The CBE Scroll

Hurrah to London’s Metropolitan Police for upping their aggressive strategy to end female genital mutilation in the UK. The Guardian has the full story here on the new cash reward being offered - just before the summer holiday season when many girls are taken out of the country for the ‘ceremony,’ illegal in Britain - to anyone who provides information leading to a successful conviction. Let’s pray this campaign helps to raise awareness in other countries as well.

I would like to point out an article in The Weekly Standard by Christina Hoff Sommers, in the May 21, 2007 issue, called “The Subjection of Islamic Women and the Fecklessness of American Feminism.” The first paragraph reads as follows:

“The subjection of women in Muslim societies–especially in Arab nations and in Iran–is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.”

She goes on a couple of paragraphs down: “The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women’s issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority. Why not? The reasons are rooted in the worldview of the women who shape the concerns and activities of contemporary American feminism. That worldview is–by tendency and sometimes emphatically–antagonistic toward the United States, agnostic about marriage and family, hostile to traditional religion, and wary of femininity. The contrast with Islamic feminism could hardly be greater.”

Sommers then follows with example after example of the skewed priorities of American (secular) feminism and takes them to task for their moral short sightedness. She sites Katha Pollitt, a columnist at the Nation, for example, who draws a “common thread of misogyny” between Christian Evangelicals and the Taliban, and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, who characterizes Christian evangelical movements (that’s us!) as “Christian Wahhabism,” i.e., the name of the sect that is the inspiration for Osama bin Laden. These radical feminist philosophies “collapse moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency,” such as casually placing “limiting young people’s access to accurate information about sex and opposing abortion [in the U.S.] on the same plane as throwing acid in women’s faces and stoning them to death” [in third world countries]. Likewise they seem to be “incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them.”

It may be that some of these feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism, she says, and find it difficult to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. Maybe they find it easier to find fault with American society for minor inequities than criticizing heinous practices elsewhere. To her credit, Sommers does mention some activity in the secular feminist movement, such as Eleanor Smeal and Mavis Leno’s efforts with the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) to create a national campaign in 1997 to expose the crimes of the Taliban.

Fortunately, Muslim women are creating their own growing movement to address their plight. “Islamic feminists,” says Sommers, “believe that women’s rights are compatible with Islam rightly understood. One of their central projects is progressive religious reform. Through careful translation and interpretation of the Koran and other sacred texts, scholars challenge interpretations that have been used to justify sexist customs. They point out that forced veiling, arranged marriages, and genital cutting are rooted in tribal paganism and are nowhere enjoined by the Koran. Where the Koran explicitly permits a practice such as the physical chastisement of wives by husbands, the feminist exegetes try to show that, like slavery, the practice is anachronistic and incompatible with the true spirit of the faith. This kind of interpretation of scripture has been practiced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars for centuries. Now Islamic women want to play a part in it, and nothing in Islamic law, they believe, prohibits their doing so.”

I don’t know how much of this slanted piece I believe, but it does appear that Islamic feminism differs radically from its best known contemporary American secular counterpart — having instead a faith-based, family-centered and positive-towards-men approach. Too bad that the CBE version of gender equality isn’t better known, or Sommers might have seen some hope in America.

I appreciate CBE’s international scope and was happy to see the most recent issue of Priscilla Papers highlights gender justice worldwide. The moral need and imperative to engage Muslims can’t be emphasized enough. Does anyone else see an opportunity for Christian egalitarians to dialog with and help our Muslim sisters? Although the details may be different, we speak the same type of religious language and have similar approaches. Perhaps some CBE members have already involved themselves in such projects. If so, why aren’t they better known? Maybe if [more/bigger/more impressive] joint projects could be undertaken, perhaps both our respective patriarchal societies could be helped.

Amnesty International recently reported that American Indian women are at a higher risk for rape and sexual assault than other women in the United States. At least one in three American Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Many of the rape perpetrators are non-Indians, which causes confusion about where the rape should be reported, since tribal courts cannot try non-Indians. This means that rape and sexual assault survivors often go hours or days before receiving medical care and rape kits, and sometimes not at all. Not only is their health compromised, but so is their chance at justice. State and federal courts are hesitant to try the cases because they involve Native Americans.

This news is an example of the need for “intersectional analyses” by feminists. Kimberle Crenshaw coined this term as a criticism of the type of feminism that does not also take into account the factors of race and class alongside of gender. Crenshaw’s argument was particularly in regards to the experience of black women, who are doubly marginalized—first, for being a racial minority, and second, for being women within a minority. Her point was that black women experience being a woman differently than white women experience being a woman, differently than Asian women, and differently than Native American women. Feminist theory should reflect these differences.

Thus, it is impossible to posit a notion of essential “womanhood” when women experience their gender in different ways all over the world. What Crenshaw suggests is taking other factors into account when addressing the issue of gender. All of the aspects of a person’s existence intersect to create each person’s reality.

Perhaps this might help our understanding of the gravity of the recent news from Amnesty International. American Indians have been marginalized for hundreds of years, and as these reports alert us, American Indian women are abused as females within a minority. In order to grasp the meaning of the experience of tens of thousands of rape survivors, we must acknowledge that various factors go into this specific instance of injustice.

Just as there is not an essential “womanhood”, there is not one experience of inequality. Oppression manifests itself it many ways. Addressing the matter will be complex, but I hope we would agree, necessary. Biblical equality needs to address all levels of injustice and discrimination based on gender.

