Is it possible to be a good Christian at the same time as being a feminist?

[SummerHoliDidi]

I count myself as a feminist, and am also a Catholic, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to be both.

I sat through a very Christian wedding (much more overtly Christian than I have ever been to before) yesterday, where there were a LOT of references to the bible passage that talks about women submitting to their husbands but men only having to love their wives. I found myself wanting to tell the minister to fuck off, which is hardly a Christian thing to want to do. The man is the head of the household - fuck off. If a man loves his wife and only wants to do the best for her what wife wouldn't submit? - fuck off. Hearing "obey" in the vows - fuck off. Having children is God's will - fuck off. The bride being "given away" by her father - fuck off.

I appreciate that this particular wedding is not typical of Christianity as a whole, and my friend has actively chosen to have this type of ceremony (she was always very sensible back when we were at uni, but "found God" a couple of years ago and I hadn't realised quite how much she's bought into it).

How do other Christian feminists reconcile both viewpoints, or do you find yourself picking and choosing which bits to take from each?

[curlew]

"Women in the church just have to 'play the long game' and bide our time...."

Why?

[daftdame]

curlew Strategic, rather than tactical thinking.

[curlew]

So waiting patiently for the men to decide.....

[daftdame]

curlew That is not what I said is it? There is a difference between merely running around like a headless chicken and trying to trouble shoot to actually engaging with the people who are causing problems and in turn causing them to change their way of thinking.

[curlew]

That's one of the ways that institutions have remained make dominated - "incremental change will happen, women just have to be patient"

[daftdame]

curlew Don't sweep away all the advances that have been made with one statement. Not all change was a result of women tying themselves to railings or striking. Sometimes there has had to be radical action taken, sometimes not.

For women within the church they may view their Salvation and that of their daughters potentially at stake, you can see how it is important to take a considered approach.

[curlew]

"For women within the church they may view their Salvation and that of their daughters potentially at stake, you can see how it is important to take a considered approach."

So people think their salvation might be at stake if they challenge the hierarchy? Wow- not sure what that says about God...........

[HolofernesesHead]

Curlew, isn't that 'women playing the long game' the same issue in all sorts of institutions?

Cambridge University didn't award degrees to women until 1948, although it had women doing the same exams as men and outperforming them in some cases. When a woman called Phillipa Fawcett was given the unique tile of 'above the senior wrangler' in 1890(i.e. she scored higher in maths exams than the top fist class degree won by a man) and they had a big party at her college to celebrate in lieu of a graduation ceremony, they must have known that they were playing the long game. She would have been an old woman in 1948.

Jut because the churches haven't got there yet in terms of various issues (in the C of E, my neck of the woods, it's women bishops) doesn't mean we're not going to. It just means that we are at a certain point in history, one unthinkable even a generation ago. It's not just waiting for men to decide, either - women are v actively involved in the debates, the legislation etc.

[daftdame]

curlew I'm not saying the view is correct but if you take it in the context, say of excommunication, in the Middle Ages, you can see how crucial the issue is. If a congregation is largely illiterate, the church, is the only access they have to scripture. Similarly there is this issue with the Sacraments, not that they they in themselves are necessary for maintaining Salvation but for some they are central to feeling connected to the Body of Christ.

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

Exactly, HolofernesHead. This point was made upthread: the only way not to engage with (and thereby in some way be complicit with) misogynist institutions is complete separatism, which in the end is not really a way I want to live, even if it were practical.

And I do want to reinforce the point that none of the Christian feminists on this thread are saying 'the church' is not misogynist (though how misogynist it is depends on which church you're talking about: Methodists might be rightly annoyed at being lumped in with the Greek Orthodox, for example). All we're saying is that Christianity is not in and of itself incompatible with feminism.

[daftdame]

What I am trying to say is that Christ is not a misogynist, God isn't. Women will want to engage and be part of the Church, followers of Christ, even with their (human) faults.

[Woodhead]

Holofernes that made me go all sentimental.
TBH though Cambridge Mathematics is still playing the long game for participation of women (about 20% of undergrads-not much change since the 60s); but I guess that would be another thread.

