Gender, Sexuality and Religion

1
Gender, Sexuality and Religion

• Religious Studies/Womens Studies
• 131

2
Gender and Sex

• Sex Biological Equipment
• (Clitoris/Vagina, or Testicles/Penis)
• Gender Social roles and expectations based on
  sex
• There are many ways to enact what theorists call
  a gendered performance - consider the many ways
  of being a man or a woman in contemporary
  American society, and the way in which these
  gendered roles can be adopted/enacted by people
  regardless of sex
• Please note that these heuristic distinctions
  temporarily ignore questions raised by intersex
  and transgendered people

3
Sexuality

• For the purposes of this class, sexuality
  includes all forms of sexual expression
• Hetero-sexual (male/female)
• Homo-sexual (male/male, female/female)
• Auto-sexual (masturbation)
• Asceticism/Celibacy (eschewing sexuality)
• Sexuality as functional Sex exists for
  reproduction only or primarily
• Sexuality as multi-functional Sex exists for a
  variety of purposes, including pleasure, power,
  reproduction, social ordering, and more.
• Regulation of sexuality marriage, prohibitions,
  taboos, extra-marital pre-marital sex

4
Cosmology

• In religious studies terms, all religions are
  socially-constructed cosmologies. A cosmology
  interprets the universe by providing organizing
  principles. These principles distinguish between
  what is significant and what is considered
  unimportant, accidental, or inconsequential.
• Astronomers, physicists, and philosophers also
  use cosmology, but do so in a less
  socially-constructed and behavior-motivating
  manner than religions. The use of the term in
  these fields is more descriptive than
  prescriptive. In religion, cosmologies often
  lead to normative regulation

5
Examples of Cosmological Organizing Principles

• Afterlife
• Justice
• Balance
• Hierarchy
• Stasis and Motion (Being and Becoming)
• God/desses, Supernatural Beings
• Distance between Humans and Gods
• Status of Animals and Nature
• Conflict or Harmony (War and Peace)

6
Sex, Gender and Sexuality have been used as
cosmological organizing principles by almost all
religions and social systems
7
Sex, Gender and Sexuality have been used as
cosmological organizing principles by almost all
religions and social systems
This style of proportional representation in
Indian sculpture can be seen as a
hierarchilization of relative importance. This
represents Siva, his consort Uma, and their child
Somaskanda.
8
Menstruation is Cosmological

• Menstruation is a material fact that inspires
  cosmological interpretation.
• Why is it limited by age and gender?
• Is menstrual blood polluting? Healing?
  Dangerous? Inconsequential? Powerful? Taboo?
• Are men jealous, contemptuous, or fearful of
  menstruation? Who teaches them these attitudes?
• Should there be sexual intercourse or contact
  during menstruation?

9
The Natural False Naturalisms

• Religious cosmologies often declare what is
  natural as well as what is out-of-harmony with
  the natural order.
• For instance, is death a natural given? Or can
  death be overcome through resurrection, after
  life, or reincarnation? (this is a deeply
  cosmological question)
• If womens function is cosmologically
  circumscribed as being about reproduction only,
  then biology destiny. Alternatively, this
  could be critiqued as a false naturalism
• Quote of shame Dr. David Reuben, author of
  Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
  (But Were Afraid to Ask) "Having outlived their
  ovaries, women have outlived their usefulness
  as human beings."

10
Religious Cosmologies and Social Organization

• Religion makes cosmologies real when it builds
  institutions, articulates codes of behavior, and
  sets social expectations.
• Religion thus establishes authority.
• Authority and social institutions seek to
  maintain the existing social order, rather than
  change it they are inherently conservative,
  meaning both that they conserve what exists and
  that they have a political bias toward
  maintaining traditional ways.

11
Religious Cosmologies and Social Organization

• "Religion legitimates so effectively because it
  relates the precarious reality constructions of
  empirical societies with ultimate reality" -
  Peter Berger in The Sacred Canopy
• Meaning religion assures us that our form of
  social organization has divine sanction. But,
  the moment one begins to reflect comparatively,
  this assurance is under assault!

