Tribal Church

I was teenager, standing in front of the mirror, hating every bit of the reflection. I was born in the seventies and grew up along a beach town in Florida. It’s a place where–sometimes by necessity–people don’t wear many clothes. The beach dominated our recreation and businesses, and it was so hot that a lot of clothing didn’t make sense. Many restaurants had to instruct their customers to wear shoes and shirts in order to receive service. I never wanted to wear a bathing suit in public. I had a less than perfect body, and never got over my self-consciousness enough to venture out without full covering. And as I stared into that mirror, my body consciousness turned into shame, and then hatred began to take root, until I loathed what I saw. Every imperfection, every curve, I treated with a disgust that haunted me throughout the day. It came out in subtle ways, mostly with an eating disorder that never allowed me to consume food without guilt.

Sadly, my Christian faith didn’t help matters much. As a teen, we attended a conservative mega-church. I was a “born-again Christian,” fashioned in a tradition where I was always taught to “take up my cross” and to “die to self.” There was a dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit, they told me. As a Christian, I was caught in an internal warfare, where I was trying to contain the flesh and discipline it. This hatred of the body fit in well with the emotional and hormonal turmoil I went going through as a teenager, as I began to develop in strange and unusual ways, and I could no longer quite squeeze myself into a bathing suit. Our church constantly encouraged us to fast as a spiritual discipline. Our pastor went thirty days without food, and preached about the experience constantly. So I fasted. I learned to ignore the cravings for which my body yearned. I turned away from the hunger, pain, and stress, all in the belief that I, as a good Christian, ought to keep any cravings of my body under spiritual control.

I didn’t come into a full understanding of my folly until fifteen years later, when my body began quickly and drastically changing again. I was pregnant, and each day I would stand in front the mirror, just like before. Yet, the experience was completely different. This time, it was with pure wonder at what was happening, as each part of my body swelled. I could no longer ignore my cravings. I had to listen closely to them, because they told me exactly what my body needed—leafy greens on one day and dairy products on the next. If I shunned my hunger and skipped a meal, I would vomit. My body let me know when the stress of my job was becoming too much and I needed to slow down, or when I needed to sleep more.

During this second time of profound physical change, I no longer had the same spiritual teachers. My theology had also evolved radically, as I read more feminists in my tradition, and the voices of those women reminded me that I needed to love my neighbor and I needed to love myself. They lifted up the fact that God said creation is good, and we need to take care of it. As I looked down at my enlarged flesh, I realized that I was not only a part of creation, but I was a partner in creation. As my body morphed into new shapes, my faith took on a new form as well, as I read theologians who shunned the idea that every sin begins with pride, while lifting up the fact that often people live with the violation of self-hatred. When I looked into the mirror, my new teachers whispered to me that I must great respect for that reflection. Because what I was looking at was imago dei–I was made in the image of God.

Feeling those first kicks made me experience my spirituality much differently. So much of what I had been taught had been focused on death, especially Jesus’ death on the cross, and that act of human cruelty had become central to my faith in unhealthy ways.  And yet, through those nine months, and the years that followed, I began to see my spirituality through the lens of birth and life. I became “born again,” as I understood that the Spirit was giving birth to me anew. God was using me in the act of creation, and I learned the importance of deeply-loved flesh.

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Season Two of God Complex Radio has begun, and Bruce Reyes-Chow had a wonderful conversation with Diana Butler-Bass. Join us as we talk about civility and graciousness.

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As different opportunities come up, I am coming to the startling realization that there are only a certain number hours in the day, and the hours that were once filled with blogging are now filled with other stuff.

But, I do want to let you know about the other stuff. I’m writing for the Huffington Post’s new Religion section. I was happy to see that my first post on Miriam’s Kitchen made it on to the first page. At least for a while. (Scroll down. Below the Lame Oscar Moments, below the Hustler article. Keep scrolling… there.) There will be a link to my blog on HuffPo, but I’m not sure what it is yet. I’ll be writing there a couple times a week, so I’ll let you know.

Also, God Complex Radio is doing really well. Most recently, I interviewed David Batstone about Not For Sale and the modern abolitionist movement. Coming up on Friday, we’re celebrating Women’s Day with an interview with Cynthia Rigby on the life and legacy of Mary Daly. Ryan Kemp-Pappan is also on that episode. And, I had a chance to talk to Eboo Patel for a podcast that will be coming up on the 19th. And if those amazing people are not enough to get you to iTunes to subscribe, then you surely will when I tell you that Serene Jones will be on a couple weeks following Eboo.

