Category Archives: sexism

Postcolonial Theologians Are Sooo Mean!

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sarah poco theo

(click on the picture above to see the convo)

I have been reading a lot of backlash from white evangelicals against postcolonialism and empire studies in the field of religion. The criticisms I have read and heard have bordered on the ridiculous but one that seems to be doing well is “postcolonials are just plain mean people.” In my experience with conservative evangelical editors, many of the concepts related to critical race theory and postcolonial criticism, to them, come off as offensive and from a place of anger. If you don’t want to deal with your blindspots as a scholar, the best thing for you to do is to resort to name-calling and painting dissidents as “emotional.” No matter how many sources are cited, statistics given, post-colonial/anti-empire is labelled as “too political” just because it isn’t mainstream. And ‘scuse me, what theology or theory or method ISN’T political? kay?

Postcolonial theologians would reject any notion to the idea that those in power get to #1, set the terms of the debate, #2, get to define for the oppressed what liberation and reconciliation looks like: Exhibit A.

Postcolonial theology in a broad, Christian perspective is to take the idea of God as a Personal, Free, and Suffering Being serious, to reject the notion that people are to be treated as things:

“Postcolonial scriptural reading reminds us that theology cannot be divorced form the real lives and deaths of indigenous peoples, slaves, women, children, and the poorest of the poor. God is love. Love attempts to care for all people. Love considers how power affects the lives of people.”

- Gabriel Salguero, “The Cross or Caesar?: A Postcolonial Query

The post in POST-colonial, as I argue time and again, and Salguero does as well, is a sign of hope, that there is life AFTER the fact of colonialism’s history, and that there is a way, a better way, in life AFTER the so called “triumph” of neoliberal economics and the neocolonialism of the multinational corporate-driven state.

“Our preferences aren’t formed in an intellectual void. The Pentecostalism of the global South has a distinct history, greatly influenced by the legacy of Western colonialism. The relationship between the South and the West hasn’t been shaped by dialogue, but by imperialism, and if dialogue is the goal, the onus of compromise is on the West, not on the South. Additionally, dialogue is impossible as long as the West continues to assert its intellectual superiority to the South. The Pentecostalism of the Global South is correctly considered a syncretic belief system, and that syncretism ought to be viewed as a colonized culture’s attempt to retain agency in the face of Western Christianity’s theological colonialism.”

- Sarah at Tony Jones and the Need for a Postcolonial Christianity

Yes, scathing words! Condemning illusions of dialogue that ignore real, concrete histories of power relations! Ooooh sooo mean!!!

Youre-a-Mean-One-Mr.-Grinch[1]

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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Yes, @SeanHannity, Men Do Have The Power To Prevent Rape #TYZerlina #IWD

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DISMANTLING THE NOTION OF FACELESS EVIL & VICTIM SHAMING

*TRIGGER WARNING*: TRIGGER WARNING FOR LANGUAGE PERTAINING TO SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, AND GUN VIOLENCE

Today is International Women’s Day. How appropriate that on today of all days, the nexus between rape culture and gun culture are at the center of discussion. Over the past several months, I have had several posts on rape culture in the U.S.: India, Ohio, John Piper, Religion, and the Triumph of Rape Culture as well as The Quest For the Historical Mary: Akin, Rape Culture, and Christianity

A few conservative blogs that I follow had several salacious headlines: ““DEMOCRATIC STRATEGISTS SHOCKING CLAIM: WOMEN DON’T NEED GUN FOR SELF-DEFENSE; JUST TELL MEN NOT TO RAPE WOMEN” from THE BLAZE or how about from the Washington Times: Dem Strategists: No Guns, Just Tell Men Not To Rape Women See what happened there? The title’s invite the reader with the suggestion that Zerlina Maxwell wants defenseless women to be raped by men without women being able to defend themselves. This is right-wing partisan propaganda per usual.

What no progressive outlet has done is call out talking head Sean Hannity for his narrow, ideological views on violence (Hannity, being a stand in for the political right’s vision of the world). We can say how Zerlina Maxwell is being treated is terrible, and offer our support (which I fully do) all we want, but the best way to fight this ideological war is to debunk Hannity’s (and therefore conservative’s views) about rape, violence, and evil.

If you watch the video, listen to the pseudo-pious responses that Hannity gives to Maxwell: “Criminals aren’t going to agree with you. Criminals are not going to listen to Sean Hannity” “Evil exists in the world.”

