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Feminist Theology Summary

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In the introduction and the first chapter of Introducing Feminist Theology, Anne Clifford explains multiple concepts regarding feminism, society and Christian theology. Throughout the chapter, Clifford discusses the coming about of feminism and how feminism lead to feminist liberation theology. Firstly, Clifford asserts that a patriarchal world is a white man’s world, oppressing women and people of color. Therefore, feminism came (in three waves) to liberate women from sexism and oppression. According to the author, patriarchy, with its dominance, creates a barrier between interdependence and equality. In addition, within patriarchy, there exists the concept of androcentrism, which states that the male perspective is dominant, and the female …show more content…

A patriarchy is a system where men dominate, and women are marginalized. The patriarchy can be traced to Aristotle’s writings in Ancient Greece, where he spoke of women as subordinates of men. Aristotle was also dependent on dualism (dividing reality into different spheres). In the case of men and women, men were seen as the rational and women, the emotional. These labels lead to sexist behavior and thus oppression of women, because they were seen as less than men. Due to the idea of dualism in a patriarchal society, it does not only oppress women, but the patriarchy is also a root cause of racism, classism, colonialism, etc. This occurs because dualism is based on dividing reality into different spheres and in doing so, dualism is creating a hierarchical …show more content…

Thus, feminism sought to liberate women from androcentrism, which was prevalent in multiple aspects of life, including religion. Women’s views were not expressed in religion and theology, therefore, feminist theologians attempted to reinterpret religion based on the female experience. Feminist theologies can be divided into three categories, revolutionary, reformist and reconstructionist. The first, revolutionary feminist theology, views the bible and Christianity as patriarchal and antiwoman. Thus, women abandoned Christianity and looked to worshipping ancient female deities. The second, reformist Feminist Theology, does not seek to see a holistic change within the Christian doctrine, but a change within existing church structure. The last, but major type of Feminist Theology is reconstructionist Feminist Theology, which is seen as the liberation Feminist Theology. It seeks to reconstruct society and Christianity as a whole, by reinterpreting traditional symbols and ideas of Christianity, while still acknowledging God and Jesus

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303 Words | 2 Pages

Patriarchy in a system simply refers to males put in a higher position than females excluding them from being the head of the household and in many different governmental and leadership positions. This way of life proceeds to spill over into other areas of life, which allow men to believe they have the authority in all positons over women. Misogyny refers to the hatred of women, and the patriarchal system can easily lead to men hating women for various reasons. When one is in a system where the male already has authority and power, it could be easy to begin to view females as worthless individuals. In Sharon Lennon’s story, “What Is Mine,” she tells a story from her past about being mistreated by the baseball coach.

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1236 Words | 5 Pages

Words such as ‘unspoken assumption’, ‘insidiously’,‘exaggerating’, and “preoccupation” show suspicion towards the topic of women's rights and movements . In addition, the author also gives emphasis towards the downfall of men’s rights by including details such as “special privileges and protection to women” and “men’s supposed mistreatment of women”, thus showing how the author is directly opressed by the fight for equal rights. The author sees men's rights and their struggle with oppression as them being expected to have traditional cordial manners and fall into the traditional role of the patriarchy of the family, and decides to ‘debunk’ feminism by using these few points against a legacy of hatred, oppression, and misogyny that created

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158 Words | 1 Pages

Patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. This influenced the life of almost all ancient civilizations because it was apart of the main infrastructure. For example, in the Gupta Empire, many Indian families had patriarchal influence, headed by the oldest male member. All family members worked together to condition their crops. Since drought was colloquial, they had to work closer together.

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1172 Words | 5 Pages

Feminism is formally defined as the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. In short, this means females are fighting for their rights and to be treated the same as men. The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston is based on the main character, Janie Crawford’s change that has led her to be autonomous. Janie is a young woman who learned many valuable lessons that helped her to make decisions for herself. Janie’s search for autonomy is intertwined with feminism due to Janie’s past, her previous marriages, and the display of sexism.

