Breach and Create
It
has always been about men; women have had to breach through. This breaching is
never easy but a life threatening endeavour as the men constructed borders are
indelible. Resistance and resilience constitute the survival apparatus of women
to counter the ever rising tide of patriarchy. When men conveniently found representation
and space in academic, ecclesial and societal fray, women had to breach and create their
own space and this space was epiphanic. Alex Mar writes; “How do you tell the
story of a great man if there is a great woman at the center of it? This is
only one piece of what can be lost when history is told exclusively by men.”[1] In
the vicious attempt to prove the goodness of man the greatness of women was
pushed to oblivion. Depatriarchalization of the world is the call for the hour.
Freedom is never appealed but grabbed through undeterred conviction. Assata
Shakur reminds us; “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten
their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing
them.” Freedom is never the benevolence
of the oppressor but the usurped fundamental right of the oppressed.
Today
we commemorate International Women’s Day. History testifies that the roots of
International Women’s Day are intrinsically socialistic and anti-capitalistic. The
day reminiscence a collective resistance initiated by women to overthrow the
misogynistic overtures in the workplace of New York City. Danielle Corcione
explores the inception of this historical occasion. In 1909, immigrant teenage women
employees of a garment factory in the New York city began a 11 week strike
which the labour history records as “The Uprising of the 20,000”. This was a strike spearheaded exclusively by
women. Until that point the workers’ union had been male dominated. The demands
of the strike were regulated working hours, higher wages and better working
conditions. This uprising of young women is now acknowledged as the
International Women’s Day. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, argues that modern day
women resilient movement still pays homage to its roots in socialist feminism.
She writes; “International Women’s Day, historically, has always been about
highlighting the relationship between capitalism and women’s oppression, and
that remains significant today,”[2]
The
vestiges of injustice continue to haunt women even today. Violence against
women has become such a grand narrative that it no longer disturbs us. The groaning
of teeming women out there falls on deaf ears. Their bodies being mutilated;
they being denied entry to “sacred” spaces; their slavish stigmatization in
family and society; the demeaning of their sexuality as antithetical to the
beliefs professed by the dominant; their bodies being used as sites to exercise
power, authority and revenge; they being considered a lucrative mass of flesh
which could be traded; an object to derive pleasure; their obscurity of names;
their taken for granted consent; their sufferings being legitimized with the
over glorified notions of submissiveness and many more heart wrenching atrocities
have been relegated to the premise of academic discourses; news material for
journalists of the Empires; project proposals and vote bank politics.
Where
does Christianity locate itself in this pernicious maelstrom? Could we ensure
justice to women with a Scripture that reeks of patriarchy? Biblical scholar
Phylis Trible provokes our thoughts on Scriptures;
Born and bred in a land of
patriarchy, the Bible abounds in male imagery and language. For centuries
interpreters have explored and exploited this male language to articulate
theology, and to instruct human beings - female and male - in who they are,
what rules they should play, and how they should behave. So harmonious has
seemed this association of scripture with sexism, of faith with culture, that
only a few have even questioned it.[3]
Could
the Church confess their sins of colonizing the sacred spaces of women? Isn’t it
time that the Church radically re-interprets its doctrines? For instance could we think of redefining
crucifixion of Jesus as the sexual abuse of our Saviour? Katies Edwards and
David Tombs in one of their exemplary articles entitled, “#HimToo – Why Jesus
should be recognised as a victim of sexual violence” remarks;
Sexual abuse doesn’t form part of
the narrative of masculinity inherent in representations of Jesus. Naked women,
however, are immediately identified as sexual objects. Seeing a woman being
forcibly stripped, then, might be more recognisable as sexual abuse than the
stripping of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. If Christ was a female
figure we wouldn’t hesitate to recognise her ordeal as sexual abuse.[4]
Christena
Cleveland, a black feminist theologian has started a Lenten series where she
radically imagines Jesus not only as a woman but as a black woman. Through a
painting that portrays a black woman on the cross she delves into the pathos of
the black people using an intersectional methodological framework that juxtaposes
the blackness and femaleness of God on the cross. She writes;
Even though I know in my head
that Christ is not a white man, I still sometimes continue to experience that
reality in my heart, body and non-conscious perceptions. And though James Cone
and others have helpfully examined God’s blackness on the cross, I’ve been
wanting to dive deeper into an intersectional exploration that examines both
God’s blackness and femaleness on the cross, and the ways in which God explicitly
relates to black women while on the cross.[5]
Lent
is a time of subversive imagination because these days we are in a constant journey
and conversation with a carpenter who was a wayward rebel in all walks of life.
Sitting at the feet of the Triune God may we collectively imagine an alternate form
of spirituality that would bestow us with the wisdom to create a world where everyone
feels at home. Let us really mean when we pray “May your kingdom come on earth
as it is in Heaven”. Amen
Prayers
Dn.
Basil Paul
Image Courtesy: http://www.womensordination.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/unnamed-1.jpg
[1] Alex
Mar, “The Rebel Virgins and Desert Mothers who have been written out of
Christianity’s Early History” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-rebel-virgins-and-desert-mothers-who-have-been-written-out-of-christianitys-early-history?fbclid=IwAR2tE_a7TwS3kMwDzdJmaLeHfRCFcl7ZIDFrxKKX3RxBDnz6xmSKEvXJgf4.
[2] Danielle
Corcione, “International Women’s Day 2018: The History of IWD’s Socialist Roots”
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/international-womens-day-2018-the-history-of-iwds-black-feminist-and-socialist-roots?fbclid=IwAR3ozNib9ERvrvqblduPyJHiLm6wOK1LGI3LYomA_Emmwc0wwDVCPRxPV4M.
[4] http://theconversation.com/himtoo-why-jesus-should-be-recognised-as-a-victim-of-sexual-violence-93677
Comments
Post a Comment