Feminism

The role of feminism in religious studies seems to act as a destabilizer in much the same that deconstruction does. Deconstruction is a mode of thinking that never allows a field to become content with the answers it has found. It questions ‘givens’; thus forcing the field of inquiry to re-examine and perhaps reformulate itself. Feminism questions the ‘givenness’ of the male centred bias at the heart of religious studies. Texts, symbols, and cultural descriptions were collected by predominantly male religious studies scholars during the 19th and 20th century and are thus permeated with a hierarchy that ignores the role and status of women in various religious traditions. Feminism aims to destabilize the hierarchy in order to rescue women from marginalized roles, and generally improve their status. It is far more politically oriented then deconstruction.
In Engendering Religion, Clarke makes a good point on page 227, wherein she questions the category of women’s experience. Generally I find ‘religious experience’ a problematic term on which to base the study of religions because it is an inherently individual experience which does not lend itself to empirical classification. Additionally, it is difficult to use experience as a basis for comparison as if it had some inherent objective reality of its own because, according to Proudfoot, experience is constituted by the norms and the language of the culture that produces it. If experience is created by language, and differs from culture to culture, it becomes more difficult to assert that experience has a core of meaning which all cultures share. On page 245 Clarke speaks about gender as an analytic/descriptive category that needs to be re-examnied in order to de-naturalize and de-familiarize ‘taken for granted beliefs’ in order to critique them.
On page 235 Clarke speaks about the change that social sciences are undergoing, from scientific to literary paradigms. I believe that religious studies has been undergoing the same kind of shift. From the 19th century “science” of the study of religions, better known as the History of Religions movement, we are now moving toward a field in which literary theory is as much a part of the study as social-scientific theory. Post-colonialism, feminism, and deconstructionism are viable lenses with which to look at religion, and these all take their cues from literary theory developments in the 20th century.
Another comment that struck me was the idea on page 247 that Foucault does not allow for agency within his power structures. I believe this is inaccurate because the fact that institutions of power have to be constantly re-asserting themselves speaks to the possibility of resistance which is forcing them to respond in such a manner. Thus the fact that many religious traditions feel the need to continually re-assert gender roles, means that gender roles are not inherently stable or given.
In the Kinsley article, what I found interesting was the comment on page 9 wherein Kinsley states that when men misinterpret female symbols as male symbols, they miss the essential nature. I find this a very modernist (as opposed to post-modern) understanding because this assume that symbols have an internal coherence, and an objective reality. Symbols are referents, and are therefore multi-valent. A symbol doesn’t refer to only one other thing, it can refer to many different types of things, and this tendency of a symbol to gesture outwards precludes essentiality in my view. I also found the comment on page 12 very interesting, Kinsley points to the tendency of most field of inquiries to fall into the trap of objectification. In this particular case Kinsley points to the objectification of non-western women by western women. This occurs when western women are presented with a cultural practice that they cannot understand, and therefore they react by explaining it away. Is it the nature of comparative religions to always see an “Other”? Can we really ever escape our own vantage point and speak of an “us” as opposed to a “them”?
In the Young article, there is mention made of feminists trying to remove the false consciousness that patriarchy has encouraged among people over the years. However, when one removes a ‘false consciousness’ what remains behind? Is it reasonable to assume that the opposite of a certain kind of consciousness means a neutral consciouness or all consciousnesses somehow politically motivated?
And finally, I will address the phrase “Facts are not facts at all”. The term facts connotes an objective neutrality that pertains directly to reality. A fact is a fact by virtue of its accurate representation of things as they really are in themselves. A feminist critiques the idea that there is an objective viewpoint from which these facts can be constructed. If reality is shaped by conceptions and webs of meaning, and not by any ‘real’ referent, then ‘fact’ participates in this cultural constructedness, and does not have any inherent reality or objectivity.

Happy Thanksgiving!