Loving those curves?

Okay. This is Scarlett Johansson. An actress. I saw a headline today that said:

Despite Media’s Efforts to Crush Her Confidence, Scarlett Still Likes Her Curvy Body

The first line of the blurb reads, “After having spent the last few years being plopped on magazine covers with headlines like, “Look Great at ANY Size!” Scarlett Johansson still loves her curves.”

Not knowing exactly what she looked like, I assumed she was a bigger actress. Clearly (see photo) she is not “bigger.” I mean, okay, she has curves, but she has probably size 6 curves. This is the person whom the media portrays as big(ish)? I just hate it that when you look like Ms. J. here, this somehow equals curvy which used to mean slightly rounder. Or just rounder, period. This is still skinny to me. Not sickly skinny, but still pretty darn small. The articles that quote Johansson as “loving her curves” essentially are saying, “Wow, that is so great that she has the confidence to still like her body the way it is,” as if it should somehow look different in order to be really worthy of self-confidence. Someone this size should not be “plopped on magazine covers that say ‘Look great at any size!’” Wow, you can even look great if you are a size 6. Now I feel much better. How ’bout you all?

Goddess save us.

Underweight Models Banned from Fashion Week in Madrid

Madrid fashion week, one of Spain’s most prestigious shows, is banning underweight models on the basis of their body mass index (BMI). I think that this is really wonderful and I hope that it is a trend that spreads. We are not talking about just very thin people here, but rather unhealthily thin women that are being literally paraded around saying “This is sexy. This is stylish.” I’m not against thin models. I am so against large numbers of too-thin models that give the sense that “this is the normal, and cool and sexy, way to look. Starve yourself. It’s hot.” You can read about it on BBC here.

Tax dollars paying for dancer for the marines. Great.

I know that since the war in Iraq costs about $1.1 billion every day, I should not be fretting about the relatively low cost of bringing dancers to entertain marines, but I still really don’t like it. I read about it in this article in The New York Times. I am all for doing things to keep the troops entertained and morale up. I’m not even against sexy female dancers in general, although I can’t say I love the idea either. But I am against the government paying for sexy female dancers to go to Iraq to entertain the troops and “keep morale up.” As if the military doesn’t already have enough problems with women being seen as equal, treated fairly, etc. If you read the article in the times alongside the case of Suzanne Swift eventually went AWOL from the military after being sexually harassed and treated just horrible clearly because she was a woman, then the whole having dancers flown in for the Marines seems even more problematic. Of course, it is a small blip on the screen of horrors related to Iraq and I don’t mean to minimize all the other much more tragic things that have happened. But still. I don’t like it one bit.

I Don’t Believe in Postfeminism

In a short little interview with the Andi Zeisler one of the co-founders of the magazine Bitch (a feminist critique of pop culture), the New York Times person (as is typical for the Times and other mainstream publications) asks her about a character on television who “is a more of a postfeminist who instinctively takes control in a world mismanaged by men.” Awesome Andi responds,

“I don’t believe in postfeminism.” And then she goes on to say a little more, but I love it that she just cuts right to the chase and refuses to except that semi-salivatingly said question about the end of feminism (is it finally over?). Dowd does this in the Times too. I get so sick of hearing that because feminism today doesn’t look like feminism of the 70s, it must not really be feminism. Women must finally be liberated now, ehh? And they can just go back to being normal women instead of those nasty feminists.

This reminds me that I need to post a review of Manifesta. For now, just keep saying it,

“We don’t believe in postfeminism.”

Resistance

In The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Dorothee Soelle writes

after some initial hesitation, I decided upon the concept of “resistance” as my focal orientation. Later, perhaps, in a different time, it might be possible to write a book on “mysticism and revolution.” But for those who live in the transition to the third millennium of the common era, however “resistance” seems to be the formulation that is more accurate and closer to reality.

I find this helpful in thinking about the situation that we are in today. In other posts I have lamented about the helplessness I feel in the face of such suffering and conflict in the world. The pain experienced by the world’s people and other sentient beings is staggering. How are we to face this? What in the world can we do.

With this quote, I think Soelle is saying that complete, real, sweeping change is not within our reach right now. For now, it is not about revolution. The structures of domination are too strong, too solid. But, Soelle counsels us not to give up and to continue to resist. She writes

I do not want to be separated from those all over the world, who in seemingly hopeless situations practiced the madness of the No! from a different love of life. What I can do in the context of the rich world is minute and without risk in comparison with the great traditions of Résistance. The issue is not to venerate heroes but together to offer resistance, actively and deliberately in very diverse situations, against becoming habituated to death, something that is one of the spiritual foundations of the culture of the First World.

She calls us to continue to say No! even if it may not bring about the revolution we desire. When she writes about what she does being “without risk” I wonder, however, how much risk our resistance should involve. I have a feeling that my life is too comfortable. Too easy. Blogging or preaching or talking simply isn’t enough in the face of the suffering in the world. We must push ourselves, I must push myself, to take more risks. Marcella Althaus-Reid, a feminist/queer theologian reminds her readers over and over throughout her books that liberation theology (in the Latin American context of the 1970s and 1980s) was amazingly dangerous business. But, yet, priests and peasants and religious women and so many spoke the truth, offered resistance, at great risk to everything precious to them, including their lives. Theologies of liberation - theologies of resistance - must also be risky today. The world is not just because justice is not easy. There is not enough love in this world because love is not easy. If these were unrisky, easy things we would not be in such dire need of them.

