Where are the Women? In Our Churches!
Category: Unitarian Universalism - General
The Guardian’s recent article “Too Much to Bare” describes the most recent Vanity Fair cover, with a photo of Nicole Kidman pulling open her shirt, to reveal her bra and stomach underneath. As the author puts it:
What I find so incredibly discomfiting about these pictures is their suggestion that, no matter how talented a woman is….if she wants to stay in the public eye, if she wants the magazine covers and the leading roles, she has to be wiling to reduce herself to tits and arse.
I read this story and the above quotation on Ms. Theologian’s Surviving the Workday several weeks ago. Thanks, Ms. Theologian, for making readers aware of this. It’s been gnawing at me ever since.
Then last night I was standing in line at the grocery store, and I saw said Vanity Fair cover for myself. Ms. Theologian described the whole story as “depressing.” That’s exactly how I felt when I saw Nicole Kidman staring back at me—momentarily totally depressed. She has an expression of unhappiness that no amount of airbrushing could hide.
When I read stories like this, I think “Where are the women?!” Where are the women who are not willing to be objectified, who fight to be recognized in leadership and in the public eye for their talent, hard work, ethical principles, and professional accomplishment?
Of course there are millions of women like this. But we are too often-rendered invisible in the public eye (except for such women who are on the very far right, and/or virulently oppose women’s rights, like several quite visible pundits).
The impact of sexism on women and men living in this country today can hardly be overstated. Too often we think that because women have made many advances, that we can now “move on” to other issues. (White Americans often apply this same flawed logic to racial issues, saying “we had the civil rights movement and desegregation, now we can move on from worrying about racism.” Of course, there are so many reminders that racism is still with us, both in institutions and in our own ways of thinking).
I still see (and experience) sexism in many places-in academic institutions, in social settings, and sometimes even in our congregations. Statistics show that working women earn less and do more household chores than their male counterparts.
Back to last night in the checkout line. After I turned away from Vanity Fair, I saw TIME magazine peeking out above the rack. On the cover was an image of a plate with five cut-out heads pasted on it. The headline was hidden behind another magazine. My first thought was “What do Bill Clinton and those four women have in common?” My brain froze for about three seconds—I could not figure out what I was looking at—until I pulled out the magazine and read the headline: “The Running Mates.”
After so many years of thinking of the presidential contenders as white heterosexual men with white heterosexual wives, I literally could not process this photograph without text. And I am an ardent feminist. I’ve met Hillary Clinton and have followed her career for years. Still, there’s another competing message somewhere in the back of my brain.
These competing messages, about what people cannot accomplish because of their gender, race, sexual orientation or other identity characteristics, are a direct challenge to the Unitarian Universalist belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
That’s why it is so important that Unitarian Universalist congregations take a two-pronged approach to dealing with sexism.
First, congregations should provide ample opportunities for Unitarian Universalists to develop their own religious beliefs about gender. There is so much religious messaging out there that is negative about women’s inherent worth, negative about women’s religious leadership, and negative’s about the relationship between women and God. We need to highlight equality-affirming religious ideas, and discuss them in community. Some Unitarian Universalist congregations do this by having women’s spiritual practice groups, or by leading religious education courses that focus on gender and sexuality. I am proud of the UU efforts in this area, and I believe our congregations need to keep going, by developing new ways of addressing gender issues in community.
Second, congregations should be places where gender equality is modeled. In American religious life, women have often been the invisible (or less visible) powerhouses. I wrote my senior thesis in college on the role of women layleaders in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I learned about not only Rosa Parks, but many other religious women who played critical roles in the boycott, but whom are barely remembered less than sixty years later.
At my congregation’s fall “Homecoming” worship this year, the interim parish minister, the outgoing minister of religious education, the incoming minister of religious education, the intern minister, and the chair and vice-chair of Standing Committee participated. After service, a friend said to me, “I love that it was all women up there.”
When I first came to the church in 2002, the congregation had never had a female parish minister since our founding in 1636. And I think some folks believed we never would. And here we are, five years later, with our first female parish minister.
