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I am a third-wave feminist. And sometimes, I have no idea what that means.
At the Ecumenical Women Orientation two weeks ago, we worked with feminist theologian Caryn Riswold to elaborate on what it is to be a third-wave feminist in today’s world. Three generations reflected on whether the distinction of “third-wave” is even helpful. They worried about where the next generation will take us. And, they expressed concern over whether feminism itself is dead.
- Caryn Riswold speaks at the EW Orientation
Women spanning six continents reminded each other of the various perspectives that a global movement brings to feminism. We noted with joy young women like Facia Boyenoh Harris of Liberia, who hosts a radio show for young girls, embodying a bridge between the second and third waves. Privileged feminists of Ecumenical Women were reminded of the needs of a far greater population of women—those for whom reproductive justice is not an option; whose decisions are often made for them; whose bodies are made vulnerable to domestic violence, human trafficking, and crimes of war and terror.
Suddenly, we weren’t facing the nuanced standards of a privileged third wave anymore, riding on the shoulders of our mothers who fought before us.
2 Samuel 13 tells the story of Tamar, a young woman who is raped by her brother Amnon with the permission of her father—none other than King David, who the Bible so faithfully upholds as the greatest leader in Jewish history. Because she is physically weaker than her brother, the passage tells us, Amnon is able to force her into having sex with him against her will. After this, we are told that because of the actions that he himself chose to perpetrate against her, he comes to hate her “with a hatred greater than the love with which he had loved her.” So Tamar puts ashes on her head and she tears her robe in grief. Her father David is angry but does nothing, and her brother Absalom encourages her “hold her peace.”
We never hear what happens to Tamar after this story. The horror of discovering this rape in the Bible is eclipsed only by the realization that even the author cares not what happened to Tamar after all was said and done. Her life, her name, the “rape of Tamar” – these all serve in the text only as a function to explain why later her brother Absalom, who told her to stay silent, kills her brother Amnon, who raped her. In the story, Tamar is property to be protected or violated. She is a figure whose violation represents not her own personal grief but her family’s public shame; a woman whose grief is but a footnote in the long opus to political power that we find recorded in the Bible. Read the rest of this entry »
by Mary Button
The Ecumenical Women Parallel Event, Positive Masculinities and Gender Partnership for Equal Sharing of Responsibilities, was a packed event. We quickly reached capacity and people had to be turned away from the room. Dr. Ezra Chitando started the panel off with a bang. He introduced his presentation with the words; “it is better to build up boys than to repair men,” which was met with wild applause. These words became a mantra and were reiterated by the other panelists, which included Dr. Fulata Mbano-Moyo, Chaitanya Motupalli, and Doreen Boyd.
From left to right: Fulata Mbano-Moyo, Ezra Chitando, Chaitanya Motupalli, and Doreen Boyd
Dr. Chitando shared with us his personal experiences about the five areas of socialization for boys. He identified these areas as: home, community, school, church, and the media. In particular, I really responded to his criticism of the church’s role in the socialization of boys. He pointed out that the heroes of the Bible, as singled out in typical Sunday School settings, emphasize men like Samson and David, overlooking the rich stories of strong and powerful women like Esther, Ruth, and Sarah.
Speaking after Dr. Chitando was Dr. Mbano-Moyo who spoke of her personal struggles and triumphs raising three sons. Specifically, she identified the church’s model of fatherhood as one that ignores the extended family thus creating a friction that isolates boys and does not empower them to seek out father-son relationships with men in their extended biological and church families.
At the conclusion of Dr. Mbano-Moyo’s talk handouts were distributed to the audience which included the text from 2 Samuel 13: 1 – 22 (NRSV), the story of the rape of Tamar.
Dr. Chitando and Dr. Mbano-Moyo proceeded to lead us all in a short Contextual Bible Study. Among the questions we discussed were:
- How did David, Amnon, and Jonadab (as main characters) conceive ‘what it means to be a man’?
- How did the men in Tamar’s life understand her role as a woman?
- Can we identify men such as David, Amnon, Jonadab in our contexts?
Chaitanya Motupalli spoke about how his mother inspired him to positive models of masculinity.
While the story of the rape of Tamar is difficult to hear and more difficult to internalize and contextualize; our distinguished panelists brought levity, humor and thoughtfulness to our discussion. The next two speakers were Mr. Motupalli and Ms. Boyd, who also shared their personal reflections and experiences empowering boys and men; Mr. Motupalli in the Christian student movement in India and Ms. Boyd among parishioners in the Caribbean. Mr. Motupalli spoke about his relationships with his mother and father and how profoundly influenced he has been by these relationships. Ms. Boyd talked about the ways in which she has successfully combated domestic violence in the Caribbean by empowering men and women to challenge gender stereotypes.