12
Four Basic Types of Human Social Organization

• TYPE
• Gathering/Hunting
• Nomadic Raiding
• Small-scale Agricultural (Villages)
• Urban (Large-scale Agricultural)

• SOCIAL EFFECTS
• Relative equality and little job specialization
• Preference to young, male, physically able
• Relative equality and little job specialization
• Hierarchic, increasing job specialization

13
Chains of Being and Causation

• The Great Chain of Being is an explicitly
  hierarchic cosmology that ranks the importance of
  beings, as in the illustration below

• The Chain of Causation marks Buddhist cosmology
  the idea that there are no stable entities
  (including you or your soul), but instead all
  things are derived and will pass from existence.
  Also known as dependent origination, this
  cosmology describes a world in flux.

14
Parallels in Feminist Methodology

• Essentialism assumes that there are real
  differences between men and women, but that these
  differences do not justify male supremacy.
  Goddess feminism, and what is called cultural
  feminism, use this approach.

• Social Constructionism assumes all sex
  differences are fluid and socially malleable.
  Post-modernism and Marxist feminism embrace
  social constructionism.

15
Chains of Oppression

• All feminists would agree that women (however
  that category be defined) have been treated
  oppressively within almost all historically known
  societies.
• The importance of religion in studying womens
  lives is that religion provides ideological
  support for social practices, and can also
  provide resources for changing social systems.

16
Vectors of Oppression

• Access to resources
• Relation to, and admission to, the hegemonic
  elite - those who have positions of authority -
  and to institutions where power is circulated.
• Circumscription of social roles
• Ability to exercise agency, and to be heard

17
Access to Resources Whos Got What, Who Gets
Left Out?

• Necessary Resources
• Privileged Resources
• Valorized Resources
• Authoritative Resources

• Food, Shelter, Health Care, Clothing, etc.
• Luxury Items, Wealth, Servants/Slaves, Art
• Literacy, Education, Art, Prestige, Fame,
  Happiness, Success, Privacy (A Room of Ones
  Own)
• Positions of Leadership

18
Hegemonic Elite

• Kings, Power Brokers, Presidents, Generals,
  University Faculty, Surgeon General, Superstar
  who constitutes the hegemonic elite varies from
  one society to another.
• What defines a hegemonic elite? The elite embody
  importance, privilege, (sometimes) skill, and
  prestige. Hegemony refers to any system (social
  system, system of thought) that is predominant
  over others. Putting them together, a hegemonic
  elite will attempt to justify and sustain its
  power.
• Women, as a class, have often been excluded from
  being part of a hegemonic elite (see
  exceptionalism for some exceptions!).

19
Exceptionalism

• The success of one or two women in a patriarchal
  system is often credited to their being an
  exception rather than an example of how all
  women could succeed given a chance. See Young p.
  xxvi for a damning modern example involving
  Wittgenstein.

20
Social Roles

• Women have had their social roles limited,
  usually to household and reproductive tasks
• Women have sometimes been classed as less than
  human, or have been reified (thingification) into
  objects to be sold, bartered, or traded.
• Womens contributions have been made invisible,
  and their lives have been erased.

21
Types of Womens History I

• Inferential history - What can we infer about
  womens history from mens history? For
  instance, when we read about a military battle in
  which 4,000 men died, can we infer at least 2,000
  widows? Can we infer at least 100 prostitutes
  providing sexual services to any army on enemy
  turf? Even if these women are not mentioned?
• Derivative history - Assume that womens status
  was very similar to mens, and needs little
  independent study. For instance, assume that
  wealthy women had extensive privilege, even
  greater than that of working class men.

22
Types of Womens History II

• Compensatory history - Give disproportionate
  attention to women in history, in order to
  compensate for previous absence of women in
  history books.
• Celebratory history - A subset of compensatory
  history, celebratory history happens when an
  oppressed subject group, like women, write their
  history with only the good, positive and virtuous
  highlighted. Celebratory history often occurs in
  national histories that are overly (and overtly)
  patriotic.

