WUNRN Lesson
Plan:
Religion and Women’s Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights among
The Monotheistic
Religions:
From Exclusion to Inclusion
_______
Dr. Carole R. Fontaine
Taylor Professor of Biblical Theology and History
Andover Newton Theological School
Email: cfontaine@ants.edu
For
The Women’s United Nations Report Network
To the User:
This lesson plan is designed to provide a leader with a group of materials, questions, readings and resources to study the place of ‘woman’—her being, her rights, her future—within the context of the classical monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, although we will focus most closely on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as a model. This course was originally given in 2005-06 at Andover Newton Theological School, in conjunction with an international conference sponsored by WUNRN on the topic listed. (DVDs of presentations at the conference are available upon request for a modest fee). Although it originally appeared as a seminary level class, we have tried to lay it out in such a way that it will be useful to persons of all levels of education and religious commitment. We encourage all users to tell us about their experiences with the materials, and let us know any improvements or suggestions that may have to make this resource a useful one for those looking at the rights of women and girls from the perspective of religion and traditions.
It is expected that, depending on the group using the materials, only the leader will probably have access or the time to deal with fundamental readings on the questions raised in the course. This is to be expected, and is not a worry! As women study together, we are certain they will find ways to share resources, encourage each other, and hold up the special gifts for teaching, research and leadership that they may discover in themselves. If the Boston WUNRN Workshop model is to be a useful one, then we fully expect it to be flexible and responsive to the settings for study in which women around the world find themselves. The research papers provided here were all prepared by seminary students, many of them with no special background in gender studies, historical research, or the social sciences—yet much may be accomplished in such circumstances, as you will see when reading what the students have presented.
Global Statement of
Purpose:
For too long, feminists in religion have confined their vision to the worthy goals of professional advancement of women as leaders and full participants within religious bodies, analyses of violence against women, ‘women’s ministries’ and the legally protected access to reproductive ‘rights’ or constitutional guarantees of right to privacy. However, such ‘equality’ movements and attempts to change the lot of women in a patriarchal world, however desirable, present a truncated view of the powerful nexus of gender asymmetry in economic, social and cultural rights, and fail to address the religious dimensions of the problems (for example, women and poverty under the economic system of patriarchy, or the role of race and class in normalizing violence in the home).
By incorporating general Human Rights principles and strategies into local and global ministries and/or studies of religion, religion can become a force for good in advancing the equality of all peoples. Theory is not a negligible concern for either Christian Church or social activists, if we seek genuine cross-disciplinary work to address the ills of societies. However, just as ‘faith without works is dead’, so theory divorced from practice in living communities is barren. For Christians, Jews and Muslims, at least some attention must be given to theories of reading texts held as sacred by their communities. Proactive educational activities must be undertaken to empower women of faith AND activists in knowing their rights in teachings of their traditions, even as those traditions transcend or fail to redress Human Rights abuses against women and girls. To this end, we will be using the Internet and the WUNRN website as a tool for social change.
To quote from The Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/women/index.php):
“Our duty as activists is to expose and denounce as human rights violations those practices and policies that silence and subordinate women. We reject any law, culture, or religion in which women are systematically discriminated against, excluded from political participation and public life, segregated in their daily lives, raped in armed conflict, beaten in their homes, denied equal divorce or inheritance rights, killed for having sex, forced to marry, assaulted for not conforming to gender norms, and sold into forced labor. Arguments that sustain and excuse these human rights abuses - those of cultural norms, "appropriate" rights for women, or western imperialism - barely disguise their true meaning: that women's lives matter less than men's. Cultural relativism, which argues that there are no universal human rights and that rights are culture-specific and culturally determined, is still a formidable and corrosive challenge to women's rights to equality and dignity in all facets of their lives.”
Our course is designed to foster dialogue about the nature of ‘Human Rights’, their foundation or exclusion from theological origins or purposes, and an assessment of the Bible as a document which may be confidently used to advance the concepts of human dignity and global interdependence.
Course Structure: Guide for Leaders
.