The presentations concluded with a rich question and answer period. Among the issues raised were the inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender voices in discussion about the equal sharing of responsibilities; the usage of gender sensitive language in the liturgical setting; and the most effective ways to facilitate inter-generational conversations around the subject of gender stereotypes. Leaving the panel, everyone was incredibly energized by the strength of our diversity, the compassion of our ecumenical thinkers and the great work that we have ahead of us at CSW!
Resources from the Panel
- Contextual Bible Study Slideshow (Fulata Mbano-Moyo and Ezra Chitando)
- Woman Slide Show (Doreen Boyd)
- Many people expressed interest in a book mentioned by Doreen Boyd. Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight is a neural anatomist’s personal journey into the workings of the brain in the wake of her stroke. For those interested in Bolte Taylor’s work, watch this amazing lecture that she gave at TED 2008.
- Biographies of the Panelists
“It is better to build boys than to repair men.”
Ecumenical Women’s excellent workshop on positive masculinities and gender partnerships began with the above quote, repeated by both Ezra Chitando and Fulata Mbano-Moyo. Recognizing that repairs are still sometimes necessary they invited us into the process of Contextual Bible Study, through which texts of oppression (the example they used was 2 Samuel 13:1-22 – the rape of Tamar) can become springboards for liberating change.
Doreen Boyd spoke about positive masculinities and positive femininities at Ecumenical Women's panel
Doreen Boyd with the United Methodist Church in the Caribbean, reminded us that the process of liberating women and men is inextricably linked: “For every woman who steps towards her liberty there is a man who discovers the path to freedom.” For example, as we women claim our right to be taken seriously intellectually men may find that they are allowed to express themselves emotionally.
The process of working towards gender equality is too important, and too large, to be left to only half of the world’s population. Men need to relinquish their undeserved male privilege and we women need to admit the existence of negative femininities as well as negative masculinities – and welcome male companions in the struggle for justice and equality. Working together offers us the best possibility of men and women both growing into the full richness of our shared humanity.
One sign of hope was found when Chaitanya Motupalli, a seminarian from India, spoke of his desire to be to his family all that his mother had been to him. Role models such as this would indeed help build boys who could play their part in creating a world where women and men could both flourish.
I managed two hours of the High Level Roundtable Monday afternoon till the heat in the gallery got to be too much. One message that came through from many of the nation states who were speaking was that changing patterns of care-giving and responsibility between the genders will take more than governmental action and legal change. It needs a sea-change in cultural understanding that reaches into the hearts of families and transforms them from within: a sea-change that awakens men to their responsibilities in the home and frees women for their duties in the world.
This reminded me of an event in a very different context – a college chapel in Cambridge University. I had used a Janet Morley psalm in a service exploring different ways of talking about God – one that starts “I will praise God, my Beloved, for she is altogether lovely” and continues using passionate female imagery for the divine. I had expected this to resonate with the women present – and it did – but the strongest response came from a male student of engineering. He said it was the first time he had encountered language which allowed him to begin to adequately express his relationship with God, and that it liberated him from understanding divine power as purely masculine.
Theologians as well as governments, law-givers and UN delegates have their part to play in changing the world we live in. We need more language which speaks of our father God as care-giver and new hymns which sing to God our mother as the source of power and life. In this way our faith can help both women and men to find new ways of being and new ways of relating which liberate them both.
by Kathleen Stone, CCUN Chaplain
Morning worship is extremely important for the Ecumenical Women delegation. Being able to effectively ground the day in a firm Biblical faith along side a commitment to address injustices facing women around the world is an incredibly important skill. Both practically and theologically, claiming biblical stories together every morning is powerfully energizing, and has become a focusing tool for those who then spend the day at the United Nations. Doing so every morning during the Commission ushers amazing power to change the ideologies that limit women’s choices and power.