Women ministers play a critical role in Unitarian Universalism. At least half of all current UU ministers are women, and two-thirds of those preparing for UU ministry are women (see UU World article, “Thirty Years of Feminist Transformation.”)
The fact that all of my congregation’s most prominent leaders are women is probably a temporary phenomenon. I believe that in the long-run, it is important to have both men and women in leadership positions. Shared leadership models for members of the congregation, and for the rest of the world, that men and women can work together in ways that are equitable and that further our religious values. There are many men in the church who are playing important, albeit slightly less visible, leadership roles.
I am so proud when I go to church and see women–intelligent, compassionate and professional–in visible positions of religious leadership. I appreciate the respite from the larger world, the few hours in the day where I don’t ask, “Where are the women?”
Update 9/24
In the comments: Ms. Theologian recommends Rev. Christine Robinson’s recent post “Women Clergy; Here and There”, which explores the topic of women in ministry, and the need for ongoing education in seminaries about gender issues. And Fausto shares his experience as a male congregant feeling excluded by the way gender and “God-talk” are handled in some UU congregations.
September 24th, 2007 17:22
Thanks for the mention!
Did you read Christine’s recent post on women in the ministry?
September 24th, 2007 18:00
The fact that all of my congregation’s most prominent leaders are women is probably a temporary phenomenon.
Speaking generally, and not only about your specific congregation, I hope you are right, but I am not optimistic that you are. I see UUism gradually, and seemingly inexorably, evolving into primarily a “girls’ club”.
As a father, I find it alienating to observe that Mother’s Day is the theme of a service nearly every year in most UU congregations, but Father’s Day is almost always supplanted by the (effeminate, as I experience it) Flower Communion or other end-of-the-church-year traditions. As a man in a religious community where God-talk is inherently suspect to begin with, I find it alienating to observe that God-talk is less frequently challenged when feminine personal pronouns are used to refer to God, but masculine pronouns and traditional epithets like “Lord” and “Father” are almost always challenged, if not outright taboo.
In the case of God-talk, for example, if (as theists suppose) God is real, then God presumably transcends gender, and so should we. If (as many non-theists and even some theists suppose) what we refer to as “God” is a human-originated projection and abstract personification of our own humanly-conceived ideals, to exclude a masculine image of God is to exclude the value of my masculine human experience.
Why do we seem so systematically to uplift the feminine but suppress the masculine? This sort of increasingly overt bias discourages men from wider participation in both our pulpits and our pews. Over time, the less free and/or willing we are speak in relevant and welcoming masculine terms and voices to men’s lives and experience, the fewer men will eventually remain.
September 24th, 2007 22:20
Fausto,
Thank you for sharing this.
First, I have to agree that there is something fundamentally unfair about elevating Mother’s Day to epic status in worship, while downplaying Father’s Day. Not only does that negate the crucial role that fathers can play in their children’s lives, but it also implies that somehow parenthood is more important for women than for men.
Second, the God-talk issue is thorny. Describing God as male sometimes and female other times doesn’t rectify the problem. For most women and men, masculine God-talk will simply reinforce negative theologies about gender, even if it is only used some of the time. Instead, we need theologies about God and gender that challenge patriarchal views of masculinity and feminity.
We need to discuss: If and when we think of God as male, what do we learn about God? What does it mean to us to picture a male God? What about when we think of God as female? What do we learn about God then? This gives us a chance to share with one another a different way of conceptualizing a male and female God.
For me, I would say when I think of God as male, I am reminded of the men in my life who have supported me, encouraged me to accomplishment, and affirmed my value. These are men who refused to be bound by patriarchal ideas of masculinity. Likewise, when I think of God as a woman, I picture those women who have guided me, shared wisdom with me, and encouraged me to growth. These are women who were feminist and proud, and take the time to help other women along the way.
Picturing God as both male and female helps me to see God’s love as it has been expressed by men and women I have known.
Different people will come to different conclusions about how they want to God-talk, based on their own experiences of gender.
