More Than Just Leaving The Toilet Seat Down
Some thoughts spurred on by my readings in feminist theology (a req for hermeneutics) as well as a spate of blog posts lately by perceptive and insightful writers. I’m realizing in many ways how complicit I am in the domineering of the opposite gender. Now I don’t just mean overtly sexist behavior or speech, but rather a complicity that comes by being part of a system, a culture, a way the world works. I’ve found naming the problem is not enough. Elitist intellectualisms don’t solve the problem either. My wife would remark how I tend to pride myself that I am progressive intellectually but really am in truth, quite conservative in outlook and practice, showing just how much I am ingrained into a way of life that is patriarchal, Korean, hierarchical, oppressive. So yes, I am part of the problem, sexist, an oppressor just by nature of the way of life I perpetuate. How are women truly liberated by my work as a pastor? I’m not sure yet but I know that it’s going to be more than just leaving the toilet seat down.
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i refuse to leave the toilet seat down. I believe women are smart enough and strong enough to place the seat in the position they need it to be in…
That being said, is not the cure for the human tendency towards sin the grace of God as expressed in his commands rather than the absorption of a sociological critique of gender constructed masculine oppression? I have no qualms with understanding myself as conservative in outlook and practice and am therefore all the more challenged to actively follow the scriptures command towards love since it is a corrective to my natural tendency to dominate (a tendency mirrored by women as well, but which is given quite a bit less attention).
@elderj
hmm… this is not the first time I’ve heard about “the absorption of a sociological critique”. I’m wondering however, does not this same hermeneutic come into play in issues of race and class? Is it not then a useful hermeneutic, and if so, why should women be excluded from the application of it?
The prescription to love I think is an important one – the answer is not supplanting or dominating others in return, which is so often the tendency of protest movements. Christian feminism has constantly forced me to examine my own dominating urges…