The notion that rape culture occurs in a world of abstraction, a world without faces is a purely ideological move on Hannity’s (and usually U.S. American conservatives who agree with Hannity’s perspective). By ideological, I mean the way John Howard Yoder uses the word, that Hannity and the Right Wing Nut Jobs care more about their idols (guns) over and against human life, i.e., the well being of women’s bodies. The world has evil in it, but human beings have the capacity to choose to reject that evil. This ability is called free will. Evil does not come without a face, without a name. In Christianity, evil has been named sin, violence, Satan, demons, wickedness, faithlessness, and injustice. These realities are embodied in the actions of people. The prophet Elijah calls out King Ahab & Queen Jezebel because they stole Naboth’s vineyard by murdering Naboth (1st Kings 21); Elijah names their deed as evil. Likewise, women today are constantly being questioned when they call out rape culture, simply because they name rape as evil. Victims of rape are always the ones who have to bear responsibility because in rape culture, the victim is to blame. “She shouldn’t have worn that dress.” “She was asking for it.” “Sometimes no doesn’t mean no.”

Hannity (and pro-gun RWNJs) point their fingers at “criminals,” that “scary stranger danger” but ignore the realities of significant others, friends, and family members who prey on the vulnerable. The “criminal” like women who are victims of sexual violence, are the scapegoats so that men in rape culture do not have to take any responsibility for what happens. From a religious standpoint,this rugged individualism is disastrous, and tantamount to apostasy. In Christianity, humanity, male and female is reconciled as One Humanity in Christ. Men and women are to share their burdens, existing in relationships of mutuality. The true religion of Christ Jesus which is faithful to the Gospels, and the message of Jesus and his apostles is an enigma to the worldliness of the cult of the Second Amendment. Yes, we have progressed well in the area of gender equality, but we still have a long ways to go. Demonic Rape Culture must be exorcised here at home and around the globe. The voices of victims must start to be listened to rather than ignored. In the realm of religion, Othered voices deserve a hearing. Yes, MEN, like myself must be taught that rape, patriarch, and gender exclusion is wrong, and that nonviolence and mutuality are the superior ways, the Way of my Master, Jesus.

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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Freedom For Douche Canoery: The #Oscars, Race, Privilege, and Quevenzhane Wallis

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Original Source: USA Today

Male Privilege & On The Courage To Be A Black Girl In Racist HollyWood

As a younger woman, McIntosh said, she often wondered why male faculty at Wellesley — “very nice men” — were so dismissive of the idea of including women’s studies or women’s history in the college’s first-year curriculum.

“White privilege is like a bank account I was given,” McIntosh said. “I didn’t ask for it, but I can spend it down. And because it’s white privilege, it’ll keep refilling.”

Both quotes taken from The Harvard Gazette: “Using privilege helpfully”

“I profoundly disagree with the language of “privilege”. The discourse seems inadequate to the complex realities of racial, gender, and national inequalities for example. It also tends, in concrete politics, toward an unhelpfully moralistic language – checking your privilege, and so on. However, I don’t think one should be afraid of it. Not just for macho reasons – though it’s true that I am quite a big boy now, and can stand to hear things I disagree with”

“It would be grotesque to say that enabling the perpetuation of rape thereby preserves or protects any “privilege” for men. But clearly the gendered tropes that are pressed into the service of rape culture are bound up with the ostensible compensations of “maleness”, this “psychological wage” as Du Bois put it in a different context. Of course, these compensations are not simply “psychological”. They are an iteration at the level of ideology of various realities – the wage gap, male household dominance, the orientation of mass culture toward encouraging women to be “man-pleasing”, and so on. In the total, longer-term view, all of these realities actually cost men.”

The previous two quotes are from The Guardian UK article, ‘On Male Privilege’ by Lenin’s Tomb’s Richard Seymour.

Last night, FAMILY GUY creator Seth MacFarlane was the host of the 2013 Academy Awards (the Oscars). From one perspective, he made several harmless jokes. From those with a different angle, MacFarlane crossed the line. The groups who felt the brunt of MacFarlane’s humor were his usual targets, racial minorities, women, and the GLBTQ community, those on the margins of American society. In his introduction at the very beginning, he openned with, of all things, a joke about Chris Brown and Rihanna: a safe pick for a basically all white audience; don’t wanna bring up Charlie Sheen and his violent past! MacFarlane spoke* of Quevenzhane Wallis, not as a NINE-YEAR OLD ACTRESS, but as potential sex partner for George Clooney. Quevenzhane Wallis is a black girl, has not even reached puberty, but the first thing that the white male host had to say about her was pertaining to her capacity to please another white male. The racist stereotype of black women as simply body parts to be used (bootylicious Venus Hottentot’s remains unchallenged in U.S. American society saturated by rape cultural practices.