As a feminist, is it cherry picking to concentrate most on the gospels, and try to understand most from a position of context? I struggle with this because whilst I think the closest message to the words of christ is the most important thing to concentrate on, I do feel that I struggle to defend this position against literalists. I recently came into (almost) conflict with a university friend who I hadn't realised was quite so literal in her biblical interpretation. I went in with (what I thought) was friendly exasperation regarding the unsuccessful vote on women Bishop's in CofE, and was quickly brought to understand she was very much in the anti camp, and was all for women's submission to husbands etc. I normally exist in such a liberal episcopalian bubble, that I didn't feel at all equippped to sensibly counterargue her; and she is very intelligent and very good at logical debate. I did of course mention historical context etc, but ended up feeling a complete heretic.

When some women choose to completely support the patriarchal position of the church, I despair but also see how you can hold that as a completely consistent world view. We can't all be right though; and whilst I agree with daftdame and can't imagine God to be misogynist, there are plenty of people who utterly believe this to be the case and they are perhaps more the majority in christian churches worldwide.

[chipsahoy]

My Minister is a Feminist as are most of the senior Church members. The church welcomes Gay ministers, while they are not pro abortion, they recognise it as necessary in some situations.. in general they are welcoming and liberal.

I think it's entirely possible to be a good Christian and a Feminist, I see it in my Church every week, I see it in my Minister each week when he sits in my living room helping me over come my history of abuse at the hands of men, when he gets angry for me and tells me how wrong it was. He would never tell me I needed to submit to anyone, instead I feel him supporting me in becoming a strong, independent woman.

[curryeater]

FairPhyllis expressed this brilliantly:

"I don't appreciate people who don't seem to have a good knowledge of the text of the Gospels telling me that they say xyz and support a misogynistic world view when that view seems to be based on misrememberings of the Gospel. Having this discourse going on from non-Christians is incredibly damaging to what we are trying to do within the church to make it a less sucky place for women. It hands more power to misogynists within the church to represent themselves as the authentic face of Christianity."

this is really important and I think this plays into the disaster with the recent vote over woman bishops in the C of E.

As you remember, the failure to get there was not because there were too many people with voting rights on the matter who sincerely thought women should not be bishops. The issue was that those who did think that women should be bishops had too much respect for and sensitivity to the (OBVIOUSLY WRONG) beliefs of the misogynists who thought otherwise.
They felt that it would be unkind, somehow, to them to to vote it through; that it would be asking too much of them to live with the outcome that women could be bishops.* I really believe that this insane sensitivity to HATEY MISTAKENNESS is related to dominant secular and religious cultures of women as second class particularly within religion - a sort of ascribing of authenticity, originality, basicness to this view within religion that is heavily promoted by secular cultures in order to attempt to positively distinguish secular culture from the religious (distracting from the horrifically misogynistic culture that we are inflicting on young women, particularly, through pop culture for youth, at this time).


As I have said elsewhere on mumsnet recently, not on this thread, all the enlightenment beliefs that we take as self evident and mainstream in our popular discourse of human rights, equality, and respect for all people, come to us straight out of Christianity. It is not the only religion that promotes these values, and indeed it is not only religious people who can. But to us, in the Western world, or Christendom as it was once called, that is where they came from and their automatic truth and relevance is not automatic at all - they have been heavily promoted by Christians at great personal cost.

curlew, I would be interested to know what culture you are from and which church you relate to when seeing the whole thing as misogynist. I think traditional Irish culture and its agricultural priorities inflected through its values with respect to the family is a huge part of Catholic culture as it came to me through my Irish background.
I once thought any woman who had anything to do with a Christian church was letting the side down by collaborating with the enemy. I have changed with respect to this because I now have more experience of less blatantly hatey institutions (though none are perfect); but also because I have reached an accommodation with my own spiritual needs, much in the way I have a job and own a house although I think capitalism is evil. To some extent it is a fudge and a compromise I am not proud of; but I can?t go through life denying my needs, and denying my value to others, - to be who I need to be for my family and community I need to be whole and functional. So to these ends I work with capitalism in order to have a home for me and and my family and the resources to feed and educate my children and allow them to take their place in the community; and to be whole as a person for them and my whole community I need the blessings which come from being part of a church. It isn?t perfect but it is better than sitting around empty and desperate because the pope hates us.





*However, I have no doubt that the C of E will get there, in my lifetime. The Catholic church? Forget it.

[curlew]

I'm puzzled. You seem to be saying- and I'm sure I must be mistaken- that women who are not involved with the church have no right to have or at least to express opinions about it?

[curryeater]

should have read the full thread.

curlew, this also set something off in me:

"So people think their salvation might be at stake if they challenge the hierarchy? Wow- not sure what that says about God..........."