I’m doing a monthly post for Duke Divinity’s Faith and Leadership blog.

And… finally… I want to let you know that I’m going to be at Stony Point on March 21-23. I’ll be leading a seminar, along with Rick Ufford-Chase on Ministering to the Missing Generation, and registration is still open if you’d like to come.

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I live in a beautiful house. I’m surrounded by beautiful art and furniture (most of it came from flea markets, charity shops, and thrift stores, but, seriously, I’m really blessed). I live comfortably and do not lack for anything. Except maybe a refrigerator. The freezer door opens every time we close the fridge door, and sometimes we find all of our ice cream full of crystals in the morning…. And an oven. All of the knobs are missing and it’s hard to tell what temperature we’re cooking at… but I digress. The point is that I’m satisfied.

And yet, I write about money.

I love my on-line buddies, many are deep in the wonderful world of free culture. The idea is that all information should be free and readily available for public use and modification. It runs parallel with a very Protestant idea that receiving the good news should not come at a cost, and should be creatively spread.

And yet, I write about money.

There’s a reaction against people who have spent years gouging the flock on a regular basis for prayer cloths and televised agape. And in the Emerging church discussion right now, there is a frustration that the leaders have “sold out.”

And yet, I write about money.

I know there must be a line somewhere, and I’m not sure how to point it out. Maybe… it’s right here… no. I can’t figure out exactly where it is….

But there is a line between getting paid for work–which is a very biblical concept–and fleecing the flock. And most of us, pastors and even the conference-leading writers, who publish with a company, are barely getting paid for our hours.

Do I write about money because I’m a greedy, materialistic jerk who could never be content? No. As I said in first paragraph above, I am very satisfied with what I have. But I just hate the judgment that can be dished out against people who are getting very meager payment for the hours and hours of work that we are doing.

I would claim, “I have a family that I need to provide for.” But, that would be hollow. I would fight for any single woman to be paid for her work as well. She deserves it too.

And that brings me to my point… I recently met Joseph Stewart-Sicking who is doing research on women clergy. He’s comparing his data to studies that were done ten years ago. I asked if women were doing any better with pay equity, and he said that we’re not. He explained that the only real difference is that women seem to be more resigned to their fate these days than in the studies of the first group of ordained women.

And that’s why I write about money.

Sisters, we’ve got to do it for ourselves, because no one is going to go out of their way to give us a raise, which means we could spend our entire careers at the minimum salary.

We, the generation who grew up with girl-power, we were told over and over again that we could become the President of the United States if we put our minds to it. Yet, we’re ending up on the bottom of the heap time and time again in our professions. We, women who graduated at the top of our seminary class, are finding it hard to compete against the men who only got through Greek because we spent so much time tutoring them.

Seminaries are still recommending less qualified men over experienced women for better paying jobs. Our denominational governing bodies are still giving shinier endorsements to men than to women.

Even though women far outnumber men in our pews, laywomen have not been fighting for equity; in fact, many women on church search committees would rather have a man in the pulpit. Many women on our personnel committees overlook the injustice between pay in our staffing models.

And so, I write about money, not just for me, but because I don’t want to read in ten years that men are still far out-pacing women with salaries and positions. I’m thinking about those girls in past youth groups who looked up to me and decided that they might go to seminary. I don’t want them to expect discrimination, because I didn’t fight for the wages of clergywomen.

There is serious injustice. And so we need to learn to balance our “I would do this even if they didn’t pay me” attitudes with a bit of fight.

(And now, if a certain woman on our personnel committee reads this, she will surely roll her eyes, since I turned down a raise last year…).

photo by owlsplace

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I’m thinking a lot about the role of women these days. Not in the sense of clergy women so much… although a discussion about this will be forthcoming. I am thinking more of the role of the regular, pew-sitting mother. The exhausted one who is begging for children’s Sunday school during worship and falling asleep during the sermon. She is not faring well during our cultural shifts–especially in our churches.

I imagine that in many ways she looks a lot different than a mom did fifty years ago.

In the fifties and early sixties, our mainline denominations grew up in the post-war boom, with civic-minded pride, and the dominance of white, protestant culture. Women’s roles in this moment are particularly interesting. When the war effort was over and the troops came home, women who had briefly entered the workforce resumed their domestic duties.