COURSE GOALS
ƒ
help
students construct a framework for human rights analysis by focusing on
economic, social and cultural rights of women and girls in the communities of
religious formation, then and now
ƒ
help
students identify the gender ideologies inscribed within biblical
texts
ƒ
provide
a forum for the discussion of alternative readings
ƒ
create
empowered readers who can lead the Church in the assessment of the Bible’s role
in the continued oppression of women, children, foreigners, homosexuals, and
“the Other”
ƒ give students the opportunity to incorporate Human Rights principles into their various public and private ministries
ƒ
Teach
students to use the WUNRN website as a resource for their own continuing work in
Human Rights
REMEMBER: these books and suggested readings below are NOT required to use this WUNRN lesson plan, but they do present a lot of useful background information for those unfamiliar with biblical interpretation. You may be able to find them in a local college or university library, and if not, your local public library should be able to obtain them through InterLibrary Loan. Those without library resources should surf the web and see what might be available on line by these authors.
Selected
Bibliography for Leaders
Hector
Avalos, Fighting Words: The
Religious Origins of Violence
Avalos
is a Hispanic Humanist scholar of the Hebrew Bible, with special interests in
the role of health care in the ancient world, and the origins of violence. His book starts from the propositions
that a) religion is primarily the
belief in otherworldly beings; b) it seeks to create and control the ‘scarce
resource’ of sacredness/blessing/meaning, and c) for those reasons, the violence
caused by religious teachings and practices cannot be philosophically or
socially sustained as a simply a ‘bad’ product from a ‘good’ source. Although many would not agree with these
starting points, Avalos’ recognition and willingness to confront religious
violence and its sources make this an important and provoking
resource.
Kristen
de Troyer, ed. et al., Wholly Woman, Holy Blood
This
book gathers a collection of essays all on the notion that it is women’s
‘impurity’ (reproductive blood) which stands as a primary reason for patriarchal
exclusion of women from the boundaries of the Sacred. Studies on the treatment and view of
women in the biblical text and the history of the Church range from very
detailied and particular to expansive consideration of religion as a sort of
cult of male privilege.
Elizabeth
Schussler-Fiorenza, ed., Searching the Scriptures, vol.
1
Searching the Scriptures, vol. 1 covers
method in New Testament studies and theology; vol. 2 treats the
individual books of the New Testament and Intertestamental Writings. Edited and inspired by the premier
Harvard University Professor of New Testament, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, a
German Roman Catholic scholar, this work stands as a clear reference for those
who would seek to formulate a liberating Christian
theology.
Athalya
Brenner and Carole Fontaine, eds., A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible:
Approaches, Methods, Strategies
This
book is one of the three ‘feminist classics’ in the study of the Bible (the
others are Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe, eds., Womens Bible Commentary,
and Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Searching the Scriptures, 2 vol., see
above). It provides a general introduction to
study of the Bible from a feminist perspective, and includes all kinds of
methodologies and scholars from a variety of faith communities. The WBC is a great reference on individual books
of the Bible from the perspective of their teachings on women, and covers both
the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament.
Carol
Meyers, et al., Women in Scripture
Investigate
the cultural and literary context of female characters in both testaments. Excellent for the preparation of bible
studies and talks on individual women of the Bible.
Claudia
Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Hebrew
Bible
Worried
about ‘why?’: this analyzes the impact of postexilic questions on communal
survival---purity and genealogy issues--- n the portrait of woman as the
Other.
Carole
Fontaine, Smooth Words: Women, Proverbs and Performance in Biblical
Wisdom
Your source for Queens of Sheba, then and now; now in paperback from T and T
Clark This book is way too
expensive for any normal woman, so please contact Boston WUNRN Workshop for
useful, free and web-friendly resources.
As it happens, the same material by this author is featured in the BBC
Documentary, Queen of Sheba: Behind the Myth. Sheba is a notable role model because
she is an independent woman ruling alone, and appears favorably in all three
Scriptures (Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Quran).