MacFarlane has his defenders, of course, not too unexpected. He’s being “cutting edge,” putting excitement back into the Oscars unlike the Wonderbread hosts from last year. But is he really being edgy when he is just recycling racist tropes we inherited from chattel slavery? Seth MacFarlane is completely safe to continue to spread his racist and sexist humor only because HollyWhite, sorry, HollyWood, continues to practice white hegemony and the exclusion of racial minorities. Seth MacFarlane’s Misogyny does matter because his works are the opiate that keep the masses from resisting the white racist practices that the so-called “progressive” HollyWhite elite wants to remain unchallenged and unquestioned.

The freedom to produce banal humor at the expense of women and racial minorities is a given right when it comes to freedom of speech. In a world where racism and sexism is edgy, this is not freedom, that’s privilege: freedom to continue to oppress others who have less power than you do. Privilege is not something that is “psychological” or just some “perceived” reality like what Richard Seymour was arguing. My very own male privilege is a bank account, and I can always be free to make withdrawals, by challenging the social “taboo” of women’s human dignity by making sexist remarks. My male privilege allows me freedom to oppress women in my speech and actions, as a set of practices that society tolerates as “normal,” as “satire.” My male privilege allows me to dictate what is the norm, say, like the notion that the name Annie is more normal than Quevenzhene.

The other example of Quevenzhane’s sexualization in the media last night was the “satirical” journalism of the Onion, which referred to Ms. Wallis in an offensive manor. But it’s just a joke, right? It was just satire. No, its not just a joke. Its a comment bound up in a large number of practices by racist HollyWhite elites. After being chastized for two hours at the least, The Onion offered an apology and deleted the tweet, but the scars are still there. The history is still here. The Academy does not want you to know that 94% of the voters are white, and 77% of the voters are male. These numbers are not even close to representing the census.

The fact that that the Onion can get away with such a comment relatively unscathed, simply by issuing an apology is proof that they in a position of privilege.  The Academy, in its selection of Seth MacFarlane,  made it clear that people of color such as Quevenzhane Wallis and Denzel Washington would be invited, but their presence would not be welcome.  Privilege is more than ideology; privilege is about the historical arrangement of particular bodies, and the real, concrete advantages that some bodies have over other bodies.  It is in this sense that privilege is very real. And when it comes to the lives of black girls, dismantling privilege wherever it rears its ugly head, matters.

Also Recommended reading: A Love Letter To Quvenzhane Wallis from CFC

*post has been editted to reflect the chronology of events.

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RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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The Bible, Homosexuality, and Christianity: A Few Notes on Gender in the Scriptures

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This is the seventh post in a series. I highly encourage that you read those previous posts before reading this one. The preface is here. The guidelines are here. A discussion of relevant Hebrew Bible texts is here. A study of Romans 1:26-27 is here. A Study of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 can be found here. A discussion about marriage in the Bible is here.

These are just a few thoughts that occurred to me in the midst of our discussion. None of this should be taken as “gospel,” – pun intended – but rather just my personal reflections on gender and the Bible.

In the current climate of discussion around homosexual practice, it has been argued that homosexuality may be wrong because it is an attack on traditional gender roles. Further, it is often said that these gender roles are rooted in scripture. Therefore, it is often argued that it is important that Christians should do everything in our power to oppose the confusion, disruption, and casting off of “traditional” gender roles that homosexuality represents. In this regard, I believe “they” are right. Homosexual people (as well as bisexual and transgender folks) do indeed seem to disrupt “traditional” gender roles. But, if Jesus taught us anything, it is that tradition that is not rooted in the scriptures AND love, may not be worth keeping. So what does the scripture say about gender roles?

Genesis 1:27 – “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

What this verse indicates is that God has created humans in God’s image, and that, somehow, males and females both embody the image of God. The way I read this, which may be controversial, is that without a woman AND a man, one cannot fully reflect the image of God. Women are just as important as men, and without one or the other, God’s image on Earth would be incomplete. Of course, Jesus takes this to a whole other level, and does include the whole image of God in himself, though he is a man. I wonder what that says for the women-specific parts of God’s image that are present in Jesus? It seems that Jesus may have had to break traditional gender roles in order to fully image God on Earth. Maybe.

Deborah – In the Book of Judges, we are told the story of Deborah, a prophetess and a judge of ancient Israel, led the nation and spoke the words of God to the people. While many in our current Christian culture would find this offensive, as they misuse the Bible, it appears God has no problem with women both in leadership or teaching about God.

Ruth - a foreigner among Israelite people. She seduced and aggressively pursued a relationship with a man who was her social superior. Not a very good “woman.” And yet, God approved, even in the midst of the scandal, and used Ruth to support the lineage both of King David AND Jesus.

