#christian feminism

[i-used-to-be-an-anti-feminist]

I see so many well intentioned women talking about how modesty is important when it comes to men's objectification of them. Like, they will condemn men's lust, but say, "but we have to do our part too." I just need you guys to understand that there is literally no amount of clothing you can wear to keep men from sexualizing you. It sucks, but it's true.

I dress very modestly by the typical conservative Christian standard... Loose clothing, long dresses/skirts, nothing low cut, etc. Usually the only skin I expose is my forearms, neck, and face... But I am not exempt from being sexualized. I can't tell you how many times I've heard stuff like, "it's so hot when women leave things up to the imagination" and "I love your librarian/teacher vibe, it's so sexy." Men sexualize nuns and muslim women, who are completely covered. No woman is exempt from this.

Why is this important? So you can stop blaming yourself for men treating you like sexual potential instead of a person and hold men accountable for their own willful inability to control themselves.

To the Christian women, you are not responsible for men choosing to lust after you. Lust is a choice. I am same-sex attracted, and when I find myself attracted to a woman, I simply choose not to fantasize and lust after her. Men are capable of the same, they just like to shift blame.

As a Christian, I dress modestly as an act of humility more than anything else, but I know there is nothing I can do to control the sinful actions of men. Please stop blaming yourselves.

[cath-lic]

the funniest thing about harrison butker’s speech is seeing every christian i follow come out of the woodwork and absolutely own this dude for not knowing shit about the bible or women

[fierysword]

We need a multi-dimensional God. We need not only the assurance that a powerful God is in charge, but we also need a nurturing God when we are hurting. We need a rock of ages, but we also need a wind that blows where it will. We can pray “God, our Father” and sing “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” when it is balanced with “God, our Mother” and “The Care the Eagle Gives Her Young.” It’s the “both-and” rather than the “either-or” that will enrich us, that will help us to expand our sensibilities to the mystery of God and to create an inclusive community on earth.

BLESS SOPHIA: Worship, Ritual and Litany of the Re-Imagining Community

[beautyinsteadofashes]

If they're are other Christians around in Fandom on Tumblr I'd love to chat about how you navigate it e.g. idolatry and sexuality.

[lasangeline]

Hot take: Christianity and radical feminism are compatible. ''Christian radical feminism'' is not an oxymoron.

“How ? Numerous passages in the bible clearly prescribe patriarchy, like Ephesians 5 !”

Firstly, compiling passages from the Bible to take a stance on a certain issue is a wrong approach. We need a model of interpretation (hermeneutics) based on its fundamental, guiding principles to understand these passages' meaning.

So while it's true that the Bible contains patterns of male supremacist prescriptions, Christian patriarchy was not intended as a permanent and universal rule but as a temporary cultural accommodation to facilitate the spread of the gospel (God's priority) and avoid scandal and repression of Christianity in societies that tolerated only patriarchy:

Source

Radical feminism can therefore be used as a tool to reinterpret and reform the Christian faith to align it with the principle of anti-male supremacy. However an important distinction should be made: "Christian radical feminism" is not the same as "radical feminist Christianity". The former, as the words sequence suggests, begins with Christianity and then incorporates radfem ideas to transform church structures and teachings, while the latter takes radical feminism as its starting point and uses Christian beliefs and symbols to primarily promote radical feminism.

To resume what Christian radical feminism is: it's a perspective within Christianity that recognizes and critiques the male supremacist structures within both society and the church. It seeks to eradicate male dominance in all contexts, advocating for the liberation of women based on a Christian framework.

[animentality]

[samanthatrans999]

This is how I go to work now. cute panties 👙,tank tops and womens shapewear, under pathetic male cloths.

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[hadesoftheladies]

christian men will say shit like "my rib :)" to their wives and christian women will be like "tehee, uwu" as if they aren't descended from a lineage of creators on this planet which the god of their pathetic religion is cosplaying because men still can't fucking handle the fact that they aren't the creators of life

[oasisr]

yes i am a prude, and hypersexuality is ruining friendships, relationships and society as a whole.

[i-used-to-be-an-anti-feminist]

Men should stop trying to distance themselves from the negative patterns within male socialization and patriarchy by saying their good behavior is evidence that the pattern doesn't exist, and instead they should acknowledge the pattern and fight against it. They should take the energy they're using to shut women up and use it to educate their male friends and support women. If they actually care about the women in their lives as much as they claim to, they should respect them by fighting for women, not by silencing and gaslighting them.

