Women’s Studies/ Religious Studies 303

WOMEN IN RELIGION

Fall 2003

WOMEN IN RELIGION:
Class History

•      1989 - Experimental Course

•       1990 - Live teleclass broadcast over the CONVOCOM PBS affiliate

•       1990 -  Simmons branded a “satan worshipper” by local clergy

•       1992 -  Teleclass receives the national NUCEA award for excellence

Women in Religion
Class History

•       1996 - REL 303 included in WIU’s General Education (Multicultural)

•       2000 – 33 students take REL 303 on the WIU campus

•       2002 – REL 303 and Women’s Studies 303 are taught as a co-listed class

Women’s Studies Meets
Religious Studies

•     What is the connection?

•      Both academic disciplines share common academic, intellectual, and humanistic approaches to knowledge

Women’s Studies and Religious Studies

•      new disciplines, roughly 30-40 years old

•      developed at universities in response to social and existential challenges of the 20th century

•      Postmodern in approach = “Let’s take it apart and see why it doesn’t work.”

•      Positive social change by increasing knowledge and understanding

Major Challenge?
IGNORANCE!

•      Ignorance is not stupidity

•      People are ignorant about something because:

l   They are afraid to learn

l   They don’t have access to information

l   They have access to false information

l   They are not allowed to learn

l   They are too lazy to learn

“How ‘Right’ Are Things?”

Global “reality” in the 21th Century:

•       war, social violence, terrorism, genocide

•       systematic destruction of the environment in the name of pogress

•       disparity between rich and poor

•       racism, sexism, class-ism, tribalism

•       over 24 million people in 107 countries take the drug Prozac to control depression and anxiety - YIKES!!

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

•      Most human beings want to lead a happy, fulfilling, peaceful life.

•      However, the way the world is “set up,” meaning the way human beings have constructed social norms, makes this simple goal almost impossible to reach.

How Can We Make Things Right?

•      Disenchantment: with the “promised paradise” of the modern, techno-scientific, secular world, led to:

•      Self-analysis: = “what is wrong with us?”

•      Protest: against every injustice, every act of violence against all life, pervasive evil.

•      Challenge: a call for peace, justice, equality, kindness, and human happiness.

Happiness vs. Power

•      What “blocks” authentic happiness in life?

•      Why does the quest for power over people, places, events replace the authentic quest for happiness?

•      How do social constructs designed to control human experience work against authentic happiness?

Happiness vs. Power

The Dominator-Model:

Ø   Happiness is equated with security

Ø   Security comes with power-over the “other”

Ø   Better and stronger weapons result in “peace”

Ø   Manipulate the world and other people to protect the group resources

Happiness vs. Power

The Partnership-Model:

•      Recognizes the interconnection of life on this planet

•      Communication rather than control

•      Peace comes from authentic relationships based on equality, justice, caring, and compassion

Inauthentic Living

Happiness is elusive when:

l          Your intentions for pursuing a particular activity are not aligned with the ideals of that activity (why are you really sitting in that seat writing down these notes?!)

l          Your daily activities are always a means to an ever-elusive end

Shared Intellectual
Characteristics & Methods

Characteristics

•      Descriptive (phenomenological)

•       Ethical roots

•      Multidisciplinary

l   Religious Studies/Women’s Studies

l   African American Studies

l   Environmental Studies

 

Shared Characteristics

•      Polymethodic

 

•      multicultural, comparative

 

•      worldview analysis (open-ended)

 

•      Critical (“thinking outside the box”)

What is “Women’s Studies?”

The obvious answers:

•      The “study of women”

•      How women fit into society

•      The meaning events, ideas, and social institutions have for women

•      How the resources of the world are unfairly divided according to social constructions about gender

What is “Religious Studies?”

The obvious answers:

•      The “study of religion and religions”

•      Learning about religions other than your own

•      Exploring the powerful interaction between religion and culture

•      Appreciating the sameness and differences the common human quest to find meaning and purpose in life

 

What is “Women’s Studies?”

Not so obvious:

•      Women’s Studies as Human Studies – “…it’s about all of us!”

•      Changing the world by changing the way we “see” the world

•      “Hearing” the other voice

•       “Caring” about the other

•      “Sharing” with the other

What is “Religious Studies?”

Not so obvious:

•      Religious Studies as “Human Studies” – “…its all about us!”

•      For good or ill, “religion” is a major determinant of human behavior

•      For good or ill, “religion” has enormous power in shaping societal norms

 

Common Human Experience

•      All human beings in all cultures and in all eras of human history have pondered the same existential questions:

l    Who am I?

l    Where did “all this” come from?

l    What is the meaning & purpose of life?

l    How should human beings live?

l    What is the “good life?”

l    How do I find happiness?

l    I know that I will die.  What happens, then?

The Power of Religion

•       In the face of shared existential needs, religion provides:

l   a sense of meaning and purpose to life

l   answers to profound life questions

l   a sense of belonging or community

l   social order by imposing on its adherents a set of behavioral standards

WOMEN IN RELIGION:
Key Premises

•      “Religion” has been the major determinant of human behavior since the dawn of consciousness

•      “Religion” is fundamentally about:

l    identity = self-esteem

l    relationship = empowerment

l    “religions” answer identity-forming and relationship-guiding questions

WOMEN IN RELIGION:
KEY PREMISES

Religion deals with answers to identity-forming questions:

•      Selfhood - “Who am I?”

