Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!apple!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!tittle From: jjb@cs.wayne.EDU (J. Brewster) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: gender/sex and feminist spirituality Summary: Once more around the park, James... Message-ID: <773@wsu-cs.uucp> Date: 17 Jul 89 22:50:21 GMT References: <1336@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <42102@bbn.COM> <6740@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> <42679@bbn.COM> Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu Organization: Wayne State University, Detroit, MI Lines: 110 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu In article <42679@bbn.COM>, rshapiro@bbn.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes: ->I have the feeling we're beginning to go round and round on this ->one... -> Well, let's take one last spin on the merry-go-round. It seems that I confused the issue somewhat. There's a clear statement in this article, so: After my apparently mistaken statement of the issue, we'ver arrived at this: -> ->The question I have asked is this: why should a figure like Sophia be ->considered by some to be appropriate for feminism (more approriate, ->say, than Yahweh)? It would seem that the only possible answer here is ->that she embodies some kind of eternal feminine which she shares with ->women today. This reasoning is, as I hope we all see now, full of ->problems. No. I, at least, don't see anything of the sort. The principle which is variously described as the "eternal feminine", the "transcendant feminine" and that which "exists beyond time and space" is strikingly similar to Plato's forms, if not consciously modeled after them. One of the characteristics of these forms (Gr. _idea_) is that they're independent of the mind which knows them. In short, such a principle (the eternal feminine) does not come into being because someone thinks it up, nor passes out of existence because no one knows it any longer. Therefore, ones religous practices will neither conjure it up, nor will banning them make it go away. It seems clear to me that it is this unusual use of Platonic forms which is problematical, rather than any reasoning based on it. Further, I believe the reason that Sophia is appropriate to feminist spirituality is because of two qualities she possesses: Sophia is _by definition_ woman, and therefore feminine, and what she is or does or embodies is therefore feminine. This is an important point. Were it not so, such images would be powerless to modify our concept of gender. Sophia and other images like her do not take traditionally feminine roles, nor do they exemplify qualities which are traditionally feminine. Consequently, if one takes such images seriously, then ones perception of the roles and qualities which are appropriate for women is greatly enlarged. In doing this, worship of Sophia and her sisters does work toward feminist goals. In summary, the principle of the "eternal feminine" is not descriptive and serves more to confuse the issue than to clarify it. "Appropriate", in my opinion, depends more on whether we can identify the image as feminine, and consequently, what connections such an image will bring to the concept of feminine. ->So the only remaining question is: might there be some ->other reason? It can't be simply because she's biologically female -- ->what is biological sex in a deity anyway? Even if we knew what this ->meant, why should it be relevant? Surely it's the characters, the ->personalities of Sophia and Yahweh which are important here, not what ->kind of genitals (if any) they have. In other words, the Sophia figure ->stands in contrast to the Yahweh figure precisely as feminine does to ->masculine. This is, then, an example of the valorization of the ->feminine. It's head and tails of the same coin, but the coin of ->gender remains essentially untouched and inviolate. And, in my ->opinion, the very first step in feminism has to be just the opposite ->of this -- the questioning of gender, not the acceptance (indeed, the ->eternalizing and naturalizing) of it. -> ->The fact that the primary god in the West is male/masculine is ->certainly an important indicator of underlying sexism. But if the ->response is simply to replace him with a female/feminine version, we ->really haven't gotten anywhere. Worse, we've made eternal exactly that ->which needs to be viewed as contingent and historical. The supposed contrast between Yahweh and Sophia sounds like a sort of dualistic arrangement. I don't believe that this describes the credo of the Sophia-ists. It certainly isn't true in my experience. There is no competition between the two, and imaging wisdom as Sophia does not mean that one cannot "see" wisdom as Yahweh. It's not a zero-sum game. I suspect that the thought of replacing Yahweh would sound like heresy to many, if not most Sophia-ists. Valorization (artifical price supports?!) suggests something second-class to me, less than *real* equality, something which needs to be artificially maintained. If Sophia and Yahweh are non-exclusive, non-competitive images, then I suspect that this distinction, too, is not truly descriptive. Enlarging the feminine *not at the expense of the masculine* isn't inversion at all, doesn't replace anything by anything else. It puts _two_ genders where there was only one, and that's exactly what we want to do. I don't believe that we can ever be rid of gender altogether -- it's part of our self-image, after all. What we can and should do is to stop making it a barrier to our possibilities. It seems to me that the objections to which I reply derive from an attempt to describe a fluid, subjective and personal practice in terms of a a rigid formal system. It just doesn't work. One last thing: I'm not selling Sophia tee-shirts, prayer aprons or Platonic philosphy. I'd be very happy to reach the point at which we simply won't need to label someone's religious practices as Inconsistent with the Goals of Feminism. -- J. Brewster | "In this country, everything loose jjb@cs.wayne.edu | rolls to the West Coast." ...!mailrus!wsu-cs!jjb | --Thomas A. Vanderslice, CEO of Apollo