Readings
for Leaders
ESF: Elizabeth Schussler
Fiorenza, Searching the Scriptures
FCRB: Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible, ed. A. Brenner and C. Fontaine
H. Avalos, Fighting Words
K. de Troyer, ed., Wholly
Woman, Holy Blood
|
Before the first session |
Methodological
Buffet: approaches and focus of research/Human Rights http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/TB5/lifting.html
) |
ESF: ix-26 FCRB,
11-14, 17-29 |
|
Before
Session Four |
Some
Problems with Genderization: The
Sotah: Numbers 5, compared to Honor Killings |
Fontaine,
The Abusive Bible in FCRB, pp. 84-113; Pilch, FCRB, pp. 306-325 |
|
Before
Session Six |
The
Other: What’s Blood Got to Do
With It? Sacrifice and purity, personal and social violence; international norms |
Discussion
of Wholly Woman, Holy Blood von
Kellenbach, FCRB, pp. 190-202; ESF: 154-71 |
|
Before Session
Seven |
Legacies
of Our Mothers: Where do we go from here? The
Queen of Sheba in Three Faiths
|
Discussion
of Avalos, Fighting Words; ESF: 64-116; Sheba in HB, NT, and
Quran
|
|
Follow-up |
Jewish
Questions On
Rabbis, Romans and Readings; Jesus and Feminist Questions |
Hauptmann,
Peskowitz, Boyarin, FCRB, pp. 472-547, ESF:
272-89 |
Directions
for Leader for Session One:
Leader: background on human rights and religion, freedom of religion and human rights, etc. can be found at The Tandem Project: (http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/TB5/lifting.html )
Go over starting positions outlined in WUNRN Lesson Plan above. Assign group readings for next session. (found at the beginning of each session). Then open the conversation for general discussion, encouraging group members to raise issues from their own experience in relationship to the readings provided.
Session
One: What is Religion?
Groups
Readings for Session One: None,
but surf the WUNRN website (www.wunrn.com)
A Note about Terms
Used:
There are, of course, as many ways to define what is meant by ‘religion’ as there are humans practicing a particular ‘faith’. We start at the outset of this course of study with a deep respect for religious traditions, an interfaith perspective that no one religion may press its views upon another, and that all persons have the right to worship as they wish. These insights, we feel, can be drawn from a deep understanding of the common themes that underlie all religions, as well as from the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Mystics of all faiths have tended to find that there are some ‘universals’ at the heart of their traditions---the call to universal compassion, the search for meaning, the questions of how one lives a life of harmony and peace.
So, at one basic point, we must separate the altruistic and noble aspirations of religion or faith, understood as the search for meaning and justice, from the particular manifestations of a religion in a patriarchal context. We believe that women have a right to choose their faith and level of observance, a right to ask questions of a patriarchal tradition, and a right to enjoyment of all human rights regularly ascribed to men. As the WUNRN study intimates, it is often the case that religion forms a ‘hallowed ground’ for the discrimination against women as a form of cultural practice which the religion not only sanctions but requires. Any form of advancement for women in the economic, social or cultural realm is challenged as an assault to group religious identity—which often turns out to mean only the protection of men’s privileged status!
We ask, then, as the WUNRN study compels us to, ‘What does this or that religion actually say about women’s rights?’ Are the worldwide asymmetries that we see based on gender truly an essential part of the religion under consideration, or has the religion’s message been warped by patriarchal interpretation and ideology? What do we find in religion that is good and useful and universal? Are there things that we feel must be discarded as inauthentic, partial, or just plain wrong?
Session
One Group Discussion Questions:
1. What does the word ‘religion’ mean to you?
2. How do you think about religions whose beliefs differ from those of your own? Are there resources within your own tradition for respect and peaceful coexistence between religions with competing claims?
3. How do you feel religion has helped or hindered women in their quest for a fuller, safer, more peaceful life?
4. What are your views right now on the rights, purpose, and dignity of women in your religion or tradition?
Session Two: Human Rights Basic
Documents
Session
Two Readings:
European Women’s Lobby position paper on Religion and Women’s Rights ((http://ewl.horus.be/SiteResources/data/MediaArchive/policies/Women_%20Diversity/rwh_06_en.pdf)
United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights: Go to the WUNRN website, choose Reference Documents, and read the base document: http://www.wunrn.com/reference/pdf/univ_dec_hum_right.pdf
Session Two
Discussion Questions
1. Are you surprised by all the rights accorded to every human by the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights? Do you see those rights being honored in your own social setting or location?