I grew up a perfectionist, the oldest child in a middle class family. When report cards came out, I was upset for days if I got an A-. I wanted to do well at everything I did, and put in the extra work to make sure that happened.

By the Holy Spirit’s empowering presence, I found great strength in my faith. But I always felt like I wasn’t trying hard enough to submit myself to the perfect Christian woman model I thought I should fit. I wanted so badly to be what God created me to be, but I felt too strong, too outspoken, too overwhelming.

Unfortunately, my answer to this supposed discrepancy between my faith and my gender was to work even harder to “fit the mold.” This was not just spiritual; it shifted into the physical. I became addicted to exercise and cut out every “excessive” morsel in my diet. I thought if I could make my body submit, perhaps my “rebellious” spirit would as well. Finally, I would be the woman God wanted me to be.

But I was just becoming the woman popular culture wanted me to be: clothes hanging loosely, bones protruding, face pale and gaunt. I looked like a child, not a woman. For nearly five years, I battled with myself, sometimes realizing this wasn’t the way I was meant to be, and sometimes succumbing to the driving pulse of what I thought God demanded of me.

After a two-week stay in the hospital, I woke up. I wanted to heal. And faith, for me, was the one place I began to find rest. Through intensive study of scripture and prayer, I realized God did not demand compliance with this false definition of “woman”; God simply invited me to use my gifts as they were given. It was encountering this God of radical grace that overthrew the false god I had set up, a god that demanded conformity to a certain way of being. God’s grace carried me through many of my own faults and into a new way of being.

It takes time to reconnect body and spirit. The body has been starved for so long that once the person begins eating regularly, the metabolism kicks into high gear, eager to use this new substance called food. But while my body was still relearning to work normally, I was in counseling, learning about this person God had created me to be. This was a time of healing, and I believe less people relapse because of this process-oriented approach.

Fast-forward three years. The symptoms of the eating disorder (ED) are long gone and I haven’t seen a counselor for nearly 18 months. Anorexia is not a persistent thought anymore; I’m too busy exercising the gifts God has given me! Imagine my surprise, then, when I open a letter from the health insurance company: “Due to your history of anorexia in the last five years, we are not able to approve you for service . . .” WHAT?!?

Certainly, relapse occurs in a small percentage of people with eating disorders. But I was being punished for seeking out help. If I had never been treated, never seen a counselor, I would have health insurance today. Eating disorders aren’t treated as many other mental illnesses–which have only a two year waiting period before suffers can seek insurance independently–even though illnesses like depression and anxiety often manifest themselves in the physical body. And the treatment for ED’s are not often more expensive: counseling, some nutritional work, check-ups, an occasional prescription. I am left to wonder if this injustice is partially due to the gender of most of those who suffer. While men do make up 10% of ED cases, it is women who represent 9 out of 10 patients.

I am not alone. Since being denied insurance, I have found others who faced similar injustices. Thankfully, advocates are forming groups to address these issues. The Anna Westin Foundation , created by parents of a young woman who died after her insurance company said her treatments were “not necessary,” has devoted an entire section of its website to information about insurance coverage. Along with the Eating Disorders Coalition of Wasington, D.C. , the Foundation lobbies for greater federal acknowledgement of and action toward just eating disorder treatment legislation. Christian organizations like Breaking Up With Ed and Remuda Ranch offer Christ-centered approaches to healing from eating disorders. There is great promise that situations are improving, but many more people who suffer from eating disorders—and the after effects of their recovery—remain unable to access the basic services they need.

The injustice I have experienced in the health system is a Christian issue. It involves body image, healing, and how we as a community respond to those who are suffering. Whether we write letters to our lawmakers, invite speakers to our youth groups, or offer a listening ear to a struggling friend, I pray that, as people who follow Jesus, we can be part of this ministry of healing and reconciliation (2 Cor 5:16-20).

As Christians, we believe all human beings are of equal value and position in the kingdom of God because we are all created in his image (known as the imago Dei; see Genesis 1:27). Men and women bear this image equally and individually. That is why the discrimination or mistreatment or abuse of any person is reprehensible.

But what exactly is this divine image? The Kregel Dictionary of the Bible and Theology provides a fairly standard definition: “The rational, volitional, moral, social, and spiritual likeness to God found in human beings by virtue of creation.”

I’m not so convinced of this definition. A few months ago, I read The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a novel centered around the two families of Phoebe, a girl with Down’s Syndrome (read a brief review on my book blog). I learned about this book the day after my niece was diagnosed with Down’s, and so was provoked to think through the moral issues a bit more deeply than I might have otherwise. One of the questions that keeps rattling around in my head is, how does Phoebe, or my niece, bear the image of Christ? They may never articulate a rational sequence of arguments. They may never appreciate why plagiarism is wrong. They may never write a play or a symphony, or design a building, or teach math skills, or raise a family. So how do they image Christ?

Similarly, how does a man whose personality is permanently altered by a traumatic brain injury, causing him to lose his moral inhibitions and reject his family, still bear the divine image? In what way does a woman in a coma continue to participate in a “volitional likeness” to God as she lies unresponsive in her hospital bed?

Help me work through this issue by leaving your comments on the following:

What does Scripture tell us about image bearing?

What passages do you find key to this discussion?

How can we correct the above definition to better reflect Scripture and therefore our beliefs about the inherent rights of personhood?

Granted, professional theologians have a hard time with this, but I’d love to hear what fellow readers of The Scroll have to say.