The important thing is that congregations openly discuss these issues, including the experiences of both men and women. A few things I have seen in congregations come to mind. One is men’s groups, led for and by men, as places to explore spirituality and men’s experiences. Another is creative use of gender language. The hymn “Bring Many Names,” with its description of the “Strong mother God, working day and night, Planning all wonders of creation…” and the “Warm father God, hugging every child, feeling all the strains of human living…” shows one way that gendered language can be used without reinforcing sexism. I would also like to see more discussion groups that include both men and women, and focus on gender issues.
What do you think of these suggestions? Would they begin to address some of the concerns you have based on your experience with UU congregations?
September 24th, 2007 23:14
Ms. Theologian,
You’re quite welcome. I’m glad you mentioned Christine’s recent article about women in ministry–I’m going to add that to the main post.
September 25th, 2007 18:10
So… Another way to notice women missing from our churches:
Although all ministers and most members in my congregations would insist on their anti-sexist credentials, a disturbing phenomena suggests much unconscious sexism. Men or women, very few sermon-izers use readings and quotes are by women. Of those the same few women appear over and over (Mary Olvier being #1).
Where are the women’s voices? http://www.lookingforfaith.org/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif
Modern or ancient, Christian, Buddhist, Sufi or Hindu… there are so many amazing women’s voices out there. And with the web, they are easy to find. We all need to take responsibility, also for bringing women into our churches in this way.
For anyone who wants a one-book education in spiritual women’s poetry thru history, a great start is Jane Hirshfield’s compliation: Women in Praise of the Sacred
Women in Praise of the Sacred
Elena @ Wandering Monk, Reluctant Gyrovague
September 25th, 2007 18:10
Shelby, I agree with nearly everything you say in response to my post. However, I think UU men can already find plenty of opportunities for more genuine and spontaneous male bonding elsewhere than they would in self-conscious, intentional UU men’s spirituality or “Iron John” groups.
I would also add to your comments that a touch of introspective “AO work” on the topic of gender should be on the agenda as well. The pathological male archetype that many self-identified “feminists” freely condemn in UU culture and worship is not typically the type of man who is drawn to UU churches on Sunday, nor do the men who do show up appreciate overtly or implicitly bigoted generalizations about all men, yet a negative archetype of all masculinity too frequently predominates and is too infrequently challenged.
In her day Mary Daly shone much-needed sunlight on harmful, systematic, unrecognized, “patriarchal” gender biases in our culture, including in church; but that was then, this is now, we are not they, and a community that sincerely desires to be an place of equal welcome to both genders today is no place to preach the gospel of Mary Daly. Rather than sponsoring opportunities for men to do their manly thing separately, while the community of the whole continues to condone the perpetuation of derogatory masculine archetypes in order to justify an a priori sense of feminine resentment toward them, UUism needs to do more as an entire community — of both sexes together and at all age levels — to uphold and value positive masculine archetypes if it is going to stem its long-term trend toward institutional feminization. Otherwise even more men will come to conclude — as too many already do — that “there’s nothing for me here”.
September 26th, 2007 11:39
Elena, Women in Praise of the Sacred looks fabulous. Thanks for the recommendation. I agree that it is critical to “walk the walk” by quoting female authors as well as male authors in worship, and also by telling stories that feature women. After I preached a sermon about Ruth and Naomi, a woman came up to me in service and said “Thank you so much for focusing on a story about women.”
Fausto, Thank you for responding again. Your use of the term AO (anti-oppression) reminded me of a divinity school course I took on white anti-racist identity. One lesson I took from that course is that the dominant models we have of whiteness in our culture are models that either deny social inequalities, or models that promote social inequalities. There are few models of white people who are aware of racial prejudice AND taking action to change it. Such white people do exist, but they are rarely discussed.
