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?

Not sure about the sighing thing, but yeah, men are required to do three services a day, whereas whenever I tell rabbis I do one they're MAJORLY impressed as women aren't required to do any.

Hi OP - I was going to post something along the lines of what DoomCatsofCognitiveDissonance said. I don't think feminism is a religion but more of a philosophy/way of thinking. My faith/religion is something that goes far deeper than my politics or philosophies (yes, I know there could be a semantic argument about the terms 'religion'/'philosophy'/'faith').

I also have issues about the surrendered wife passage, but then again I have issues about other odd verses/parts of the Bible. But those are for me to square within myself and doesn't change my view of who Jesus was etc.

At my last church our fantastic female curate always used to remind us that cultural context really does need to be taken into account when reading the Bible. But then we need to start talking about relativism because that's sort of the bottom line here, isn't it?

I am a Muslim and a feminist (and love that Nahida's blog is so popular round these parts )

There are lots of us out there, I think women in faith communities are more open about being feminist.

For me there is the spiritual side of being a believer, but also the social justice aspect (giving to charity, not being corrupt). I identify strongly as being left wing and for me, it all connects.

Just wanted to say some great comments on this thread - really interesting from Abs to hear about the historical context of the minyan and remind us how what might seem at first glance, especially to someone from outside, that a practice is oppressive but in reality, it's the opposite.

I can understand that atheist feminists would find it hard to get their heads round how someone could square their feminism with their faith, but I most definitely wouldn't accept that by definition it's not possible to "do them both right."

I heard someone once explain that an atheist trying to understand what it's like for a person who has a faith is similar to someone who's never been in love trying to understand what it's like for a person who is in love. Nope, it's not logical but it is something that is very real for feminists who have a faith. Personally speaking, my faith and my feminism are absolutely integral and I can't imagine seeing one as a separate entity from the other. Perhaps it's the same for others?

[runs in]
It's a bit like being a good mother and working outside the home!!

[runs out, throws away feminist badge, hides under a bridge and waits for the goats]

I am 100% joking, btw.

lol Posie

I agree Kritiq. My faith and my feminism define who I am as a person. I beleive God is above genders and so far above what we can even imagine that its hard to explain. But I believe souls are equal before God regardless of what genitalia the body they are wearing has. And we should strive as feminists to deal with the patriarchal oppression of women 9and anyone being oppressed) as part of our faith.
Toddles off singing The Internationale

Look I agree that faith, even though I can't understand the concept really, is very separate from religion. I know people who do have a relationship with God, Catholic friends who support gay marriage for example, but don't love the church. Or rather they love their church like a child, it ain't perfect but it's their church.

I just wondered in a less aggressive way whether that is a conscious thought process or one people just accept as it is as it is.

Joins in The Internationale.... blee, dee dada

[doesn't know the words]

tsk not knowing the words 'Oh stand up ye victims of oppression....etc etc'

I heard someone once explain that an atheist trying to understand what it's like for a person who has a faith is similar to someone who's never been in love trying to understand what it's like for a person who is in love.

... but this pretty much ignores the fact that many (maybe a majority) of atheists have not always been atheists. Maybe it's more like a person trying to understand how another person can be in love with the ex from whom they have separated. Those whose apostasy was due to incompatibility may have an easier time understanding than others, whose personal relationship with religion seemed abusive or repressive to them.

As a formerly religious atheist, I can easily see how some forms of faith can be compatible with feminism. I'll also freely admit that combining feminism and some of the more literalistic interpretations of Abrahamic monotheism seems a bit like squaring the circle to me.

I was brought up as a pagan by a pagan feminist mother. I never felt that our particular religious beliefs were incompatible with feminism and I didn't abandon my faith over this. If anything, it was the opposite way around: the recognition of how the religious beliefs I was taught were often framed in a deliberately pro-feminist manner opened my eyes to how religion is a product of social processes rather than any form of transcendental truth. It was all downhill from there as far as my faith was concerned.

I was about to write something similar, AGun - saying "you can't know what it's like!" completely ignores the experience of many atheists, including myself as I wrote upthread, who were once devoted, highly committed believers and who have chosen to leave the church/their faith for various reasons, including ideas like "it just doesn't make any sense", "I can't square this circle any more", "If there is a loving caring god then where the hell is he?" and indeed "this is sexist bullcrap."

