you do so with critical reasoning as to why it may be at odds with feminist principles.

Yes, I do and I am. I think it does depend on the faith one follows and the degree to which it supports or undermines a feminist perspective. That's something that's not always obvious, particularly to the outside observer who may not be familiar with the intricacies of some faith communities.

I sense that quite alot of people feel very hurt from their experience of religion, particularly in childhood - not just related to the issue of sexism, but a whole host of beliefs and practices which felt uneasy or painful for them. Frankly, I know many people who have had appalling experiences religion in childhood and it's completely understandable that they would turn their backs on any and all religion.

My experience was the opposite though - vaguely agnostic parents, went to church now and again for the games and sweets, and only in my late teens encountered a faith that "spoke to me," interestingly enough, at about the same time as I was encountering and absorbing feminism.

I hope it is. I'm definitely a work in progress both as a feminist and a person of faith.

What I believe is, if you have faith and you're a feminist, you can work against misogyny from within faith. If you find this isn't possible, or it's too exhausting, you have to stop and reexamine and I honestly believe any God worth believing in would rather you're trying to be a good feminist than that you carry on practicing religion. For me, faith is faith that there is a principle of good. If the best way I can observe that and acknowledge that is by being a good feminist not going to church every Sunday ... sure, I will do that.

At the moment I find going to church works fine with my feminism, but I am fortunate enough to have a good church to go to. If I were in a more closed-minded community it might feel different.

Jeez, I can't believe I am defending Anne Widdecombe! If she believes in equal pay, the rights of women to vote, the rights of women to govern, the rights of women to not have to have children if they don't want, the right to remain single and follow a career to the highest level, the right to change career successfully in middle age.....then what is she?

There is a mahoosive thread in AIBU about grading feminists, and those who don't conform to radicalism, and those who like porn etc. not being true feminists, and this seems to be an example of that. I don't like her politics, but feminism is a broad church, and I am sure there is a place for her.

With respect Sanjeev (and apologies for diverting the thread a bit,) Anne Widdecombe does NOT believe in the right of women not to have children if they don't want them. She is vehemently anti-choice. Are you getting her mixed up with someone else perhaps?

Um, and the right of women to vote was agreed nigh on 100 years ago, so I'd be really surprised if ANY politician wouldn't support that.

I personally don't see Anne Widdecombe's views and the policies she supports as being concurrent with feminist principles. I have read many reports where Anne Widdecombe herself says she is not a feminist, so surely have respect for her own choice of self-definition here!

Kritiq, that point was badly worded. I meant that she believes a woman has the right to not get married, to not have children to to not have to conform to the nuclear family/sahm model that many women find so oppressive in a patriarchal society.

And I mention her because she is a woman of faith, obviously, so she conforms to the OP's original point.

Well, I have my lead hat on, so am currently unable to pick up her thoughts.

onelittlefish - in answer to your question, I think it definitely is possible. I am a feminist and a Christian. I can understand why you are stuggling to reconcile various aspects of your faith with gender equality. The verse about wives submitting to husbands is often cited by Christian anti-feminists, but they always choose to leave out the bit shortly afterwards that says 'submit to one another'. If you are interested in some resources about 'difficult' passages and how they have been misinterpreted, I can give you links and blog posts, as well as links to other helpful organisations/sites about Christianity and gender equality :)

Regarding the SAHM thing, I think you're right to say that some people perceive the Bible says they shouldn't work outside the home if they have children. Of course, the Bible doesn't say anything of the sort. The problem with a lot of anti-equality minded Christianity is that it upholds a LOT of things as 'Biblical' when they're more a part of middle class US/UK 19th-early 20th century culture e.g. rigid gender stereotypes and roles, women not working.

I don't see how you can get around the passage in Ephesians 5, if you're really going to say the Bible has overwhelming importance. Paul isn't telling husbands to be tyrants, but he's not exactly handing out a feminist line either (trying to put the quote in italics, but maybe it won't):

Per the New International Version
^21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.^

For me organised religion is incompatible with my feminism. I know Jews, Muslims, Christians etc. try and make it compatible for themselves by talking about context/interpretation etc. but it's a circle I can't square at all. However, there is nothing incompatible about believing in a supreme being and being a feminist (although personally I don't).

I think many people have a relationship with God outside of religion. It makes no sense to me as all we have to base religion upon is religious texts, so how one can imagine a relationship with a God not found in these books?

Some of the more prescriptive religions, like Judiasm and Islam, are woefully anti women, I do struggle to see anything remotely feminist about them. It always sounds a little odd when people say that they are a feminist and a Muslim, I just can't see how.

I'm religious and a feminist

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