Jo Ann Deasy is an ordained Covenant pastor currently serving as the director of institutional initiatives and student research at the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, PA.
I have almost always been a pioneer. Despite being a fairly anxious person, I have found myself forging new paths in the wilderness since I was 7 years old when I was one of the first girls allowed to play pee wee baseball after Title IX passed. I was one of just a few women to graduate in civil engineering from UC Berkeley. I was the first woman to preach at several churches. I was the first woman named as “dean” at North Park Theological Seminary, even if it was only the dean of students. I have been the first woman people have witnessed lead communion or perform a wedding.
Being the first has a thrill to it. You are often recognized as being “exceptional,” praised for “not being like other women,” invited into leadership positions because there are “so few qualified women.”
But being the first also means being the one who has upset the system and, if you have read any systems theory, you know that upsetting the system is no small thing. When a family, congregation, community, or culture faces challenges to the system, the natural reaction is to try to return to “stasis,” the way things were, even when we know it might be unhealthy or wrong.
We’ve all witnessed it. A church is struggling to survive. There are a few unhealthy congregation members that seem to control everything. A pastor, lay leaders, denominational official tries to bring about change. The pastor gets fired. The lay leader steps down. The congregation starts threatening to leave the denomination. Or, perhaps change does happen, but it only lasts for a short while. The pastor burns out and leaves. Things immediately return to normal.
Perhaps this has happened in your family. Someone in the family has decided to try and break the cycle of abuse or addiction. They go to counseling. Seek help. Everyone praises them for their efforts, but even so, in subtle ways, people begin sabotaging their efforts. It would require too much change, would require everyone else to look at their own issues instead of focusing on the “identified patient.”
In the last decade, we have watched this happening on a national scale. The election of Barack Obama as the first African American president brought hope to many that years of racial prejudice and systemic injustice might be coming to an end. In those first years, such change seemed possible, even despite the racial hatred President Obama and his family faced as they stepped into the White House. Current reality, though, suggests that far from bringing about racial healing in our society, an African American president has simply brought to light many injustices that had been roiling beneath the surface for years. Not only have existing injustices been brought to light, racial violence seems to be on the rise and people seem more free to express racist ideologies.
So, what happens when a woman is running for president? What happens when a woman challenges the system? In a very insightful article in the Atlantic, Peter Beinart highlights the ways sexism has been a factor in this year’s presidential election. To read the article “Fear of a Female President” click here.
Beinart suggests that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy “has provoked a wave of misogyny—one that may roil American life for years to come.” He presents compelling evidence that, despite being a fairly conventional candidate, Hillary has faced opposition that has far exceeded that of similar white male candidates in the past, and her opposition has often been filled with sexist rhetoric. Beinart writes, “Standard commentary about Clinton’s candidacy–… doesn’t explain the intensity of this opposition. But the academic literature about how men respond to women who assume traditionally male roles does. And it is highly disturbing.”
I would highly encourage everyone to read the article and begin looking into the literature being referenced there. Not because I think it will convince you to vote for Hillary… but because the “Hillary effect,” as I’ll call it, impacts all women, especially those who serve in leadership positions.
Women pastors and leaders often face opposition that is full of emotion and, at times, violence that far exceeds the reality of the situation. Stepping into a new leadership role, upsetting the system, can provoke a violent attempt to return to stasis. Even when a woman is stepping into an existing leadership role, her leadership can be met with a surprising amount of emotional and passionate opposition. Like the time I changed when confirmation would meet and ended up in a conflict that required denominational intervention. When such conflict erupts, people often blame it on the woman herself claiming that she is being too emotional, too sensitive, or has blown things out of proportion.
When a woman leader in your congregation is met with resistance or is in the middle of conflict, it is always important to think about how gender might be at play. If the emotion and passion seem out of proportion to the issue, chances are there is something else at play and often that something else is sexism.
