gender theory
I did a presentation on Gender Theory for Contemporary Critical Theory this past week, and I think I'm still being affected--to the very core of my being--from it. The topic is so interesting; I was incredibly excited about doing it, once my partner and I began the research (previous to actually reading up on it I was dreading it). Gender Theory is pretty much Queer Theory, but it also has a lot to do with Feminist theory. Each of these schools of literary theory were made possible by Poststructuralism (which began with Derrida's Deconstruction movement). I have so much to say about these things, but I really need to finish a paper that was due last week.
Mostly, I just really need some prayer. I have such a heart for justice and equality. I can't stand that in setting up structural "norms" one by default also sets up a power imbalance--one automatically creates the category of abnormal or "Other" (and therefore in some measure sub-human). The Other could be someone with a different sexual orientation, someone of a different nationality, ethnicity, culture, skin colour, religion, denomination, biological gender, etc. My presentation partner and I came into contact with some interesting magazines and articles that related to first, the trend in high fashion toward androgynous models as the epitome of beauty, and unisex clothing as the ideal; and second, the supposed fact that greater numbers of children at younger and younger ages are declaring that they are either homosexual or transgendered (meaning that girls at two years old are declaring that they are boys, and boys at three years old refuse to be considered anything but girls). Now, I am trying not to take this for absolute fact, but even if it is partially true, it is frightening. I feel bad even calling it frightening though! Is this because the world is going to Hell in a handbasket? Are sin and chaos taking over? Are the New Agers right in predicting the supreme form of the human being is the hermaphrodite? Is Satan influencing this evolution? Or is this happening because of all the estrogen-mimicking PCBs we are leaching into the environment? Is it because of all the birth-control hormones women's bodies expel into the water system and thence into the biosphere? Is it a consequence of all the hormones injected/fed to animals destined for the slaughterhouse and thence to the dinner table? What if the society around me told me that loving my male husband was wrong when biologically that's all I want to do? What if homosexual/transgendered human persons are CREATED THAT WAY?!!?!?!?--obviously because of sin, but HOW COULD WE TELL THEM THEY ARE GOING TO HELL FOR IT? FOR THE WAY THEY WERE FORMED IN THEIR MOTHER'S WOMB--be it through environmental toxicity or not?!?!?!? How DO I RECONCILE the conservative Christian teachings of my upbringing regarding homosexuality with the love and forgiveness of Christ I find in the Gospel--or with the unifying and category-destroying blood of Jesus in which male and female, slave and free, barbarian and civilized are are ONE in Christ Jesus?
Deuteronomy 10:12-22
12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
14 To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. 20 Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21 He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 22 Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
P.S. I was 22 as of 2:22 in the morning 2 days ago on November (the 11th month) 2nd, 2006. My favourite number is 2.
posted by Be at 17:50
10 Comments:
happy birthday! 22 is almost as cool as 21, and maybe cooler, i don't know.
it would be interesting to talk to you about this whole subject since you're researching it and it's something i think about all the time. we could go to one of the nice cafes around. :D and, there's a website you might want to check out: www.newdirection.ca.
the executive director wendy gritter spoke at a conference at the FRWY.
Tala, I would LOVE to go out for coffee with you. Let me know when you're available to. I'd also like to see your family sometime soon. I miss all of you! (We haven't got our couch yet, but when we do, you're all invited over.) Email me! Amyann at gmail dot com.
Hey hun! I just wrote a paper on transgenderism for school and agreee whole heartedly with some of the struggles you mentioned in your post... guess that's why it got to me so much! I think deep down we know that we have to accept people and it can be challenging when our faith and society leads us to think differently, or especially when we have challenges around the creation of these individuals in our world. As a Social Worker I am expected to agree or to believe or to accept, but sometimes it's so difficult!!! I miss you!!!
thanks tine! interesting how you're struggling with the same stuff. i miss you too! email me sometime with updates.
love, ames.
How do you reconcile them? Hmmm...that's a challenging question. Do they need to be reconciled? Or can each offer something to live out of? Say 1)moral seriousness and 2) a direction for your heart and your energies?