However, new technologies were evolving and making it easier for women to work outside of the home. The dishwasher, washing machine, and clothes dryer all made things faster for women to complete their household chores, and yet, they still did not have an economy, childcare system, or societal understanding that supported a flourishing female workforce. More women began attending college and entering the educational system or the secretarial pool, but when a woman married or became pregnant, she was expected to go back home, and stay there.

So what were women going to do with all of that energy, intelligence, and imagination, once their children went to school? They found a place where their gifts could flourish. As sure as the bricks and mortar, women began to build the church, with all of those talents and volunteer hours. 

Often congregations were the center of a woman’s life, and so it followed that a spouse and children were expected to attend services every Sunday. Religious education flourished as women with strong callings to teach and preach, found a niche teaching Sunday school and leading Bible studies. Women’s groups grew up within our denominations, complete with gifted officers, abundant budgets, and full schedules. These groups became powerful influences on denominational structures, as they built alternative basis of influence outside of the traditional religious hierarchies.

 When many of the mainline denominations finally affirmed the ordination of women to become deacons, elders, and ministers, I’ve heard that some women were actually disappointed by the development. They had built up such powerful influence outside of the structures that being inside of them felt like a demotion!

Now the Mainline church is in the midst of all of this, mourning our membership decline, as the wonderful people who built our congregations in the Fifties are passing away. Our church cultures were often formed forty years ago, and there can be a certain disconnect as we reach out to our current world.

At the heart of this, I don’t think we ever quite figured out what to do about women. Our denominational culture has welcomed women clergy and academics. Of course, we have a long way to go. Many people in the pew who are still uncomfortable with a woman in the pulpit and women’s voices in our educational institutions are still an overwhelming minority, but as we look at the broad spectrum of our religious culture, we continue to be on the cutting edge in these areas.

But what about the average mom in the pew?

In the post-war culture, women kept things going. They taught Sunday school, took care of the sick and the elderly, kept the women’s programs together, and cooked the mid-week dinner.

Now, forty percent of working mothers make more than their husbands. And yet, our expectations of them have not changed much in the church. We still want wives to do way more work than their husbands do, and we do not give them the type of head-of-household respect that we give men. We still expect them to do a great deal of our housework.

Working moms are at their jobs long hours, and get very little time with their kids. The time that they do have, they often don’t want to spend it trying to police their small children in the pews. They don’t have time to keep our Sunday school running, or mid-week dinners cooking, or the deacon board populated. When they do come to church, they are often greeted by guilt-ridden invitations to attend the mid-week morning Bible study.

You know what they say–Equality begins at home. So, when we look at church cultures, are we expecting women to do most of the housework? Do we silently shame them for not keeping up with their grandmother? Do we make snide remarks about how the young women these days just don’t care about the church like women used to? Do we pass judgment on their children’s soccer schedules? Do we wonder (with big, long sighs) why they won’t take part in women’s groups? Do we expect them to do more work than we expect from their husbands?

Or, can we just give them a break? Can we begin surrounding them, caring for them, supporting them, and trying to make their lives a just a little bit easier? 

photo by imaGENEation

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The bulletin has to be done on Tuesday. And, of course, my sermon’s never done by then. But, I typically use the lectionary passages. It’s not until after the Order of Worship is constructed that I look back, shake my head and wonder, “What was I thinking? No… wait… what was Jesus thinking?”

Last Sunday was one of those weeks. The lectionary passage was a nightmare. It was crammed pack full of stuff that I should have engaged in more deeply: Jesus did not come to bring peace, but the sword. Jesus came to set man against his father. Daughter against her mother… whoever does not take up the cross and follow him is not worthy of him.

But, for some reason, I got the feeling that the people who showed up would rather go home with unanswered questions than to spend the rest of the day there, picking apart the passages.

And then this week? The gospel’s is only a couple of sentences. Is this because the Presbyterian lectionary is aberrant at the moment? Or are they all that way?

I preached the last bit, about denying self, but I had such a hard time doing it.

Growing up in a conservative Christian home, when I felt a call into ministry, I went to a fundamentalist Bible school. There were many, many things that led me away from evangelicalism, but I can pinpoint one of the moments that was crucial in my journey.

I was sitting in a class entitled Christian Life and Ethics. And the teacher, Dr. Hart, was droning on and on. I always struggled to stay awake in the class, trying to keep my eyes open, trying to focus on Dr. Hart.