23
Types of Womens History III

• Celebrity history - A history of women that only
  looks at famous women. This has the effect of
  re-marginalizing everyday women. Furthermore,
  celebrities (whether Paris Hilton or Queen
  Victoria) are often examples of exceptionalism.
• Hagiography - This technical term from religious
  studies means a biography of a saint that is
  uncritical of the saint. Possibly a subset of
  celebratory history, it is also a legitimate
  genre of sacred literature.

24
Types of Womens History IV

• Victimology - The opposite of celebratory and
  celebrity history, victimology examines womens
  history by looking only for examples where women
  have been victimized. This has the effect of
  reducing womens agency, power, and success.
• Comparative Patriarchy - Regrettably, much of
  womens history has to take into account that
  systems of male dominance take different forms
  and have different effects. But when womens
  history reduces itself to nothing more than
  comparative patriarchy studies, womens lives and
  successes once again disappear.

25
Agency, Resistance, and Standpoint Theory

• Agency means the ability to act. All people have
  agency in all situations, but no one ever has
  utterly boundless agency. Consider what you can
  and cannot do in this class right now
• Womens circumscribed social roles makes their
  agency specific to their position. For example,
  womens resistance has rarely (if ever) taken the
  form of a military coup. But it can take the
  form of a sex strike (see Lysistrata by
  Aristophanes).
• Standpoint theory, as described by Juschka, means
  that the oppressed group, from their social
  location, has access to knowledge about both
  themselves and those classes above them. It has
  also been used by feminists to acknowledge ones
  own standpoint and biases as a researcher/scholar.
  Acknowledging the multiplicities of our
  identities prevents us from glibly assuming
  universals.

26
Do Goddesses Make a Difference?

• In a cosmology?
• In the lives of living women?

27
Ancient Goddess Images
Eastern Europe, Venus of Willendorf
Laussel Cave, France
Minoan Crete Lunar Goddess
Minoan Crete Snake Goddess
28
Hindu Goddesses
Clockwise from right to left Sarasvati,
Lakshmi, Durga slaying the Buffalo Demon, and
Kali astride Siva
29
Native North American Images of Sacred Women
Clockwise from above Spirit of Lake Superior
(Ojibwe) Sedna (Inuit) Fog Woman Ring (NW
Coast) Our Three Sisters (Corn, Squash, Beans)
(Haudenosaunee aka Iroquois)
30
Some Feminist Theories
31
HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION HERMENEUTICS OF
REMEMBRANCE Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza Suspicio
n - do not trust what the hegemonic elite has
decreed or written Remembrance - since women have
been erased, compensatory history becomes an
important method.
32
Mary Daly and Radical Feminism

• Cosmological critique of patriarchy centers on
  how the sacred has been reified, and how death
  has been prized over life.
• She theorizes that Goddess is a Verb, Be-ing, a
  process that is bio-philic (life-loving).
• She sees resistance to patriarchy in border
  dwelling

33
Patterns Detected by Feminist Approaches to
Religion

• Women have greater input in formative stages of
  new religions, than in highly institutionalized
  forms
• Religions that favor the experiential dimension
  often have greater participation by women.
  Religions explicitly opposed to mysticism, or
  highly legalized in modality, are often hostile
  to womens participation.
• Healing is a key dimension of religion for women
  in many cultures

34
More Patterns Detected by Feminist Approaches to
Religion

• In a study reviewed at the American Academy of
  Religion in 2003, the following traits were found
  in many religions started by or featuring
  feminist perspectives
• 1) ambivalence
• 2) immanence
• 3) revelatory power of the ordinary
• 4) relationality
• 5) healing

35
Patriarchy is a Protection Racket!What is a
Protection Racket?How does male supremacydiffer
from other formsof oppression?
36
Some Religious Studies Theories
37
TAXONOMY OF RELIGIONS Taxonomy the science or
technique of classification To perform taxonomy,
one must develop a variety of categories, which
function as vectors of classification
38
Vectors of Religious Taxonomy

• Distance between Sacred and Human Realms
• Number of Deities
• Philosophic Cosmology
• Scope of Membership and Recruitment
• Social Organization (Basic Types)
• Social Identities and Locations (class, race,
  status, gender, education, etc.)
• Types of Practices and Modes of Knowledge
  (literate/oral, legal/mystic, ritual/philosophy)