“I don’t want to offend or upset you, I just want to ask you a question, and possibly extend an invitation.”
“Okay?”
“Are you particularly religious?”
I have never known the “proper” way to answer this question. I have grown up exposed to a variation of religions—Hinduism, Islam, Christianity—and they have all carved different values and beliefs in me that are sometimes conflicting, and sometimes confusing, and almost impossible to formally practice. So, naturally, as I was asked this question by a stranger in the middle of Walmart, I fumbled to find words to respond.
“Not particularly, no. I believe in God…I believe in something bigger than me, than us, but I don’t really practice.”
“That’s good enough. Are you familiar with Christianity at all?” I nodded, waiting.
“If you are, then you’re familiar with the fact that Christians are generally taught to pray to God and regard him as ‘Our Father’.” I nodded again, still waiting.
“Have you ever second-guessed that? Ever wondered why father instead of mother? Well, we have. We are not non-believers, so please don’t assume that. We are feminist killjoys, or at least that’s what we’ve been told. We want to have a conversation about God, about why God is he, and why even with that power, there is no she beside him. Why has no one ever considered there to be a female God? Or God, a man, accompanied and empowered by a woman?”
I listened to these girls speak for a long time. I had just worked a seven-hour shift, after a full day of classes, and was standing in the middle of Walmart, already forgetting what I came here for in the first place. I listened to these girls speak and I could feel the wheels turning in my head. Why had no one ever thought of this? Why hadn’t I? I stood in Walmart that night and listened to the beginnings of an entire movement, and entire community willing to raise this question and have this conversation.
There is no part of me that believes there is a correct way to teach or practice religion. I am a firm believer in choice. I have witnessed religion as fundamentals to culture passed on through generations. I have felt desperate enough to need faith in something or someone to get through some nights. That being said, I also happen to be a “feminist killjoy” and so, I am a firm believer in opening the conversation and raising the question—why do we hold these roles and assign such great, divine, power to ethereal figures and automatically assume they are male rather than female?
Holding males as figures of dominance and power has always been the seemingly natural way of things. There has always been an underlying understanding that women fall submissive. In light of recent events, recent elections, and the sheer fact that it’s almost 2017—I think it is time to challenge that understanding. To not only entertain the idea of changing this standard, but to actually do it.
After speaking to these girls in Walmart, I felt empowered. I felt strong enough. I felt intelligent enough. I felt adequate enough to voice this question to other people. However, as I made my way back to my dorm, I looked around the bus I was on, the campus I was on, and remembered that as empowered as I felt, I wasn’t viewed this way. Some people viewed me as everything that is “wrong” with this country; part of that comes solely from being a woman.
There is a view of women in today’s society that tends to play on the weak, the incapable, the uninformed. A view that plays on powerless and condemns the opinionated. It is hard to pinpoint the moment in time when this view became normal; when degrading, sentiments became interchangeable for the word woman. And it is scary to think that this view is a product of our progression—this is what Anthony and Paul and Wells fought so hard for. The vote. The choice. The right. The acknowledgment. This is what we’ve gained. And yet, men view us as toys. Religion may view us as insignificant. We are measured by scales. We are tested by vulnerability. We are quieted by the masses. Our right to choose is threatened. We are seen as too much of this or too little of that to do anything substantial—to bear arms, or to be president. We are caught between the lines of being blown out of proportion or being swept under the rug, and then stitched up to believe that this choice is our own. We are brainwashed to believe that the women who push back and succeed in their efforts are merely the exception; heaven forbid this becomes the standard we set.
Why can’t God be a woman? Why can’t God, the “heavenly father,” have a woman at his side, as his equal? Why can’t God be any of the adjectives interchangeable with the word woman? Why has society made that such a terrifying thought?
This conversation needs to be an open one, an explicit one—one not meant to change or alter practice, but possibly change or alter the way we teach, and the reasons we do so, and the view we hold of women in respect to power, capability, and faith.