He was a short, young man, with an overgrown black mustache. Somehow his monotone voice would say the most inflammatory things, and I would hardly get upset. He was considered too conservative, even for his colleagues at the school. And so no one ever took his class unless it was required.

I was in the required class, listening to him lecture with his hands to his side, saying absurd things like overpopulation was a myth. There was no environmental crisis. Women should never work outside of the home. Parents should only home school their children. Divorce was never allowed in a Christian home. Even though almost everything he said angered me, his voice and affect were so bland that I hardly even heard him. Honestly, the buzz of the fluorescent light bulbs above me were more interesting than this class.

But, for some strange reason, on that particular day, a woman, an international student from Italy was paying attention. She held up her hand and asked, “You said that divorce was never allowed in the Christian home, but what about abuse? What if a wife is being abused by her husband?”

“Divorce is never permitted for Christians,” the professor repeated with an impassioned resolve.

And she reframed her question, “What if there are children?”

“Divorce is never permitted for Christians.”

The woman didn’t give up. “But doesn’t a woman have responsibility to the kids? Shouldn’t she protect them?”

And he answered again that divorce is not permitted for Christians, under any circumstances. They went back and forth, and I watched the argument unfold. It was like a tennis match of horror. And the last swing came when Hart emphasized his point, as the final word, he said, “If a woman is being abused by her spouse, then that is simply her cross to bear. She needs to deny herself, and take up that cross.”

That did it. He twisted the words of Jesus, and with no emotion, no hand gestures, he ended the argument. The woman was horrified by the end of it, but he just stood, no anger, no sadness. He just finished his lecture.

I sat in my chair, with my head in my hands. I had a sudden, pulsing migraine.

I knew better than to argue with him in the classroom. I would end up all freaked out, and it wouldn’t phase him a bit. But I did argue with him in my mind. Why should the wife have to give up herself in that situation? What about the husband? Wouldn’t Jesus want him to give up his rage? But that never entered the argument. It was the wife. It was the children who had to take up their cross for the sake of the marriage.

It is no wonder that I’ve had a struggle trying to figure out a healthy notion of “the self,” and I’ve had a terrible time with the wisdom of Jesus when he says to give up our selves. I don’t like hearing it.

It’s not that I’m narcissistic; it’s just that growing up as a conservative Southern Baptist, a Christian fundamentalist, I was immersed in a home and culture where women were always subject to men. Wives were encouraged to graciously submit to their husbands. Women were told that we could not discipline our children, or control our household finances, or teach men. We certainly could not preach to them, and when I protested, I was often told that I needed to deny myself.

It was a long journey for me to the pulpit, the place where God wants me to be. And much of it did not have to do with denying myself, but hearing myself. It was about gaining the knowledge and perspective that I am made in the image of God.

photo by Saltatembo

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Adam Walker Cleaveland at Pomomusings asked about The Sex Challenge at Relevant Church. Basically, for thirty days, the lead pastor’s challenging single people to stay abstinent every day and married couples to have sex every day.

My gut reaction and my comment was, “It’s horrifying.”

Then, I took a couple of days, stewing about what made me so irritated. I mean, a lot people commented that they were glad that the church was talking openly about sex. Sex is good, after all.

I wonder what the pastor’s motivation behind this is. Is it to jumpstart the sex lives of his congregation? Let them realize what a wonderful thing it is? Is it to combat our cultural notion that people have great sex until they get married? Or is it just a cheap marketing ploy? I mean, we all know that sex sells… and I am blogging about it after all…. But my deeper concern is that this sort of stunt fortifies that pernicious idea that women must be, at all times, sexually available for their husbands.

Maybe it’s my background. While I was growing up, we did talk about sex in church. A lot. In the context of marriage, it was presented in a positive light.

But then there was this nasty persistent undercurrent that I saw many couples get swept away in. There was that idea (a biblical one, in fact) that a wife should never deny her husband. This verse definitely goes on the list of things I wish were not in the Bible.

Growing up in the midst of our religious community, I watched the sad and detrimental effects. Husbands often went away with an over-bloated sense of entitlement, feeling that they had the right to demand and dictate when their wives should have sex with them. Women lost control of a very, very basic right–the right over their own bodies.

And it followed that when the men were not “satisfied” and they had this entitlement issue, it seemed almost permissible for them to have an affair. No one said that, exactly. But when an affair occurred, the first whispers had to do with whether the wife was generous enough in the bedroom. They always seemed to blame the victim.