I don't know if you read Leslie Newbigin's Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Chapter 18, I think, talks about the Church as the hermeneutic for the Gospel. I think that means--in a limited sense--that you are a hermenuetic for the Gospel.
As I understand it, being a hermenuetic is a bit different than conceptually reconciling apparent opposites.
When are you going to blog again, Sistah?
There is no such thing as an 'unchangeable, biologically-caused homosexual orientation'. That's only what they want you to think; it's a political position. In spite of what you may hear in publications and other outlets of our culture, it is a scientifically(!) unproven concept.
I'd love to talk about it sometime. You can also read my papers on it if you wish (or for a better read I could point you to some great sources on the subject that are written from a Christian, Scripture-saturated foundation)
Joel, how do you know it's a "scientifically unproven" concept? Maybe that's what so-called Christian fundamentalists want YOU to believe. (I'm not saying I actually agree with that. But I just get frustrated when Christians who have no background in science claim to know what's going on in it so matter-of-factly--I realize I'm guilty of this too.)
Amyann, in reference to Joel's comment, I think I've read some of the material he's talknig about and the authors are in fact trained scientifically. Even the non-Christians who actually perform homosexuality tests, the ones that come up with all the stats, admit that they are not at all conclusive. If you really want to weigh the evidence, it is important to get it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
You're absolutely right that fundamentalists shape science to their own agenda, humanists shape it to theirs, and every single person that reads, performs experiments, teaches, writes, argues, eats, sleeps, or breathes takes the findings of science in ways that fit with what they believe about God, themselves, and the world around them. In your search for wisdom and understanding, I have some bad news, Amyann. The entire world, including science, music, fiction, and history is the blind leading the blind. There is truth, but man is blind by nature (Isa.59:10) and suppresses truth by nature(Ro.1:25).
If you want to know whether poison will bring you life or death, do you ask a viper? He cannot live without it, but you cannot live with it. If you want to know whether the desire for the same sex is light or darkness, do you ask the darkness that hates the light (Jn.3:20) and expect to see clearly? "Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn." Isa.8:19-20.
If you're looking for fact without interpretation, you're looking for something that doesn't exist. The million-dollar question is this: Whose interpretation will you believe. Believe. It's a matter of faith, for faith precedes sight. Whose words will you believe? It's a matter of faith and it's a matter of worship. No wonder the issue has affected you to the very core of your being - God is saying Whom will you trust?
"I can't stand that in setting up structural "norms" one by default also sets up a power imbalance--one automatically creates the category of abnormal or "Other" (and therefore in some measure sub-human)."
Question: Mt.25:31-33 Does God believe in placing people in categories?
"How DO I RECONCILE the conservative Christian teachings of my upbringing regarding homosexuality with the love and forgiveness of Christ I find in the Gospel"
Question: Mt.13:47-52 Does Jesus believe in categories?
"male and female, slave and free, barbarian and civilized are are ONE in Christ Jesus?"
Question: Gal.5:16-26 Are there categories of desires within the redeemed heart?
Last Question: Ro.1:24 Which does God expressly call 'sinful' - the desire or the behaviour?
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Eph.4:22-24
Whose job is it to put off the old self? Who is being corrupted? When? By what? What is the nature of these desires? What makes the mind new? Whose job is it to put on the new self? What is the standard? How do we know what God is like? What defines righteousness and holiness?
I strongly suggest you work through every one of the questions above, and many more that I haven't thought of, before you jump into the darkness of the world and expect to see light.
I know what it's like to grope around in darkness, and it's not fun. I'm sorry if I sound harsh... this is no light matter, but I still have a lot of growing to do in the way I say things.
In His light we see light (Ps.36:9).
Wow, I didn't realize you had posted about our presentation... and gotten so much [intense] response! I am still wondering about a lot of this stuff myself... I don't really think it's safe to believe that we can figure out all the answers, not that we shouldn't be seeking them through prayer and scripture.
It's cool that you're blogging again -- I will have to look at some of the poetry above :)
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