On Spirituality and Feminist Liberation - Essay Example

5 December Women: On Spirituality and Feminist Liberation Religious philosophy s back during the early church era andpromoted during the 1920’s. It involves historical reality and nature in which relationship between faith and reason is tackled. Looking closely, it deals with the nature of human logic and its limitations when it comes to faith and religion and more importantly in the historical context of religious practice and development (Howell). Christianity is considered as one of the world’s oldest agents of transformation as a factor in progress and development of humanity. The reasons, evidences and principles involved in understanding the issue of spirituality and its patriarchal nature had been extensively documented and debated upon since time immemorial. Since the predominant structure from early Christian era is patriarchal in nature, this paper will try to explore and analyze the historical role of women in religion by looking into the belief systems, myths, ad archetypes from ancient civilizations to the advent of religious feminism. The analysis would be thorough in depth discussion and reasoning on its philosophical and psychological implication with emphasis on female metaphysical structure. The predominantly patriarchal structure of church, though not inclusive, significantly shaped the role of women in religion and spiritualty. During the early Christian era, it is evident that women’s lives and spiritualties are constantly challenged as they are continually restricted in all aspect of life, considered inferior in essence compared to men and have very little access to knowledge. Accordingly, women is shaped and affected by their conditioned role and to conform and be dependent to the patriarchal structure of society (Melanchthon 303) Looking at spirituality both as a discipline and a practice, we can duly note that it provides constructive and in depth understanding yet its pluralistic development provides constraints in assigning the true meaning and value at relative issues. In assigning focus on historical role of women in religion, there is a need to examine women’s role not only in certain types of religion such as Judaism and Christianity but also to other types to promote inclusivity. In essence, there should be emphasis on the various kinds of religion in looking into the role of women in terms to spirituality and relationship with the divine. However, as suggested by Howell, religions basically presets common purpose such that the primary is to stabilize the immediate society from any possible conflict and destruction through implementation of best practices and the secondary purpose is to control women in such a way that they will continue to reproduce and satisfy the male biological and physiological demands for sex. Though some women are worshiped for their beauty and beyond their domesticated propose, men remained in charge as predetermined by the patriarchal society. According to Melanchthon, feminism is the major ideology that liberates women from several decades of oppression and injustice brought about by the patriarchal nature of society through transformation. Looking at several historical data, it can be noted that women really experiences oppression and injustice and the advent of spiritual feminism liberated them from such (308). Women as Spiritually and Religiously Oppressed For most women, spirituality and religious undertakings became their source of inspiration and from part of in their personal relationship with the divine they worship and to achieve spiritual holiness women strive to continually achieve it through religious works and deeds. However, until 1920’s or before the advent of feminist spirituality, women cannot express their affection and relationship with the divine and were constantly being the subject of injustices and oppression. Among the injustices and oppressions women experienced in the past include; undervalued essence and other oppressions brought about by the patriarchal system, unrecognized effort and contributions to spiritual context and constraints in showing their affection and relationship with the divine being. To support the claim that women are essentially undervalued and oppressed by the patriarchal structure of society, Kuhns argued that during the early religious era, bias among men’s expression of spirituality is a general knowledge such that men were able to express their spiritual side in prayer and study houses while women were either not present or remained in the periphery. Gibeau supported this claim by indicating that most of the stories of women in religion/ spirituality had been only presented in the subset of the lives of male saints and that no women is ever allowed to discussions regarding religion and the likes of it since they are confined in their domestic gender roles. One such example of women’s conditioned role to conformity is that of the case of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, looking closely on the scriptures, it can be noted that she was a victim of patriarchal biases such she is portrayed as a passive and dominated woman in which carries the domestic role of child bearing. Little is known of her other accomplishments as a spiritual being but mostly of her capacity to carry Jesus in her womb and raising him (Melanchthon 320). Another yet largely different instance of women’s conditioned conformity to is the portrayal of Cleopatra. Though her personality is dominating at that time as she was almost worshipped by men, she embodies women who conform to beauty standards to please and to have power. She thereby influenced women to comply with beauty standards and focus their attention to it rather than in their spirituality (“Divine Indulgence”). Analysis of the above mentioned circumstances to women suggests that women only increased their dependency to men as a much stronger and powerful being within the household and within the community thereby resulting to chronic feeling of inferiority. It also resulted to further conditioning that women must not assume roles other than domestic ones such that they have difficulty in accepting other roles. Hence, we could infer that oppression and injustice to spirituality of women in rampant in the early religious era as brought about by the patriarchal structure of society. As identified earlier, women’s efforts and contributions in religion and spiritual context remained unrecognized before the 20th century, according to Gibeau, women’s stories related to religion have never been translated to English before since early researchers tend to develop bias towards the theological and cultural works of men therefore rendering women’s works as unimportant. Likewise, Melanchthon suggested that the whereabouts ad women’s knowledge of the divine, holy, moral, human, social, cultural and truth had been hidden consciously and only brought to light in the hinted words of mystics, and women poets. Also, on the various theological and ecclesiastical works, women’s contribution was not considered. Further, history points out that it had been hostile to women’s idea of religion and its consequent undertakings/endeavors to enhance their faith. Hence, women are left out in the formal conceptual development of spiritualty since their contributions were not considered and documented and their ideologies not heard. Therefore, we can say that unrecognized efforts and contributions of women in this aspect render them powerless and unessential in spiritual development and this made them almost non-existential part of the issue. This may also render them inferior to others thus they opt to sink and sought cover from the rest. They tend to develop anxiety when it comes to issues