We’ve heard it…especially in church. It’s old news. We all remember what Mark Driscoll did when Ted Haggard hired a prostitute and did drugs with him. Well, he posted this:

Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.

So, there’s my back-story. That’s why I’m horrified at the thought of a male religious leader pressuring a couple to have sex everyday.

There are times in every relationship when a spouse can’t have sex. He or she is just not emotionally or physically able. And one of the most precious things that a partner can do is to understand when that happens–to put his or her own desires aside out of respect for a loved one.

We should talk openly about sex–but in our churches I dare say that women’s voices have not been heard on this issue. We have a huge percentage of women in our country who have been victims of sexual violence. So much that it’s almost a norm… And I’m afraid the church has a long way to go before they can begin to help in the healing process.

In loving relationships, women should always have the right to have sex or not to have it. And men should too. No pastor should dictate that. When we talk about sex in church, it should be held with deep respect and mutual consent always needs to be our starting place.

photo’s by Mirage

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First of all, I want to say thank you.

I know you don’t hear it enough from my generation. But, I know how much we’re indebted to you. You’ve fought long, you’ve fought hard. You’ve paved the way. I know this, as a woman in a religious occupation, where the sexism runs deep, in a rancid stew of tradition and theology.

In my corner, you took everything on. You have overturned the notion of what a pastor ought to look like and you have overturned our blind beauracracy. You have even made it to the core of our faith and unmasked our masculine idolatries. From the pew, to the pulpit, to the academy, you fought valiantly. Courageously. And you made it so that I could step into a solo pastor position, as a green woman in my twenties. And I thank you.

But you might have forgotten something. When I move my focus from the religious subculture to the popular culture in general, I see that some of you have failed to remember the importance of your great legacy. You have forgotten that we are women too. You have neglected to empower a new generation of women.

It’s coming to a head here, in our democratic primaries. I have watched it unfold, with a sick, uneasiness in my stomach. Younger women are voting for Barack. Older women are voting for Hillary. Some of you have seen this dynamic as if we’re turning our backs on everything for which you have fought.

In the process, many of you, our feminist thinkers, our leaders, our writers have smeared our newspapers with the vilest ageism (even while decrying it). Some days we’re spoiled and whiny. We never work hard enough. Other days my generation of smart women is reduced to a bunch of screaming morons who would do anything to pacify their boyfriends. And our choice in political candidates? Oh, we might as well have decided that by discerning who we thought would be the best kisser.

We know that sometimes the oppressed can become the worst oppressors. And we need to guard against this in this extremely important time. You are causing some irreparable damage when you belittle us over and over again. This is not just a little argument that you’re having with your daughter in your living room. Your words will be echoing through the halls of the academy, and in the board room, and in the legislature. They’ll keep reverberating there as we try to get in.

There is something extremely important that we need to do, unless we want to see all of our hard work wither when we die. We need to remember that the fight is not just for us. It is for our daughters, our granddaughters, and for women everywhere. We need to begin to take the perspectives of young women seriously, even if they sound different from our own. Or else the feminist movement will be cut short–not from a new generation’s lack of resolve–but because of our inability to let a new generation have their own voice.

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“I don’t like to talk about myself in sermons,” a preacher told me recently. I’ve heard that a lot from pastors. There’s a sense that we are there to present the word of God, to talk about what commentators and theologians say about the Scripture, but not to focus a spotlight on ourselves. I respect that idea, but I don’t practice it myself. Because I don’t think it’s possible to separate myself from preaching.

I’m all over my sermons. Is it because I’m an ego-maniacal exhibitionist? Not really. Those who know me well (well…my husband) can tell you just how many secrets I keep neatly wrapped up only for myself. You wouldn’t know it if you heard me preach every Sunday, but my self-disclosure boundaries are actually pretty high. I don’t talk about personal things publicly unless I’ve adequately dealt with the event emotionally and spiritually, and I’ve gotten the appropriate blessing from the other people involved.

Perhaps the reason I come to preaching from a little different angle has to do with a shift in interpretation in general. There was a thought that we could cross over a bridge–a hermeneutical bridge–and transport ourselves into the first century. We could learn all of the customs and the traditions of Jesus and the disciples. We could understand the author’s intent, and then we could present that intent to our congregations.

This worked for a really long time. Especially since the writers of most of our commentaries were academics–and European white males.