Conclusion to myself (and readers)….
We must continue to say No! even if it will not change everything. Resistance is all we can do. And we must do it even if it is not easy. If it hurts. If it is frustrating or unfun. Justice and deep love are not easy, comfortable, risk-free endeavors. And we cannot do it alone - we need community, we need mindfulness, we need to be grounded. And this is where Soelle’s mysticism comes in. But that is for another post.

Contraception Use Down, Abortion Rate Declines Less

The New York Times reports today in the article “Use of Contraception Drops, Slowing Decline of Abortion Rate” that fewer women (or couples) who do not want to get pregnant are using contraception, thus leading to more unintended pregnancies and a slowing of the trend of declining abortion rates.

According to the article,

the researchers blamed reductions in federally and state-financed family planning programs for declining contraceptive use. They called for public and private insurance to cover contraceptives, and for over-the-counter access to the so-called morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours after sex.Of three million pregnancies in the United States each year, half are unintended, according to Guttmacher, and half of those are carried to term. About 14,000 women who carry the pregnancies put the children up for adoption, and 1.3 million have abortions.

What I really cannot wrap my head around is why people who think abortion is killing a baby would not be the biggest most vocal advocates of contraception and the morning-after pill. I mean, even if you incorrectly claim that the morning-after pill causes abortion, is it not preferable to have an “abortion” of a fertilized egg that is about two cells big, rather than after the fertilized egg is implanted and starts becoming more “baby”-like? Certainly, the must make a difference between a fertilized egg and a fetus as 12 weeks?

And, I don’t think that it is a huge stretch to imagine that all this abstinence-only education that fails to teach students about contraception might be contributing to the decline in the use of contraception and the slowing of the abortion rate decline.

I think that Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist (who I have mixed feelings about), contributes some interesting thoughts to what is going on here:

Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month, Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week, the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control. “If you hand out contraception to single women,” one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, “we’re saying promiscuity is okay.” On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year­from being made available.The GOP’s message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You’re going to have those babies, ladies, and you’re going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that’s too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What’s it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God’s sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Although I would not have put it quite like, the point is that Republicans and various other conservative groups/people seem to not just be against premarital sex, but sex in general. And who does this disproportionately effect, my friends? Women.

I wish I had some sort of good point to all of this rather than just lamenting how sad and depressing it is. I know that many of us feel a very heavy burden to speak up about so many things - the environment, the war, animal rights, GLBTQ rights, freedom of conscience, and so on. I know we cannot do it all. But do put this on your radar screen, at the least, and if nothing else, pray. Or meditate. Or hope. Or whatever you can do in your quiet time (or if you happen to have magical powers, all the better…). If you can manage to write a letter to your congressperson or speak up in a kind, compassionate, but firm way at your town meeting, or school board meeting, or this weekend’s dinner party, small steps are better than no steps. The tragic thing is that the work of the religious right in making contraception, the morning-after pill, and abortion more difficult to obtain or to learn about results in so much harm to women, families, and children. Planned Parenthood’s motto about “every child wanted, every child loved” is so powerful to me. I am positive that if all those anti-sex, anti-abortion, anti-contraception people truly cared about children they would be pushing for policies that cared for children once they are born - available and affordable health care, quality preschool and K-12 education, adequate and affordable day care, and policies that allowed their parents to adequately care for children such as required living wages, universal health care coverage, and so on.

I truly find it hardly comprehensible. And just very depressing. What I try to remain focused on (and did not do a good job here) is thinking of ways to compassionately and lovingly build bridges of understanding and common ground with those with whom I disagree so strongly with. As I’ve read before, we cannot blog (or sermon, for that matter) our way to revolution. What will it take to change things? Liberals are great at lamenting the ills of the right, but after we have lamented for a while, we must actually do something.

W. (my partner) works for a project on developing a progressive strategy. That is, an actual strategy to change something rather than the big liberal woe-is-us pow wows that we often take part in (myself included). His blog is here. No solutions yet, but I’m glad that at least some people are thinking about how we might actually change some of the horrors we see.

On that cheerful note, enjoy the sunny weather! In solidarity, Elizabeth

The Future of Women and Gender (and Feminist) Studies in Religion

I am notorious (to myself and family at least) for using email to procrastinate on writing papers. I suppose I will now have to add writing on my blog as one of those tools of procrastination. Nevertheless, one thing I would like to share is this link which takes you to a talk posted on the Harvard Divinity School website. You can actually watch and listen to the talk on Real Player which most computers already have installed and which can be downloaded for free if you don’t have it (go here to download and click on “free download”). About twenty minutes into the talk yours truly speaks for about 10 minutes (or less) about the future of women and gender studies in religion. As is the case with my sermons, I remain relieved that the talk didn’t go badly. If things aren’t disasters, I consider them at least small successes. But it might be that the talk went well, which makes me really excited. I enjoyed doing it.

If you would like to see it, you need to open it in Internet Explorer by clicking on this link or the link above. It does not work in Firefox. While the talk is in “academic-ese” and my talk and the other folks on the panel are speaking to a relatively specialized audience that is familiar with all the people and ideas that we’re talking about, the point of my talk which I get to at the end is that the future of women and gender studies in religion (which I argue should also include feminist studies in religion even if it wasn’t in the title) must take into account “everyday people” and not be what I call “intellectual gymnastics” for the fun and enjoyment of academics. This is a very important point to me in my work in studies and in my work in ministry. We must connected what we study to what people do, how they live, and, in particular, to the problems of suffering and aching in our world. I hope that this will be an ongoing theme on the blog, but today it will just have to be the start of a conversation because I must get to writing my paper, which, incidentally, deals with connecting our life of study to our spiritual life and to the problems and issues of the world.

Enjoy the beautiful spring! Peace, Elizabeth