I think if you are used to RC religion, you get used to the idea of sacraments as a racket, which can be withheld like some sort of power-loaded food aid from a foreign power who will let you starve if you don't suck up. That is not what salvation is. It is more like food in a less loaded sense. Being excluded from eating will starve you, but this doesn't mean food is bad. It might mean the people in charge of distribution of the food have some vile agenda, but it doesn't mean that we don't need or want food or that that it is in itself bad.


Woodhead: "is it cherry picking to concentrate most on the gospels,"

Worrying about "cherrypicking" is the sort of guilt-ridden thinking that comes out of thinking yourself unworthy all the time and I do not believe it gets us anywhere. I think you need to look after your own half-acre. Take what you need for your soul, whether it be cherries or not.
I honestly think "christians" who place women as secondary are wrong, wrong, misguided and wrong. I can also see how hard it is to be right within our culture. I don't worry about them because in my church they do not come between me and my spiritual needs. And I don't worry about what they might think about my faith because they don't dish out the gospel. I just take it.

[curryeater]

who me, curlew? I am not saying you can't have opinions about the church (which church?), I am saying that the opinion that christianity is essentially and intrinsically misogynist is a. wrong and b. to actively collaborate with giving away something important to me to people who are wrong, hatey and don't deserve to own and control it

[curryeater]

Let's be very clear about this. I am not a liberal. That is why feminism keeps failing within churches, it is in the hands of liberals who are far too frightened of saying that some things (like being sexist) are wrong.
I am not afraid of saying that some things are wrong; you can say them, I do not expect or want to silence anyone, but when you say them you are wrong.
If you say the Christian message in the gospels is misogynist intrinsically, you are wrong.
If you say that various churches have played big horrible parts in oppressing women, systemically, you are right.
If you say that this has to change, and the people who persist in degrading and oppressing women within christiantity are wrong wrong wrong, and should be pandered to, you are RIGHT

Liberalism is not the answer. liberalism feels like the answer if you are of a class historically predisposed to oppress people, and then one day you wake up and discover you could stop oppressing them, it must feel great. for everyone else, already oppressed and with no option to stop it, not so much

[curryeater]

sorry, typo:

If you say that this has to change, and the people who persist in degrading and oppressing women within christiantity are wrong wrong wrong, and should NOT be pandered to, you are RIGHT

this is the thing - the people who have any tendency to be right in churches are liberals and they pander too much

[Woodhead]

Thanks Curryeater, that's very interesting about the Bishops vote. Do you feel it was more to do with the sensitivities of (parts of) the wider anglican communion than the sensitivities of members of the CofE?

I have to admit I'd quite like to see the anglican communion break up; or at least become much less formalised.

[Woodhead]

I don't feel wracked with guilt about cherry picking, but do feel some level of unease when I think about it too much, and do realise that I need to have some better "off-the-shelf" arguements (like is polycotton an abomination?)

Good take on liberalism, off to self-examine white-supremicist-privilege

[HolofernesesHead]

Curry eater, although I can see how your take on the C of E women bishop vote could be true, I don't think it was because of liberals wanting not to alienate traditionalists that the vote didn't go through. I think it was people who genuinely disagree with women bishops.

Remember the vote fell by a tiny, tiny number; it needed a two-thirds majority in all three houses, and iirc got 94% in the House of Bishops, 82% in the House of Clergy and 63% in the House of Laity. So if it were up to the (male) bishops alone, we'd have women bishops by now.

The 27% in the House of Laity who voted against the bill come from quite a wide range of viewpoints; more people were genuinely against women bishops than liberals worried about offending or losing antis. On the whole, liberals were up in arms; Giles Fraser's editorials were absolutely scathing and very clear that he believed that the antis were wrong, and that he didn't respect their position. Bear in mond also that the term 'liberal' has quite a spectrum of meanings.

So it's not really fair or logical to single out a particular 3% within the 27% and blame them, and their motives, for the bill's rejection.

[HolofernesesHead]

Sorry, I meant Giles Fraser's column, not editorial.

[HolofernesesHead]

Just checked the numbers; if six more laypeople had voted in favour, it would hand gone through. But of those who voted against, it's not fair to pick put six of them and blame them for the bill's failure.

[curlew]

Would the logical position of liberals to vote against so as to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of the antis? Rather than to vote in favour because they think women should be bishops?

And, frankly, I would prefer to blame the antis than any other group- they are the "most wrong".