•      Meaning - “Why am I?”

•      Purpose - “What do I do?”

•      Destiny - “Where does life lead?”

•      Hope - “I can be happy & fulfilled.”

 

WOMEN IN RELIGION:
Key Premises

Religion is relationship-guiding; how do we deal with “THE OTHER?”

•      The Divine

•      nature

•      other human beings

•      other cultures

•      rites of passage

Religion & Life

1. People ask profound life questions about about identity, meaning, purpose, love, hope, death, etc.

2. Rites of Passage in life are part of human existence = birth, death, adulthood, marriage, love, tragedy, change, etc.

3. Rites of Passage generate  profound life questions; cause people to question the meaning and purpose of life.

Religion & Rites of Passage

 

Religions provide answers to profound life questions that arise during rites of passage = life situations common to all human beings.

 Human religious activity, then, is common to all human beings in all cultures and in all times.

Negative Identity Formation (NIF)

•      NIF is the process by which human beings create “who they are” by “what they are not.”

•      “I am this because I am NOT THAT!”

•       Not That is almost always inferior.

•       Not That is usually dominated, controlled, oppressed, or killed.

Negative Identity Formation

•       “Star Wars” mentality = the evil other as the enemy

•      Examples:

l   racism

l   sexism

l   wars between nation states

l   the “Devil”

l   gangs, some cults, tribalism, etc.

Gender Studies

•      Women Studies and Religious Studies meet as Gender Studies.

•      Scholars interested in understanding the oppression of women kept running into religion.

•      “Religion” plays a major part in defining and sanctioning gender roles in any society or culture.

Gender Studies

Ø       Sex = the biologically determined physical distinctions between males and females

Ø     Gender = socially generated attitudes and behaviors organized according to socially-constructed categories of masculinity and femininity

Gender Roles

•      Gender = socially constructed norms for males and females

•      Gender is something above and beyond biological sex

•      Society imposes elaborate and often oppressive gender role expectations on individuals simple because of their sex

•      Gender role expectations are part of the basic structure of every human society

Gender Roles and Human Relationships

•       Gender is a means of social control (controlling sexual activity, the body, human relationships, etc.)

•      Gender is an essential element of social change open to strategic manipulation

•      Gender is an incredibly powerful force for both control and change in society

•      Gender role expectations impact all other institutions in society

 

Difference & Inequality

•      Sameness and difference are not the same as equality and inequality.

•      Men and women are different.

•      Gender-based social constructs turn natural differences between women and men into life situations of inequality.

•      “Religion” plays a major role here.

 

 

Equality?

•      Do women and men possess equal levels of valued resources?

•      Do women and men have equal amounts, types, and ranges of life options?

•      To what degree are women and men and their accomplishments valued equally?

•      If not, why not?

 

WOMEN IN RELIGION:
Key Premise

WHY ARE WOMEN SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS IN MOST OF THE WORLD’S MAJOR RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS?

•      Example: In Roman Catholicism, the largest religious organization in the USA, women can still not be ordained as priests.   

Impact on Women in Religion

•      Women in Religion IS NOT an exercise in feminist ideology or multiculturalism.

•      Women in Religion IS about a primary cultural challenge.

•      KEY QUESTION: If “religion” is about peace, justice, and harmony, why have we just left the most violent century in all of human history?  

Common Misconceptions
About Religion

•       Religion is a person’s own business; it has no impact on society in general.

•       Religion is Christianity – “end of story!”

•       Religion only happens at a certain time, on a certain day, in unusually shaped buildings that occupy prime real estate in the towns and cities of the world.

•      Religion and morality are the same thing.

BIG MISCONCEPTION!

•       Most people think religion is about belief and believing.

•      Before belief comes experience!

•      Religion is fundamentally about spiritual experience.

•      Religious belief must always be checked against authentic spiritual experience.

RELIGION AND SPIRTUALITY

Spirituality:

•      an extraordinary awareness of the beauty,  wonder, and “wholeness” of life

•      a quality of being, like mind & body, that we must nourish

•      the spark that causes us to question and seek  meaning and purpose in life

•      direct  experience of the Sacred; empowers religion and religions

RELIGION AND SPIRTUALITY

Religion:

•      the institutional expression of spiritual insight

•      the organized pursuit of spiritual transformation within a meaning-matrix

•      The “label” we put on the various spiritual paths = Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so forth

•      6 dimensions = experience, myth, ritual, doctrine, ethics & social

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

•      Education is to knowledge as religion is to spirituality

•      Spirituality and knowledge are like fire.

•      Both are very powerful but potentially destructive

•      Humans create education and religious institutions  to control this fire.

RELIGION AND SPIRTUALITY

•      A person can be spiritual but not religious

•       a person can be religious but not spiritual

•       a person can be religious and spiritual

•      a person can be neither religious nor spiritual