2. What points of contact do you see between your own religion/faith/tradition and the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights? What rights does the
United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights’s have that your religion doesn’t mention? What rights does your religion mention that are NOT in the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights?
4. Do you think that the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights’s focus on ‘individual rights’ is fair to group concerns about rights, cultural traditions, and national religious traditions?
5. What was your response to the European Women’s Lobby statement in your reading?:
Religion – used as justification for
infringements of women’s human rights
The argument is frequently made by
religious authorities and by adherents that discriminatory actions are not to be
found within the faith – that is, in the revered books, such as the Bible or the
Koran. None the less religion is used to justify commandments directed only at
women such as dress codes that render them invisible, that require the shaving
of the head, that restrict the movement of women outside and inside the home,
the holding of positions of authority within the churches as ministers or
priests and outside in places of work and organizations and to deny them access
to education or to work outside the home and to fulfill their potential in all
walks of life.
The most painful violations occur
often in relation to marriage and the family – especially a woman’s rights to
choose her own partner or not to choose at all, to bear or not bear children and
to choose the number and spacing of them, to divorce or not, and on divorce, to
enjoy the same rights and privileges as her husband. One example of the latter
is the withholding of the certificate of religious divorce for women in orthodox
Judaism. The divorcing husband is free to live his life while his wife remains
tied to him and he may bargain for payments to be made to him before he will
release her under Jewish law.
Indeed religions worldwide seek to control female sexuality and condemn women’s expression and enjoyment of their sexuality routinely with much greater harshness than that of men. Most religions also condemn all sexual relationships except those between a woman and her husband – women in some societies may still be stoned for adultery and/or killed for so-called “honour crimes”. And only heterosexuality is condoned. (Excerpts from the European Women’s Lobby Position paper on Religion and Women’s Human Rights situate our questions nicely: (http://ewl.horus.be/SiteResources/data/MediaArchive/policies/Women_%20Diversity/rwh_06_en.pdf ; adopted May 27, 2006).
Did
you know… That
a woman played a key role in bringing the United Nations
Declaration of Universal Human Rights
to life? Read more
about First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s struggle to chair the UN
Committee drafting the Declaration in the context of a worsening
‘Cold War’! ‘The
Struggle for Human Rights’, http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/documents/speeches/doc026617.html Learn
more about the impact of this great woman on Human Rights world wide
at the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/abouterp/
Session Three: Are
Women and Girls a Special Case?
Group
Readings for Session Three:
Navigate to the WUNRN website, and
choose:
REFERENCE DOCUMENTS/
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
Leader: Our topic in this session is why, having a ‘universal’ United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights, international bodies found a need to address the conditions of women and girls, and their understanding of how ‘universal’ (= male) rights apply to females.
Discussion
Questions
1. What do you think of CEDAW’s basic statement:
“…the term ‘discrimination against women’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. (Article One, CEDAW, http://www.wunrn.com/reference/pdf/Convention_elimination_Discrimination_women.PDF )
2. Should the rights and needs of ‘groups’ outweigh those of individuals? What if the individuals (like ‘women’ or ‘children’) whose rights are abridged belong to groups whose rights are ALWAYS considered less important than those of the (alleged) male majority?
3. Should the desires of a married man outweigh those of his wife and children? Does his role as ‘head of the household’ make him the ‘king of the castle’ in all cases?
4. How does your religion speak about conflicting rights within the family? How does it work in your family?
5. Has your nation/state/community/religion ratified CEDAW?
Session Four:
Biblical Legal Rulings Versus a Human Rights Perspective (Numbers 5 vrs
‘Honor Killing’ Traditions and modern responses)
Group
Readings for Session Four
Navigate to the WUNRN website, choose Reference Documents and read
- Crimes of Honor- UN Resolution 2004-19 languages:
- Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women
- Glossary Of Violence Against Women
- Navigate to the Appendix and read Student Research “Honor Killings in Turkey”
In the Bible, read the Book of Numbers, Chapter 5, about the ritual referred to as ‘The Sotah’ (the falling, as of a baby falling out of a cursed uterus). Navigate to The Bible and Quran website (http://www.anova.org/sev/ ) to find complete scholarly and standard translations of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran.