Esther – Esther was a Hebrew girl who was forced to parade around in some sort of Persian beauty pageant in order to be given the “prize” of becoming a bride to the current king. Esther happened to win, although her life was one of misery because there were powerful forces who wanted to kill her entire race of people. Unfortunately, Esther could not ask the king to help because he had issued an edict that his wives could not speak unless called for. Esther broke this rule, disobeyed her husband’s direct order, and was used by God to save her people. I guess God has less of a problem with women submitting to men than Paul did in some of his churches.

Isaiah 66:13 – “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

It seems as if God is adopting a traditionally female gender roll. Hmmmm.

Jesus – Jesus broke gender norms all of the time. For example, it was very taboo for a man to meet a women alone, let alone talk of marriage with her. That would have been fine for women, though. And yet Jesus does that very thing. Jesus lets women touch him and his feet, another gender norm broken. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, saying how he would have protected her like a hen (female) protects its babies. Jesus refuses to fight (a traditionally masculine trait), and cooks for his friends. He allows himself to lose an argument to a female, tells parables where God is represented by females, and indicates in Luke 11 that it is not by fitting in to traditional gender rolls that people please God, but by a person’s response in spirit and deed to God’s kingdom.

Of course, Galatians 3:28 puts a bit of an easy cap on all of this when Paul says that in Christ, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Turning not only gender, but societal roles upside down.

Now, lest people think that I am being biased, there are indeed many verses which tell women to do some variation of submit, obey, listen, and be silent, either in marriage or at church, or society at large. However, these were all written after Paul’s writing of Galatians. Given that Paul knew and commended female deacons (Phoebe), allowed women like Pricilla and Eunice to teach others about the faith, met in a house church led by the woman Lydia, never-mind belonging to a church which was started when Peter quoted Joel as saying that daughters would prophecy, and God’s spirit would fall on men and women. Acts also tells us that there was a man who had 4 daughters who all prophesied. Now, how do you square Paul’s teaching about women being silent with those facts? Fairly easy, as it turns out.

If Paul, having an encounter with the risen Lord, comes to the conclusion that in Christ, women and men are equal, and experiences this both by looking at Old Testament examples (as above), knowing the life and teaching of Jesus, and seeing this lived out by those women in the church around him, he of course would teach in his earliest letter (Galatians) and would likely preach in the earliest churches that he started, that women were equal in every way to men. However, what would those churches look like, if, once Paul left them to their own devices, they believed Paul? What if the women started teaching and doing traditionally “male” things without all of the benefit of learning that the males had? It would likely lead to poor teaching. Also, it would upset social norms and make Christians look like rabble rousers and turn people off to the faith. So Paul, being a pastor first (a tendency we seem to forget) would write back to those churches, telling them that “I (Paul, not God) do not permit a woman to teach, etc… Of course, this is all in the context of Christians “mutually submitting to one another,” which is also readily forgotten by many today.

All of this to say, that the traditional gender roles that we hold today are not biblical ones, at least not in the best sense of the word. Perhaps a better way to seek gender roles is to look at Jesus, who never treated anyone as a gender-ed person, but as an individual. Jesus himself, in being the complete image of God, bore in his body both the male-like AND female-like image of God. Also, Jesus embodied the wisdom of God (the female version of the LOGOS in Proverbs).

In many areas of our lives that we take for granted, traditional gender roles have been broken, to no great harm. This does not mean that men and women are the same and must conform to the standard of each other in some sort of forced equality. It does however mean that God is more than capable of bringing good into the world through many variations on gender themes, not being limited to one culture’s rules about who should be acting like what simply because they have this or that reproductive part.

Jump to part 8, A discussion about biblical interpretation, here.

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Optimistic Chad

Chad really really hopes things are going to turn out ok. He loves his wife - with the passion of 1000 exploding suns, and is a diligent, but surely mediocre father to his brilliant and subversive children. He likes Chinese food.