Perhaps the same thing is happening in some of our congregations–either we downplay the sexism against women that still persists, or we pigeonhole all men as agents of sexism. To be frank, what I have seen falls in the former category, but I can accept that your experience with congregations has been more in the latter. What is needed is an open discussion of how sexism does still operate, and what strategies men and women can take to challenge sexism. This could also include holding up examples of UU men who have been anti-sexist—for example, male ministers who helped women seeking abortions before Roe v. Wade. (I’ll write more about this history for one of my upcoming posts–it’s an interesting part of our UU heritage that is rarely discussed.)
September 27th, 2007 13:47
Shelby, I sense that when you talk about purging “sexism”, you’re talking about something different than the point I am trying to make. I am trying to say that many UU environments feel biased against men, not women. Empirically, that’s why we have been so much more appealing to women than to men lately.
I think most men experience the word “patriarchy” as it is used by feminists as a derogatory slur, whether it is intended that way or not. Using it too frequently or carelessly creates an inherently hostile rather than welcoming environment for men. And telling a UU man that there once were some rare, exemplary UU men who in mythic times rebelled against their base masculine essence to conquer their inherent patriarchy, and who still provide an ideal for us contemporary male mortals to aspire to, is a lot like saying, “He was a credit to his race, and you can hope to be, too, if you work hard enough at it.”
Most men would probably rather just go watch football with the guys than let themselves be ambushed into that paradigm. I am saying that if we really want to attract men, we need to celebrate healthy male archetypes, not simply deplore unhealthy ones. And rather than quashing time-honored worship vocabularies because they are “patriarchal” when viewed through a particular lens, quash instead any language that makes men feel that they are deemed guilty on arrival.
To use a classical pagan vocabulary, if we allow ourselves to worship only Athena, Artemis, Hestia, Aphrodite, Hebe, and Hera — especially Hera! — while sneering at Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, Ares, Hephaestus, and Dionysus, we will soon become a female-only cult.
September 27th, 2007 16:42
Hi Fausto,
Thank you for clarifying this. You’re right, we do have different concerns, because we have had different experiences: Although I think UU’s and UU institutions are doing a lot of things right on gender issues, I have still seen significant instances of sexism against women, and my concern is with how we can counter those. What you have seen is that men are stereotyped as oppressors and that masculinity is treated as uniformly negative.
We differ, in that I can’t agree with the idea that we should simply cease all discussion of the power imbalance between men and women in our society (i.e. patriarchy, whether by that or another name). Nor can I support using a vocabulary that has been traditionally been harmful to women, without discussing or re-framing our use of those words.
But I also believe it is possible for congregations to have an approach that meets the needs of both men and women. I would like to see us take a middle way, in which we acknowledge and challenge sexism against women, while also elevating positive images of both genders, in worship and in other congregational settings.
September 28th, 2007 07:42
I agree with your last post. Unfortunately, there is an inherent conflict between much of abstract “feminist” theology and trying to create a living community where men feel appreciated for who they are rather than presumed unworthy but granted probation. In any discussions about correcting sexism, then, there needs to be acknowledgment that that the soteriology of victimhood is never valid, and that the oppressiveness of sexism can and in our community sometimes does run both ways and can’t be condoned in either direction.
If that can’t be done — if the “Great Goddess” is regularly invoked but “God the Father” is forbidden, if “patriarchy” is deplored even when it is absent from the gathered community, but “matriarchy” is condoned and practiced within the gathered community, then men will choose to worship elsewhere, and we will become a community of women worshiping by themselves.
September 29th, 2007 12:02
Dear Fausto,
I agree with you that we need to acknowledge and challenge sexism both against men and women, and that we need a theology which promotes both God(s) and Goddess(es), or to put it more broadly, positive images of the divine as both male and female.
It’s important to have a theological understanding of how we should approach gender that takes into account multiple perspectives.
And then to build on that understanding by working it out in practice, figuring out what it looks like in worship services, religious education classes, and other programs of the congregation. I wonder if you and I were planning a worship service or another program together, how much more we would learn about one another’s beliefs, and where we differ and agree.
This has been a great discussion. Thank you. This is the kind of conversation between men and women about gender that I’d like to see happen more in congregations (and that I like to participate in).
October 16th, 2007 17:02
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