One other lesson for us to take away: If Hillary Clinton does become president, we cannot assume it will make things better for women. In fact, if we have learned anything from the Obama presidency, it is the fact that things may actually become worse. And if that is the case, it will be up to us, as the church, to stand alongside the women in our midst, just as we must stand alongside our African American brothers and sisters, to fight the resurgence of prejudice, to resist the attempts to return to the way things were, and to courageously fight for deep and lasting change.
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The Creation of Patriarchy
Filed under: Book & Commentary, Testimonies and Stories
Dru McLeland graduated with a Master of Divinity degree from Northern Theological Seminary in June and is currently seeking God’s next place of ministry call in the ECC. In the meantime, she and her family are enjoying their new Cavachon puppy, Zoë Ruby Regina.
Recently, I had a conversation with a young woman who is a chaplain in training about women in ministry and I mentioned the ECC’s Commission on Biblical Gender Equality. She asked, “Is there gender equality in the Bible? Isn’t the Bible patriarchal?” I answered, “Well, yes, especially in the Old Testament.” I started asking, why? I don’t see patriarchy in the creation of Adam and Eve. Both are created in the image of God. God blessed THEM, and told THEM to “fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion…over every living thing that moves upon the earth. God did not give a command that society has to be patriarchal. I wonder is patriarchy God’s design or is it something humans created?
Several years ago, I read All God’s People (here). In that book, Jay Phelan’s brief history of hierarchal development was my first introduction to the idea that patriarchy may not be God’s creation, but I wanted to know more. Since I had thousands of pages to read for seminary classes, I set aside my question but occasionally returned to it and asked God to show me more. The Teacher did not forget my question. My final class in seminary, Women of the Old Testament, addressed it. One of our texts was The Creation of Patriarchy, (here)by Gerda Lerner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.) the first in a two-volume work.
Lerner, who died in 2013, had an unusual childhood in the early 20th century that included a Bohemian mother, escaping the Nazi’s, and targeting by McCarthyism. She made the study of African American and women’s history her life’s work. For a brief biography of Lerner, click here.
Her book is an attempt “to trace, by means of historical evidence, the development of the leading ideas, symbols, and metaphors by which patriarchal gender relations were incorporated into Western civilization” (p. 10). As one who is newly conscious of the role of patriarchy in Western society and witness to its creep into the Church, but not a historian, I found her book a great place to start and a springboard for further investigation and study. She includes anthropological evidence of societies that may have been egalitarian and others that may have been matriarchal to show that not all ancient societies were patriarchal. She challenges the tradition of patriarchy which she asserts has been “mystified… making it ahistoric, eternal, invisible, and unchanging” (p. 37). This may seem a little over the top to some, but I think it challenges us to think about our views of patriarchy and how it effects our lives as well as those around us.
One of the main ways Lerner’s writing challenged me was the connection she made between the oppression of women when they are seen as objects and how this paved the way for slavery of all kinds. Women came to be seen as a commodity, as belonging to a man or household, with their status established because of their ability or lack of ability to produce offspring. The strength of the natural urges of a mother to protect the life of a baby set her apart from men. Especially in war, this vulnerability made women more easily subdued and subjected to slavery by conquerors. Lerner hypothesizes that the enslavement of women was a precursor to slavery in general. Women came to be seen as less than human, “other” and treated as an object or commodity. Lest we think this is history only, we have only to look at the numbers of people who are victims of human trafficking because someone is willing to pay for them as a sex object. (See the US Government 2016 report on human trafficking here; find your state here.)
Against the context of Lerner’s book, I see the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as just as radical in our day as in his. Christ came to break down the divisions patriarchal systems create. He came to create a new humanity where all are one with new identity as members of the household of God, no matter what we are able contribute, but because we are human beings, created in God’s image.
Whether one agrees with Lerner about the creation of patriarchy or not, I believe there is a challenge for us as we look at others. I ask myself and invite you to ask yourself a couple of questions. When interacting with others, do I see them as objects or commodities in anyway? Do I remember I am united in Christ with other Christians when we interact?
I would like to continue this conversation. Where have you discovered that you might be seeing another as an object or “the other” rather than God’s created person? If you have read Lerner’s book, what do you think about it? Please leave a reply.
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