pertaining to spirituality as they belittle themselves due to lack of extensive knowledge. At some extent, they may rarely recognize that some of their activities can form art and contribute significantly for the advancement of spirituality. As suggested in the article “Roundtable on Feminists Spirituality”, women also experienced having difficulty in showing their affection and relationship with the divine such that the traditional tools for spirituality and for interaction with the divine presence did not effectively served its purposes but in actuality became a constraint in by blocking any possible interaction while their marginalized nature prevents them from assuming certain roles in spiritual development. The difficulties experienced by women in showing their affection and relation with the divine greatly affected how they assume their roles in society and what they can contribute in its advancement. Some women tend to divert their attention to other activities to cover up for the need to engage and have continuous relationship with the divine. However, if given the proper and vast opportunities to show their affection, women can be the primary mover for social and spiritual change. Hence, difficulty in shoeing affection and relationship with the divine can be considered as one of the major oppressions experienced by women during the early religious era. Women’s Spirituality and Feminist Liberation It had been evident from the previous discussions that spiritual interest is gendered and that spirituality is about interaction with the divine presence and growing in it through constant interaction and relationship with the divine. It is also noted that spirituality is a combination of mutually reinforcing elements that has profound historical and cultural background. The advent of the 20th century spiritual feminism had been effective in liberating women in all forms of injustice and oppression and most importantly in spiritual oppression. Among the supporting evidences considered is the notion that women have power and dignity of their own and several historical evidences had been documented to support this claim. According to Gibeau, women exercised strong leadership and tremendous role in the early Celtic church such that among them –St. Brigit, could have been ordained as bishop. Accordingly, Zuzworsky attributed the increasing women’s participation in religious activities to the declining number of men working for religious institutions. Also as indicated by Gibeau, lay people even sought women in religion for confession, penance and counseling which was a traditional role of the ordained in the past and even today. Further, the bible depicts some women as having dignity of their own and as community leaders in the character of Marta, and the Samaritan woman (321). Similarly, some of the experiences after the liberation suggest that women are more spiritually inclined than men in such a way that they are looking for in depth spiritual enhancement through books and because they became the major advocates of spiritual practices such as meditation and yoga. Women had also been constantly challenging the forms and structure of discrimination in society by speaking their own ways and demanding their own truths and rights to equality. Analyzing the above interventions, we can say that the advent of spiritual feminism in the 20th century surely liberated women not only from social forms of oppression and injustices but most importantly to spiritual liberty. The liberation empowered women to seek their right to spiritual equality and its related undertakings and for women to openly express their affection and relationship to the divine. The nature of women to be sensitive and sociable enables them to exert their voices over discussions pertaining to religion and spirituality and therefore gained their prominence and importance in the process. Moreover, it can be observed that over the years, and despite the oppressive nature of the society coupled with the challenges they encounter form day to day, they remained resilient and steadfast in their faith. The liberation enables them to exercise strong leadership in early churches and enable them to play roles that belonged to male priesthood to date. And through feminist spirituality, they are able to identify ways of knowing and increasing their knowledge of the world and help them in striving to be better. To sum up, it is safe to say that the predominantly patriarchal structure of church, though not inclusive, significantly shaped the role of women in religion and spiritualty. As indicated in the discussion, the injustices and oppressions women experienced in the past include; undervalued essence and other oppressions brought about by the patriarchal system which resulted to chronic feeling of inferiority, further conditioning that women must not assume roles other than domestic ones and difficulty in accepting other roles. The unrecognized effort and contributions to spiritual context render them powerless and unessential in spiritual development and this made them almost non-existential part of the issue while constraints in showing their affection and relationship with the divine being affected how they assume their roles in society and what they can contribute in its advancement. However with the advent of spiritual feminism, women were empowered women to seek their right to spiritual equality and its related undertakings and to openly express their affection and relationship to the divine as well as their chance to exert their voices over discussions pertaining to religion. It would also be important to note that, in assigning focus on historical role of women in religion, there is a need to examine women’s role not only in certain types of religion such as Judaism and Christianity but also to other types to promote inclusivity. Further, aside from all the developments in women’s spirituality, there is still much to do and there is still inequality. Among the possible interventions for possible adoption is to further promote gender equality among men and women regardless of gender, age, race and religious affiliation. It is also important to understand gender differences to advocate spiritual activities that is inclusive and did not distinguish between factors to make everyone feel that they are part of the whole. Another way to promote gender equality is to learn to celebrate individual differences rather than further obliterating them. Lastly, both men and women needed to be treated equal in every sense of the word whether in cultural, social, or spiritual context. Works Cited "Divine indulgence." India Today 19 Dec. 2011. General OneFile. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. Gibeau, Dawn. "Scholar unearths history of Celtic women: women played roles that today belong to male priesthood." National Catholic Reporter 19 Feb. 1993: 8. General OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. Howell, Llewellyn D. "Religion's role in society." USA Today [Magazine] Mar. 2013: 56+. General OneFile. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. Kuhns, Elizabeth "The Habit: a History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns." Publishers Weekly  4 Aug. 2003: 74. General OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2013 Melanchthon, Monica J. "Women's spiritualities: resource for mission." International Review of Mission Nov. 2009: 302+. General OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. "Roundtable on feminist spirituality." Tikkun Sept.-Oct. 1998: 53+. General OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. Zuzworsky, Rose. "'A sacred trust'." America 26 Sept. 2005: 33. General OneFile. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. Read More