[odinsblog]

Lmao, Abby feels “betrayed” by Right wing conservative men, who been showing everyone they hated women literally from day one

[sinful-skeptic]

Another fine case of “practice what you preach.” It’s not the woman’s fault that you lack self control.

[fierysword]

Source: Swallow's Nest: A Feminine Reading of the Psalms by Marchiene Rienstra

1 When I call, answer me, O God of my integrity! Deliver me from my distress! Have mercy on me and hear my prayer. 2 O men, how long will you try to destroy my dignity? How long will you assault me with lust and continue to live a lie? 3 Know that God protects Her daughters! She hears when I call out for help! 4 Stop sinning, and repent with fear and trembling. Consult the depths of your own hearts in sacred silence. 5 Offer to God the sacrifices of integrity and respect for all. 6 Many women say, "Who can do us any good?" Let the light of Your face shine upon us, O God. 7 You fill my heart with a joy that is greater than the pleasure of those stuffed with the best food and drink. 8 In peace I will lie down and sleep. For in You, Shaddai, I dwell in safety.

Possible uses of this psalm:

Alleviate insomnia (read along with a short prayer before bed)

Justice in court cases (read psalm several times by a blue candle and John the Conqueror Incense the night before a court appearance)

Restful and peaceful sleep

Change luck from bad to good

Prayer of praise and gratitude (v6-7)

Prayer for protection (v3,8)

Request blessings (v6-7)

1-2 are sourced from Power of the Psalms by Anna Riva, 3-4 from My New Everyday Prayer Book by Brother ADA

[aux-squiggle]

Understand that men and women are fundamentally the same. They were treated as such in our pre-civilization hunter-gatherer societies. The issue rests in the rise of imperialism, around 12,000 years ago or earlier. As many civilizations have pillaged and colonized other tribes seeking to hold ownership over them and have executive control, men seek to have executive control over the resource women possess.

As a class, we (women) generally have the ability to give birth, and can be widely expected to have this ability at some point in our lives. Childbirth is a fundamental resource, necessary for the multigenerational survival of a group. Like imperialists, men imperialize upon women, the owners of the childbirth resource, in order to control it.

In fact, for an imperial force to go out and oppress other tribes and societies, they must imperialize themselves, wherein the men imperialize upon women. They must wake up and go to sleep in imperialism. They must etch it into the folds of their brains, and convince themselves this is the natural order of humanity.

This imperialism is a patriarchy. Where women are subdued and silenced in totality, their names barely kept in the records, all treated like a resource. To further the subjugation and harden the chains, they use rape, beating, economic exclusion, verbal violence, and many other forms to keep women below them.

As such, for the past 12,000 years, men's very identities have moulded themselves around the oppression of women. Men implicitly and explicitly know they do not have the childbearing, baby-feeding, resource; they can only activate the former. This creates an envy.

Though men would seldom like to be impregnated and carry a child for themselves, the fact that the childbearing resource is in the body of an animate human, a woman, rather than belonging to men, or available in an inanimate harvest, is where the envy lies. The day when a man felt he wished for birth to be harvestable, rather than blessed upon him (likely the day he wished for food to be harvestable, rather than for nature to bless it upon him), is the day the envy became (perceivedly) insurmountable.

Envy causes insecurity, and insecurity causes vapidity. Vapidity harms the ego, ego of which instilled into us long ago as single-celled organisms, as ego is hand-in-hand with self preservation. The ego is the end result of the identity, and a harmed ego is a harmed identity.

Instead of to backtrack along the source of this harm, the men chose to overcompensate for their harmed identity. Instead of exist with a piece missing, and to realize the root of their bruised ego is the viewing of birth as a commodity to be harvested, they solidified birth's commodity status by lording themselves over women.

Men live in a fake identity. Their concept of self is centered around women, however instead of looking up to women, they look down upon us. They look upon women with disdain, apply pain, suffering, and create religions saying the creator of the universe intended this suffering to be so.

They created a code of conduct for themselves; masculinity, to compensate for lack of identity, and created it to be in opposition to whatever woman was. They created a code of conduct for women; femininity, and created it to embody subjugation and enslavement. They brainwashed us and themselves to believe femininity is inherent to womanhood, and to believe masculinity is inherent to manhood.

Open your eyes to the men who cry "misandry," as you will see what they consider misandry is an attack on their identity, and their identity is misogyny. As such, it can only be reasonable to be misandristic, insofar as one's misandry is an attack on misogyny, and every branch of same.

[beauty-funny-trippy]