But then, we began to hear disparate notes. And a chord began to form when women and ethnic minorities began to crowd the halls of academia, pointing out the neglected texts of terror and wrestling with the scriptures in new ways.

The liberationist movement began base communities asking people–all kinds of people–cleaning women, squatters, children, “What does this mean to you?” Then, women and so many others who were on the outside margins of society began to stand in the pulpits and proclaim what the parables, poetry and prophecy meant to them, in their particular circumstance.

And even though all of these people were speaking all along, we began to listen to each other. Intently. As we did, a great symphony arose from Christendom. We understood these powerful words in the contexts of different people, and we realized that no one ever really knew the author’s intent completely. No one ever made it over that bridge without dragging a whole lot of baggage with them.

As preachers, we read texts through our own eyes–our socioeconomic background, our educational experience, our family relationships, our heartaches, and our triumphs. And so, as I prepare my sermons for Sunday morning, I can’t separate myself from the Scripture. I’m right in there. I have a messy relationship with all of those words.

And I don’t try to separate myself. I try to be acutely aware of my location in the text, and it’s location within me. I begin to think about how it resonates, inspires, angers, or irritates me.

When I read about Mary giving birth to Jesus I can’t ever forget that good Saturday when I became a mom, and I can’t help but realize that all of my life, as many times as I heard that story echo from a pulpit, I had never heard it coming out of a mother’s mouth.

And so, I tell the stories, the stories of the scriptures along with my own stories, with all the sights, smells, and emotions. Not because I’m a very open person, but because I hope that my particular context might help someone else. That the small details of my particular narrative might somehow tap into the great meta-narrative that forms us as people. Because I hope that I can add a note to that symphony. A note that resonates inside of someone else, and allows them to be a part of it.

So, what about you? Do you ever tell personal stories? Why or why not? What works for you in the pulpit? What inspires you when you hear others preach?

the photo’s by parasol

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Working in D.C. means we’ve been having a whole lot of conversations about this recently. The national elections are incredibly interesting. And so, whether I’m making photocopies in the church office, buying a phone at the mall, looking at earrings at a flea market, or drinking coffee at home, I find myself talking about Obama and Clinton.

And I find myself torn, most of the time, especially as a young feminist. Obama’s been against the war, consistently. He would be the first African American to become president. He would be a president closer to my generation, someone who understands the crisis of mortgages and student loans. I have not been impressed by Clinton on generational issues or how she sided with banks when she voted on bankruptcy laws that overwhelmingly affect women and children in our country.

But I can’t help but hear my older female friends who support Clinton and say, “We’ve been waiting for this moment all of our lives.” Women who feel like young feminist take things for granted too much. We don’t understand how difficult things were. We don’t appreciate the rough road it took to get here.

They see things that I don’t see. They see how the journalists talk about “Hillary” and “Obama,” and never “Hillary” and “Barack.” (I should have seen it. I’ve certainly heard Rev. Wimberly and Carol used in the same sentence enough times in the last couple of years to be aware…but I’m not.)

When Clinton uses words like “experience,” I think, She hasn’t been in the Senate that much longer than he has. But for the women I speak to, the ones who have been around the block a few more times than I have, it triggers something deep inside of them. They think of all the young and fabulous men who got jobs over them, even though they were more experienced.

I reject the notion of comparing the plight of an African American man to a white woman. Yes, they got the vote before we did, but we weren’t being lynched either. We’re not in a race for the bottom, it’s a race for the top. I would agree that poverty is a much more detrimental factor in our society than gender or ethnicity. And civil rights is a movement of freedom that scours edges, looking for those who have been left out, always seeking ways to expand. In that spirit, I believe Obama will do great things for women, as much as Clinton will do great things for African Americans.

For young feminists (even those in the pastorate, perhaps one of the most sexist professions), there is a bit of inevitability. I’m not so quick to vote for someone solely on the basis of gender. But when I’ve stopped and listened to my older colleagues, I’m not quick to dismiss their frustration either. I’ve never lived in the world that they have.

Gloria Steinem has said that young women are less radical because they are in their height of power as women in our culture: they have sexual power, child-bearing abilities, marketable beauty, etc. That’s why they’re less willing to fight. And although I’m always careful and appreciative of those who have gone before me, I’ve certainly been at the end of an angry pointing finger too many times. Because I’m just not careful and appreciative enough. So, what do you think? Do young feminists take too much for granted? Do we take it all too lightly?

photo’s by divapanenka

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