Seems a bit smug to me to say "well you can't know how special this feels!" to people who are saying that actually, they did.

Sorry - that sounds like an attack and I am not feeling particularly aggresssive about it. But the 'well, faith is special, it's not an act of logic, it's about belief and if you don't believe then you can't understand it!" defense is so entirely silly to me that I become inarticulate :)

That makes sense posie. For me, the Church is the people in it - it's lovely and supportive and loving, and also selfish and misguided and silly, because people can be all of those things. Not sure about the child analogy, but yes, I don't think being part of a church means you have to be blind to its faults.

If you want to follow all the traditions (or live a proper Jewish life, some people would say) it's a hard life for a feminist. You can see the idea in Judaism that women don't need a quorum for prayer as being to women's advantage. Or you can see it as a tradition that expected men to maintain the religious observance, and it didn't matter what women did.

It's part of the traditional Jewish morning prayer for a man to thank God for not making him a woman.

And then there are the taboos about menstruation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niddah

That adds up to a lot of stuff. People in the Protestant Christian tradition have the advantage that once you've broken with the established church, there's no logical limit on what can be questioned.

I didn't mean to sound smug or superior and was actually quoting someone else with the analogy there. I certainly didn't mean to discount the experiences of those who'd experienced faith in the past, but no longer see themselves as believers, so to speak.

Maybe it's more along the lines as someone who's been in love before, but lost that love who sees someone else in love having a different kind of relationship than they had and not being able to identify with it?

Or, perhaps I should just drop the analogy as it's probably a pretty crap one. :)

I think that the issue IS that words let us down here. I don't have the words to accurately describe my experience or my feelings of faith perhaps in the same way that I can provide logical arguments about feminism. So for me, it IS something akin to trying to describe with words what it feels like to be in love, if that makes sense.

I realise that can be then interpreted as a cop out, but I don't actually know how else to convey it.

KRITIQ I was trying not to make the analogy to the person in an abusive relationship who says "but I love him, he's my world" while the rest of the universe screams "he's no good for you! Leave the abusive bastard!" and she says "you just don't understand how I feel!" - but I really truly do not want to be that offensive. And let's face it, it is a pretty crap analogy :)

I like and respect a lot of the posters on here, including those who have expressed the importance of their faith to them. My faith was very important to me, too, and I would have talked about it in the same language. The thing is, I can talk about my love for my husband or my son in solid, honest-to-goodness understandable terms. And that feels important to my life now. I think I'd describe myself as a skeptic as well as a humanist, and the truth is that I don't have much space in my life for things that cannot be described. I have this suspicion that they're hooey. :) But as someone else posted upthread, I'd sooner that all these institutions had feminists inside them trying to reform them, than not.

Though I'd really sooner these feminists were using their energies to reform secular/political society, I suppose. But if I had my druthers the world would be a very different place!

[stalks off to scheme for world takeover]

Well, I was certainly banging on about faith not being an act of logic, but I wasn't intending to sound smug or a pompous twit (though I'm sure that's often an unfortunate side effect of words coming out of my mouth).

I don't think atheists can't understand religion. I spent a fair while upthread at cross-purposes with posie about this, because when I said 'I don't follow you' she (if I am reading it correctly) thought I meant 'you don't follow me'. They're not the same thing at all.

Faith is not rational. That's not a smug thing to say. Saying 'and therefore anyone who doesn't get it just isn't as special and wonderful as me for I have special super-rational powers' is smug. But IMO it is equally off to insist that people should always be able to explain themselves in rational terms, on demand.

I agree, DoomCats, and it's a delicate line to tread. The way I parse it, is to say: What you believe, and how you feel, and all the things you do that relate to your faith can be as rational or irrational and effable or ineffable as required, and it's none of my business.

And that is true right up to the point where these beliefs and feelings and faiths impact on public life. And that includes schools, hospitals, soup kitchens, bishops in the house of lords... and then suddenly, people have to be able to explain WHY how they feel and what they believe should impact on someone like me, who doesn't happen to share those feelings or beliefs, and would like (for example) laws made on compassionate but rational grounds, rather than because of it being the interpreted will of some possibly-extant, possibly-higher being.