This year, Ecumenical Women’s Opening Worship at their orientation told the story of Ruth and Naomi. Through dancing, singing, original music, drumming and storytelling, the original, creative telling powerfully moved those gathered. Ruth, as Naomi’s caregiver in a world made for and by men in ancient Israel, was revealed as a powerful, fierce caretaker of Naomi in an unjust world. The storytelling emphasized the fact that Ruth and Naomi’s ONLY chance at survival was for a young, beautiful, loving, fierce, generous woman to sexually and illicitly sleep with a man who was old enough to have been her father. This year, the worship space displays an original participatory artwork commissioned by Ecumenical Women. The artist, Ms. Mary Button (www.marybutton.com) chose to imagine the moment when Ruth clung to Naomi, thereby saving her life. Ecumenical Women place extraordinary import on the representational nature of those who are delegates so each morning prayers for women around the world from the delegates are written on strips of paper which are made into beads and are then sewn onto Ruth’s dress. Because the situation facing Ruth and Naomi is still prevalent in our world and because women’s overwhelming burden of caregiving is so often overlooked in social, economic and political policy making, this story was extraordinarily relevant to the theme of the Commission.
Many thanks to the performing artists who contributed to the service: Dajhia Ingram, dancer; Cassondra Kellum, voice; DeWanda Wise, actress; and Grace Pugh Hubbard, keyboard.
by Amber Leberman, first published in The Lutheran (2 /2009)
Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman inspires Lutherans to challenge their cultures
Zau Rapa calls them “dynamite women.”
Rapa, acting head bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea, was referring to the 1,500 women who gathered Sept. 13-19, 2008, at the Baitabag Lutheran girls’ school outside the northern village of Madang.
Rapa saw God’s power as “dynamite” within them, which they took back to their villages after six days of worship, Bible study, singing and drama under the theme “Jesus Liberates Women in Papua New Guinea from Male-dominated Cultures.”
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| Bonnie Arua and other women from the Papua District lead those attending a September conference of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea in song and dance at the closing night’s worship service. |
Yes, that’s “cultures.” Plural. A Papua New Guinea folk saying puts it this way: “For each village, a different culture.” In a country the size of California, more than 850 languages are spoken.
Many of its coastal and island villages are only accessible by boat, and many highlands villages only reachable by plane. Such a diversity of cultures has bred a long history of intertribal conflict and violence.
Some of the women traveled three days by cargo ship to join their Lutheran sisters. They ran out of food when the journey took longer than expected. Others traveled days by truck on overland roads full of potholes. They represented 16 church districts and hundreds of traditional cultural practices. They united as Lutherans to confront a common challenge: the status of women in Papua New Guinea.
Rapa believes they’ll be the dynamite to ignite change in their villages—their cultures—of which the U.S. State Department says “women generally are considered and treated as inferiors” and “gender violence is endemic.”
The justification for violence against women begins with the bride-price, said Rose Pisae, secretary of the Papua District women’s organization.
Across Papua New Guinea, a new bride’s family is compensated for the loss of her agricultural and household labor. Pisae said a bride-price in her district (which includes the capital, Port Moresby) can bring the woman’s family as much as $20,000.
After paying so much in a country where the average per capita income is $900, Pisae said the husband’s family feels like they own the bride and can place demands on her, such as how many children she should bear.
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| Ibarias Yabon of the Madang District consults her Bible for further insight into the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea spent two hours each day of its convention studying John 4:4-42 for parallels to their own lives. |
Pisae has two daughters—16 and 5. She also has a 12-year-old son. She admits she’s strict with her daughters, expecting them to cook, clean and mind the house.
“Now that I’ve come here,” she said, “I’m thinking that I should have my son do a little work too.
“I tell my two girls: ‘I will not accept the bride-price and I’ll make sure your husbands are good to you.’ I think a lot of women are beginning to understand, to say ‘no’ to the bride-price and to report any violence to the police or the community counselor.”
On Friday, March 6, women worldwide will unite in prayer for Papua New Guinea as part of World Day of Prayer. Women of the ELCA is a denominational representative on the World Day of Prayer USA committee.
Other dynamite women include Jane Henry, director of a Lutheran vocational center in Mount Hagen that trains women in music, theology, church administration, agriculture, nutrition, counseling and computing. Part of the training includes a six-week practicum in which the women share the skills they’ve learned with other women.
“I think the ladies who are here will go back and teach other ladies to speak out,” Henry said. “We can pray to God that it will happen in God’s way.”
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| Michael Wan Rupulga, a recipient of an ELCA international scholarship and lecturer at Martin Luther Seminary in Lae, Papua New Guinea, led a two-hour daily Bible study based on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well (John 4:4-42). |
Another is Seba Benag, a midwife in Biliau who is training men to be present at childbirth and participate in early child care, despite taboos to the contrary.
Such taboos are something familiar to Bible study leader Michael Wan Rupulga. “I struggled along with my mother my whole life,” he said. “I know how it feels.”
