# Theories of the Sacred, New York Institute for Cognitive and Cultural Studies

Яна Лаадикайнен

Лаадикайнен Яна

Theories of the Sacred, New York Institute for Cognitive and Cultural Studies

Origin: http://samlib.ru/l/laadikajnen_j/theoriesofthesacreddoc.shtml

Создан: 30/08/2005, изменен: 17/02/2009, 17k

Эссе: Религия

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Theories of the Sacred Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there.

Mohammed Neguib

Rita Gross vs. Katherine Young

"Feminism and Religion"

Does the Bridge disappear?..

Once built, though, the bridge disappears...

Katherine Young

I have read somewhere that "the words Formal Religion and Feminism sound like an oxymoron". Are they really mutually exclusive? Is it possible to be religious and consider yourself a feminist at the same time? Or can a scholar of religion be a feminist? Are those identities compatible and can they peacefully co-exist within one person? Rita Gross and Katherine Young try to find their own answer to this interrelation.

Gross's opinion is that "an accurate model of humanity would forbid placing one gender in the center and the other on the periphery" (Gross, p.517). The idea doesn't seem that bad at first sight, but on closer consideration we see that the criterion is by no means sound, as it presupposes that "just as women have been ignored in the past now men can be ignored" (Young, p.524). Since the female voices have been at the margins of scientific thought for a considerable period of time there are now various aggressive attempts to push women through the crowd into the center just because they have been silenced for so long. Once there, sometimes they stood silently and humbly in the center having nothing to say while everybody is eying them down. Thus what we can see now in scientific debates is that women make themselves the adversaries of men. This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other. My view is that the process should work in the "mosaic way" - your place within the scientific domain should be deserved by the value of your own thoughts rather then by the sex you belong to. There can as well be men who can shape a new approach of the today religion adding new dimensions to old phenomena.

Further in her text Gross suggests "androgyny as a two-sexed model of humanity" which is opposed to androcentrism or gynocentrism (Gross, p. 517). She then adds, that "the problem of patriarchy is the very existence of gender roles and post-patriarchy is freedom gender roles" (Gross, p. 520). She points out that we are all in prison of gender roles and that sex is not a relevant criterion for awarding roles or value. Well, may be sex is not the most important criterion but it certainly a relevant one otherwise we would all be "sex-free creatures". Thus here I would agree with K. Young who writes that this is utterly impossible in the way we were created as we have deep biological and cultural asymmetries (gestating, lactating in women vs. hunting, wrestling activities in men) (Young, p. 528). By making the distinction between sexes "null and void" we are faced with the danger to erase the mystique and attraction between the sexes!

K. Young suggests a more collaborative model applying the metaphor of "stereoscopic vision" that is looking at the same phenomena both from the point of view of men and women to get a three-dimensional perspective (Young, p. 527). At least this is a sound suggestion that can help to shift our understanding of the past. But I don't think it's wise to make both men and women look at the same phenomena in every possible case. It may as well lead to the "reductionism" of which K. Young herself speaks further on - what if a woman that is forced to provide her perspective has nothing to say on the issue?

Let us draw some conclusions out of Gross and Young's dispute. The truth is that men really have defined the main concepts of religions for a long time and thus women have been in a condition of complete political, psychological, economic and sexual servitude to the patriarchy. But many religions are not oppressive to women in terms of the original writings and intentions, they have become so as a result of the world's predominantly patriarchal cultures, and the act of people molding (either false or extreme) interpretations of religion. There is no need to feel obliged to be bound by the prejudices and mistakes of past generations, be they political, racial, gender based or religious. First and foremost, we need to identify where these patriarchal structures and practices exist, and understand how we, through unconscious actions, contribute towards them. In other words, patriarchal norms that stem from the religion itself need to be re-examined and challenged, instead of just being accepted as they are. Male-female relationship cannot be a kind of mistrustful and defensive opposition in this case. There should be joint work on changing some of the patriarchal structures and adjusting them flexibly to modern life.

Gender studies have demonstrated that the social constituency of gender changes over time. New approach to religious studies should be much more than an "add women and stir" process, as someone has pointed out. It is re-thinking from the point of view of how both genders participate in the process of re-modeling standard structures. Why making up "sororities" and "fraternities" within what is in fact "everybody's land"? Religion and Feminism should not been shown as competing disciplines but rather as collaborating ones.

I personally think there is nothing bad about transformation of all religions as it adds another perspective and dimensions to the same phenomena and innovates them. By this means traditional religion can return and flourish while also taking into account, or perhaps even expanding on, some of the better lessons of modernity.

Now let's look closely at both Religion and Feminism from the point of view of "boundaries" which is especially vital in the context of the on-going globalization. Having Religion as the core issue, we can construct two different schemes where we can "built a bridge" from the point of view of those who adhere to a certain religion and from the point of view of those who study it.

A.

God

Men Women

B. ?

Religion Feminism

The first scheme suggests that there can be built a bridge between representatives of different genders who share a belief in one and the same God. Irrespective of the fact whether the believers are men or women, the God exists for all of them. Let's apply the same idea to Religion and Feminism. What do we get here as a result of unification? Is it Religious Feminism? Feministic Religion? Looks like it's neither. It's not necessarily the blend of the two things being connected, just as in the first example (though we could treat God as intersection of both male and female powers) but it is something brand-new, new dialectic whole. And this bridge will not disappear only on presupposition that there exists an identical one between Religion and Men's studies for that matter. It is absolutely of no use to destroy either boundaries between various entities or the bridges between them. The power should not be destructive, but constructive and we should have separate entities, domains of thoughts, nationalities that built bridges in between so that as a result of this bridge something new could come into life. Boundaries should exist first and foremost because they will allow comparative dimensions of the studied phenomena. "Why maintain boundaries? - writes K. Young. - Because doing so allows for distinctive insights. Collapsing the boundaries between disciplines and their methods leads to reductionism both of sight and insight" (Young, p. 530).

There should exist distinct boundaries between men and women, Religion and Feminism, Religion and Men's studies as well as bridges between them. At least... for allowing attempts on breaking them.

P.S. When I was trying to look up more information on the assignment, I went on-line and printed in "religion and women" in Google, but the access was denied. That surprised me, so I tried "religion and men" instead which worked perfectly fine. I realized there was a ban on this server which included the word "women" as a key-word for the sites having some prohibited content. Which seemed to be very interesting with the respect to the problem in question...

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© Лаадикайнен Яна. Theories of the Sacred, New York Institute for Cognitive and Cultural Studies

Origin: http://samlib.ru/l/laadikajnen_j/theoriesofthesacreddoc.shtml

Создан: 30/08/2005, изменен: 17/02/2009, 17k

Эссе: Религия