In the past, I’ve shared my thoughts about celebrating Mother’s Day. Today, I find myself considering very similar gender based issues on Father’s Day. In a single thought, I’m not a fan of Hallmark Holidays that reinforce gender divisions. Instead, I hope we can use these moments to reflect more deeply on the moral act […]
How fitting that we gather here at Grailville, the center that Janet Kalven helped to found, in this lovely barn turned Oratory on the land that Janet Kalven loved. As was evident in the “Circle of Remembrance,” we come not to mourn a tragedy, but to rejoice in the goodness of a life well lived. […]
Lately, it seems the news is plagued by stories of sexism and violence related to young women and girls globablly and in the U.S. While I think we all need to express collective outrage at such blatant and systemic acts of gender-based oppression and violence, we also need to see the daily impact of sexism […]
Janet Kalven, Grail member and feminist pedagogue, died April 24, 2014 at the age of 100. She was a veritable force of nature—a feminist who shaped the field of religion by providing various spaces for women to meet, learn, write, and strategize. See my WATER remembrance of her here. Her memoir, Women Breaking Boundaries: A Grail […]
I was in front of the Supreme Court on March 25, 2014, on a snowy spring morning when the justices heard oral arguments for the Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby case about the provision of birth control as part of health care. Maybe it was the miserable weather with wet snow flakes the size of silver […]
As a daughter of a molecular biologist who was also a faithful tither to her church, I grew up in a world that saw no clear separation between science and religion. It was in the air I breathed and the way in which I learned to see the world. For my mother, scientific exploration could […]
Teachers need vivid imaginations to keep students interested and materials fresh. Kathryn D. Blanchard and Jane S. Webster demonstrate creative pedagogy and innovative scholarship with Lady Parts: Biblical Women and the Vagina Monologues (Eugene, OR: WIPF and STOCK, 2012). This is a unique project both in content and method. It is bound to generate others […]
One of the most pleasant aspects of feminist studies in religion is the willingness of many colleagues to help one another. Unlike some cutthroat fields, religion has tended (with notable and scandalous exceptions) to be a place that welcomes new scholars and nurtures budding activists. That was my experience as a student and young person, […]
Valentine ’s Day has been civilized and capitalized, hallmarked and disneyfied, all in an attempt to clean up love and signify sexuality into a compartmentalized relationship standard, tied nicely with an over romanticized bow. As a cradle Catholic, the veneration of saints has been part of my religious heritage. I still remember elementary school projects […]
I like the action-driven courage of the bare-breasted Femen women. Their radical feminism reminds me of how many of us feminist academic types have retreated into the “do-able,” the “tenure-able,” “promotion-able,” and “adaptable” versions of gender practice in our work lives and lives overall. The “lean-in” women who are trying very hard to make it […]