The son of the second wife of a village “big man,” Rupulga refused to follow traditional highlands practices regarding the separation of sons from mothers at age 6, when boys become susceptible to the perceived uncleanliness of their mothers.
He was mocked by other men in his village for refusing to avoid contact with menstruating women. They would ask him: “Do you have your period too?”
He’s gone against his culture, he said, but asks: “What’s more important? God’s word or the culture? If there is a barrier, God’s word will break it down. It is like dynamite.”
Rupulga’s mother died in 1997, but she was the inspiration for him to do his master’s thesis at Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, on Jesus’ reaction to the Samaritan woman. Rupulga received an ELCA Global Mission international scholarship to pursue his degree.
“If there’s anything in a culture that suppresses women, that hurts women, that makes women suffer their whole lives, it doesn’t come from God,” Rupulga said. “It comes from the devil.”
At the end of the week, Rapa told the women he was proud of them. “Go home and talk to your husbands about what you deserve and expect in your relationships,” he said.
Will their husbands be receptive?
“If their husbands are involved in church activities, it will be easy to relate what they’ve learned about here,” Pisae said.
Since our orientation to the Commission on the Status of Women on Saturday, many of our delegates have been thinking about the power of scripture, both in its perpetrating violence against women and in its calling for solidarity and compassion. We thought we would share this clip, featured on UN Radio which features a Lutheran pastor in South Africa named Solomuzi Mabuza, who uses a dangerous scriptural story about rape to educate men about stopping domestic violence in a South African context:
The Bible story The Rape of Tamar is about a young man who violates his half-sister. South African pastor Solomuzi Mabuza uses this story to teach young people about violence against women. Rev. Mabuza is a passionate advocate for women’s rights and gender equality. He believes that since apartheid has been defeated, South Africa should also work to ensure equality of women and children. UN Radio’s Matthew Graham caught up with Rev. Mabuza during his recent visit to UN Headquarters.
Solomuzi Mabuza recently contributed to Ecumenical Women’s Advocacy Guide, Faith at the UN, Gender in the Church.
Click here to listen to the story – which also talks about male nurses in South Africa.
by Mary Gindhart
The Grail
The hustle and bustle of getting to New York for CSW faded when I arrived at the Opening Worship organized by Ecumenical Women as the story of Ruth and Naomi was enacted.
This familiar story was being re-told as we gathered to prepare for two weeks of advocacy on the CSW theme: The Equal Sharing of Responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS.
My heart was touched, I thought of women all around the world struggling. I looked around at the women who were present. I saw the dance movements, I heard the spoken words and chants. I felt strength, support and calm that we could face the challenges of the next two weeks at the UN together.
The communion service was a corporate expression of our oneness in faith in Jesus Christ and commitment to a new covenant in which all are cared for, both the caregivers and those needing care, both the men and the women. Both the elderly and children. Both the black and white, the brown, yellow, blue and green.
Idealist.org, a website where people and non-profits can connect and share ideas, recently released a podcast highlighting a faith-based organization called the Poverty Initiative.
What’s interesting about the podcast, while the Poverty Initiative does admirable work, is the second half — the part where the organizers explain their methods of exegeting the Bible. In particular, they deconstruct the Bible verses that state “the poor with be with you always” and show how – rather than being a barrier to working against poverty – Christians can reinterpret this passage to act as an impetus for anti-poverty justice work.
Curious? Give it a listen.
I spent the last week in Papua New Guinea – not something I ever expected to do! With over 800 languages, communication in PNG is fascinating. There is no internet and even phones are hard to come by, a few cell phones are here and there. Most people I met promised to write me – as in a letter. We will see how that goes.
I went to PNG as an invited guest to a Lutheran women’s conference. Colonized by Germans, more than one-fifth of the country is Lutheran. One of the key features of the conference was a bible study called “Jesus Liberates women in PNG from male dominated cultures”.
Growing up, Pastor Michael, a seminary professor, watched his mother suffer in a polygamous marriage. His father, a “bigman” would force ably take the pigs she raised so that he could enjoy a high status in the community, beating her if necessary. When menstruating, women were (and still are in some places) secluded, and some believe that even the food they touch is contaminated so they are no allowed to cook meals. After the age of 13, Michael was discouraged from spending time with his mother. Because of a tradition called the “Bride price” -similar to a dowry- women cannot divorce their husbands because their family is expected to pay the money back. By paying for their wives, it encourages a culture where many men consider their wives a possession. Even though she was often beaten by her husband, his sister was unable to divorce him because of the culture and eventually committed suicide.