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1894 Words | 8 Pages

Consequently, women do not have an equal value to men, who, on account of their apparent superiority, should rule over them. If feminism is about the promotion of a woman’s equality and worth, then feminism cannot be good for women because it encourages them to reject what God has told them to do, that is, to accept their inferiority and live in submission to their

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2602 Words | 11 Pages

Since, the eighteen century women have been seeing as property, object and goods (Popple, 2015, p.64). However, today the feminist theory represents the perception that the society and the state is still patriarchal were men persist in dominant positions and women are in subordinate positions. Fact is, accordingly to Bryson (1993) cited in Popple (2015), male power get still physical and psychological demonstrated with domestic violence, sexual abuse or other types of control to minimize women. (Popple,2015, p.65.). It can be argued that the feminist theory

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1156 Words | 5 Pages

To get to the most precise root of patriarchy we must fully comprehend by breaking down the definition. In the article by The Nation, they quote Social Activist, Feminist, and author, Bell Hooks. Hooks says, “Patriarchy is political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females…”(Nation 1). After meticulous analyzation of the texts, we see that Minot exposes the narrator of this in multiple stages of her life, she simultaneously is taking on the underlying issue of how after each occasion she is falling more and more into the category of symptoms caused by patriarchy. Minot makes it known in her writing that the narrator has had frequent encounters with males throughout her teenage years.

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526 Words | 3 Pages

Through all classes of society, the social arrangement of patriarchy

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282 Words | 2 Pages

The Christian Century articles “Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies” by Phyllis Trible examines arguments made by feminist scholars about text in the bible that suggest mistreatment of women. Trible beings the article talking about the feminist movement and how they interpret and critique the bible. She states that the feminist’s argument focuses on how females were viewed unfairly and less desirable in the bible. Tribles then beings to focus on three perspectives of women in Scripture by mainly focusing on Hebrew Scriptures. She emphases a culture of patriarchy in Israel citing (Judg. 11:29-40), (II Sam. 13) and others to make the argument that there is evident of inferiority, subordination and abuse of women in Scripture.

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1228 Words | 5 Pages

In the last couple of decades, women have been on the largely involved in different roles in society. The American woman have come a long way in terms of her position and role in society. For a very long time women were identified by their gender and the patriarchy system that was used by different cultures across the world. Patriarchal can be defined as the aspect in society that looks into male dominance and power over all matters of society and how these privileges are simply handed down to men. It also looks to define how women struggle to gain positions of power while men are simply grabbing these chances from them.

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716 Words | 3 Pages

Patriarchy is a male dominant power structure and it consists of women serving their husband while the men are seen as the superior figure of the household. Early signs of Patriarchy were first recognized in the late seventeen century by the Puritan communities of New England. The role of women in colonial society consisted of cooking, washing, cleaning, taking care of children. They were responsible, in most cases, for the education and religious upbringing of their children or siblings. By the time they reached the age of thirteen, they were required to perform all tasks of adulthood.

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962 Words | 4 Pages

Patriarchy is the typical system in a society where the male holds the most power over a female. Multiple civilizations have been this way for centuries. There are many aspects that caused this division between the two genders. The causes in the development of patriarchy from the Paleolithic Eras to the Neolithic Eras are the creation of civilizations, home environments ,and agriculture. Each one of these causes lead to one another because they have a “chain reaction.”

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859 Words | 4 Pages

More and more women are waking up to this systematic sexism in religion and are pulling away from the Church in protest. Women are realizing that belonging to one of many organized religions that continue to cite books written thousands of years ago to rationalize treatment of woman is definitely not in their best interests. Even allowing others to defend their actions based on the Bible as the “word of god” is counterproductive to the feminist movement. My mom agrees with Stanton, feminism cannot progress while we allow the Bible to make the rules about modern day

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983 Words | 4 Pages

Each society possesses distinctive culture that varies from each other, yet has commonalities, as well. Patriarchy long has been one of such common features, and is still so in many states. It is the male, especially fathers, rule, while the opposite gender is expected to be submissive (Sultana, 2010). Over time, the level of patriarchy has mitigated, especially following the women feminist movements, exclusively in the West, and the situation of gender equality has improved (Evelyn and Adedayo, 2014). It is essential to convey these western ideas everywhere, as they are most humanist and just, so far.

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1114 Words | 5 Pages

According to the famous sociologists Sylvia Walby, patriarchy is “a system of social structure and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women”. Women’s exploitation is an age old cultural phenomenon of Indian society. The system of patriarchy finds its validity and sanction in our religious beliefs, whether it is Hindu, Muslim or any other religion. For instance, as per ancient Hindu law giver Manu, “Women are supposed to be in the custody of their father when they are children, they must be under the custody of their husband when married and under the custody of her son in old age or as widows.

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