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India, Ohio, John Piper, Religion and the Triumph Of Rape Culture

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*TRIGGER WARNING*: Domestic violence, spousal abuse, gender violence, oppression in the name of religion

IT’S TIME WE KISSED RAPE CULTURE GOODBYE

“The churches have language to bring to this discussion that secular society does not. We can talk about gravely harmful behavior without having to resort to legal definitions and loopholes. We can claim that sexual activities, in every instance, should embody love and respect for oneself and the other. The language of sexual activities as an expression of love and respect clearly exposes the misstep that a rape victim could ever be “asking for it” and the mistake of defining consent exclusively in terms of its minimum requirements”

– Julia, of Women In Theology, Sexual Violence And the Church Talking To Teens

“A person who has been whacked around is in no condition to spiritualize the matter. Can you imagine an abused woman being advised to wait before going to the authorities until she “longs for, with a heavy and humble heart, the reestablishment of the abuser’s “nurturing” relationship?” Why does he even assume that there has ever been a nurturing relationship? I can see it now. The woman sitting in Piper’s office, with two black eyes, shaking, and Piper saying “You are not humble enough, woman. Repent.” Good night!”- Dee, The Wartburg Watch, Domestic Violence,, Christmas, John Piper, SGM, and the TGC

“Having “liberated” us from the way popular culture and media objectifies, degrades, and oppresses women, complementarian leaders can now objectify and oppress us in other ways with nicer words (and with support from God).”

- Sarah, Sarah Over The Moon, Some Humans Are More Equal Than Others: Introduction: John Piper, Joshua Harris, Mark Driscoll

““Rape culture,” as young feminists now call this, isn’t limited to India. It lives anywhere that has a “traditional” vision of women’s sexuality.”-E.J. Graff, The Prospect, Purity Culture Is Rape Culture

Today on the front pages of newspapers and blogs everywhere, after you ignore the crap we are being told about the “fiscal cliff,” there is a disturbing trend I wish to address. As I hear and read stories in silence, horrified at the events that took place in India, where a 23-year-old physiotherapy student died after having to have surgery from being sexually assaulted by several men. To add to that is the Steubenville, Ohio high school rape of a young girl where only 3 suspects are being prosecuted possibly. Rape was nothing more than a practical joke because women’s bodies have become things to be lorded over and owned as possessions. In one instance, writers like E.J. Graff would blame “traditional” religions (I guess that’s code for cultures in the two-thirds world). The conflict between the modernized Western Progressive versus the Backwoods Eastern Religious zealot does not work in the context of rape. Sexual violence is sexual violence, regardless of the culture, race, or religion of the victim. It’s a complete bourgeois move on Graff’s part to take a cheap shot a religion. A religion promoting self-control is not the problem in a late capitalist world of “Gotta Have It” desires. One historical example of chastity/purity gone right for the sake of liberation: one, when the early Black church desired emancipation from the North American rape culture of African enslavement, the few literate black (male) pastors who called upon freed black men to abstain from alcohol as to avoid any suspicion of immorality, and as an expression of dignity in the face of grave injustice.

Purity culture in and of itself is not the villain, it is the double-standards, lopsided sexist emphasis on the chastity for women, making women’s behavior and fashion the blame for men’s struggles with lust. This is an entirely modern phenomenon, by modern I mean post-Reformation/16th century. The early Church fathers, and male philosophers and thinkers in general in their context, believed that men could and should have self-control when it came to sex. Yes, they still affirmed many of them the inequality of the sexes, but when it came to traditional views of sexuality, women were not made the scapegoats (objectified) for men’s sexuality. Time Travel forward to today, and what we have in U.S. American Christianity is a purity culture only geared towards young girls and women, purity balls for girls, purity rings for girls, and purity bears.

The problem with the purity culture in North American Christianity is the very limited notion of what it means to be pure (that is, for generally all people, purity is about abstaining from sexual practices). Abstinence is a good idea, but self-control is far superior, a self-control for the sake of living before God and others. In the Old and New Testament,purity and religion are never separate from seeking justice from others. Religious purity according to James 1:27, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” shows an understanding of purification that is not limited to sexual purity.

What complementarians (church going men who see women as 2nd class citizens) cling to is exactly what is impure: the power that men have over women. The world in scripture is just not about “the cosmos” or a “large group of reprobate sinners”; the world also refers to the ways that society sustains unjust and unloving practices against human beings. Domestic Violence is ALWAYS out of God’s will. Rape (Todd Akin) IS NEVER PART OF GOD’S PLAN! The social libertarian thrust of TeaVangelicals (church going tea partiers –I refuse to call them Christians)leads to religious impurity, ill-will and antipathy towards victims of sexual violence. Religious persons need to start having a broader understanding of what it means to be pure, and start incorporating nonviolent practices into that discourse. For Christians, we need to stop telling women that they need to stay on the cross of domestic violence just a little while longer to suffer with Jesus. That is not God’s will, Jesus got off that cross, died to conquer the Satan and oppression for us, and rose from the dead as the One and Only needed sacrifice, Once AND FOR ALL. No more sacrifices are required or mandated (Hebrews 10:1-18). The sacrificial system, the scapegoat mechanism. It is finished.

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

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