A Word about Biblical Texts
Many groups hold that the works of the Hebrew Bible (Torah for the Jews,
and ‘Old Testament’ for Christians) and New Testament are Scripture. What does this mean? Theologians and scholars give many
answers. You will find many
discussions concerning terms like ‘inspiration’ (it comes directly from the
Divine Source), ‘infallibility’ (it contains no errors of any kind), and
‘authority’ (the teachings in Scripture outrank other sources of authority, like
governments and international law).
Different groups even within a tradition will differ greatly on
how they view the nature of
Scripture, and this will affect their ethical and moral values and
practices. Most primarily, though, Scripture can be said to be a text (or
set of texts) believed by a group to be of sacred/special origin, containing
important information about the nature of life which engages the believing
community through time and place.
Because the books of the Bible have been shown to have been written over time by many hands (which certainly does NOT rule out concepts of inspiration), and many voices speak in it, it is not possible for any text to have only one meaning, according to certain lines of thinking. This is because what a text meant to an original community hearing it (monotheistic scriptures did not begin as written texts) may not be at all like what a medieval community hears in it, nor would that necessarily be like what modern communities, western and eastern, might hear as the meaning for today. For example, Jesus speaks in Matthew 5: 43-48:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. “
For an ancient person, the idea that God gives rain to the wicked is a wonderful sign of God’s incredible bounty, blessing and forbearance. For a modern industrialized community with weather reports and not much connection to the cycles of nature through farming, the ‘rain’ on the righteous is more likely to be viewed as a punishment (‘don’t rain on my parade’, says the proverb from a Broadway song) than a blessing—and if the unjust are having their picnics rained on, they are getting their ‘just desserts’!
So, there is often NOT a simple answer to questions of interpretation of Scriptures, whether that is the Torah, NT, or Quran. Official interpreters—scholars, holy men, scribes—have always existed to assist with application of the text to one’s life in the hear and now. Each community reads with its own expert interpreters: Jews turn to the Talmud written by the rabbinic communities of Babylon and Judea; Christians read with the Church Fathers, church theologians and reformers, and Muslims read the works of their great philosophers, mystics and legal authorities who interpret the Quran for their communities. Women have traditionally been excluded from the specialized education needed to become a certified interpreter with authority, and so their questions and concerns have not been dealt with by the religious community. Part of what we are doing in this course is allowing the space for women in the various traditions to engage in interpretation of their own sacred texts, using the lens of Human Rights to focus on issues of rights and status.
Numbers 5: The
Sotah (‘the falling’)
Christian women seminarians often have serious problems with studying this text—not just because it describes a terrible ordeal for a potentially innocent woman, but because so many scholars and traditional interpreters never raise simple questions about justice and fair treatment in this passage. Most research prior to feminist interpretation focused on the unique status of this text: it is the only full description of a religious ritual found in the Hebrew Bible. How wretched that this is the text we all study as the model, suggesting that subtle violence against women is not out of place in moments of worship!
Here are some things to watch for as you read the Sotah:
The role of the husband’s fear—is it justified? The role of the priest—how do you think the woman responded to his arrangement of her body? Where is God, and whose side is God on in this ritual?
Discussion
Questions for Session Four:
1. Did you know this kind of legal procedure (‘trial by ordeal’) was in the Bible? What do you think of it?
2. How would you evaluate the ritual with respect to the ‘rights’ of the married woman and her family of origin?
3. Have you ever heard of honor killings? What do you think of that as a cultural practice which, like the Sotah, tries to guarantee male honor?
4. Do you think a married woman (and her children, actual or potential) should be considered the ‘property’ of the husband, as both the Sotah and the honor killing paradigm imagine?
5. Do you think the religious tradition of the Sotah adequately protects the woman from domestic violence?