I suppose that boils down to the great British tradition of "Do what you like in private, don't tell me what to do in private, let's work out how to share the public space" :)

I think it's notable that the 'we are a christian country' British are much better at managing it than the 'we are a secular country' Americans, for whom public life is practically mandated to involve public displays of Christianity. It's been interesting seeing the difference. And yet- there really isn't prayer in state schools over here, and I have friends and family back home in England who've moved house rather than send their children to C of E schools because they want their kids to have an education in things that are actually factually provable, and without a side-order of religious indoctrination.

To be honest I do find faith rational

Sorry, blackcurrants, cross-posted.

It's one of the things I think about too, what's the best use of feminist energy, inside these organizations or outside? I don't agree with you but I can see why you'd feel that way and why lots of people would.

I think it shades into the more general separatism debates.

I think the idea of things that can't be described is important for me as a feminist as well as in terms of religion. I have to believe that society will change in ways I won't even be able to articulate because we literally do not have the language (look how many debates end up being about language and words). But I accept that is just me and my way to look at it.

Argh, just seen I cross posted again while writing that! Sorry, this thread is too quick for me.

Yes: totally agree re. public/private religion.

Oohh! Btw, sorry, this is only of interest to history geeks like me, but I just saw your post further up tei about the Jewish morning prayer? I read a few months ago that they found a medieval manuscript where a group of women had written (and used) an alternative version of this thanking god for making them women.

I just loved that. Because that must have taken some courage, back in the day, to re-write that prayer. And I don't think atheism was really so much of an option for most people, so I suspect this was one of the only ways defy patriarchial elements of what tehy were doing.

Sorry, just a tangent I guess.

In response to Tei Tua -

• in the morning prayers you have a number of "thank you for not making me a ..."

1. non jew
2. slave
3. a women

This is because the ultimate purpose of a Jew is to fulfil the mitzvot, and for all of these three categories, you are required to fulfil less mitzvot (non Jews have only 7, slaves are unable to fulfil their religious obligations as they're not free and women are not required to fulfil time-bound mitzvot). Another explanation is that in the creation story, the original "adam" wasn't male or female, but a hermaphrodite (the Hebrew terms relating to it are all in the plural, rather than in masculine). the original "adam" was also made in consultation with the angels. then, G-d realised "adam" was alone, so split it (the translation as taking a "rib" is inaccurate - the word is never used for rib elsewhere in the Torah, but for side). There is a long tradition that basically man and woman were fused together, and then separated and became male and female. When g-d was taking female from the male, it was without consultation with anyone else - in the morning prayers a woman says "k'rotsanu" that is, according to your will - women are purely a creation of G-d.

For niddah - it's a state of ritual impurity. It means that you're not in the right spiritual state in order to perform religious rituals - it's the same every morning for every person when they wake up, until they've washed (man or woman). Again, there are numerous explanations as to why you have the laws of family purity -

1. It gives the couple a "mini honeymoon" every month - knowing that there is a time when you can't actually have sex makes you want the other person more. It helps to keep a sex life from going stale
2. Particularly if a couple are TTC, the arrival of menstruation shows that conception didn't happen, so niddah is a small mourning period for the loss of the potential child.

On the stricter side, during the period of "niddah", women also shouldn't do things like pour drinks for their husbands, etc. so that the husband is reminded how much his wife does for him, how much she cares for him in tiny ways that he wouldn't necessarily otherwise notice. There are TONS of laws around sex in marriage - Maimonedes wrote extensively on it. Men are not allowed to approach their wives for sex if they're drunk or she's sleepy, forcing someone into sex is completely and utterly forbidden. If a man's job means that he's away so much that his wife doesn't get to have sex at a frequency she'd like, he is required to get a new job. Sexually satisfying a wife is one of the three obligations for marriage on a man, but there's no equivalent obligation for a woman. Woman aren't obligated to marry or have children, but men are.

I think it's possible to be a feminist and have faith.

What isn't possible is to claim that patriarchal religion is feminist.

Off to read the thread now.