Book: The Feminist Gospel (part 1)

[continued from the introduction here]

The book by Mary A. Kassian, The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism with the Church, covers mainly the history and evolution of the contemporary Feminist movement, starting from around the 1950s-1960s to modern times. There are 4 parts or sections of this book. The first part covers the intial stage of Feminism whereby Feminists start naming themselves (i.e. claiming equality with men in terms of rights; claiming ontological independence from men as co-equals). The second section then goes on to the next stage of Feminist evolution as they name their own world, where they start to apply their theories into academia, with the creation of disciplines such as 'women studies' etc, supposedly to study certain subjects from an 'unbiased' point of view (without the supposed taint of male-centered analysis done throughout most of modern history). The third section concentrates on the ultimate area of Feminism, which is to bring their philosophy to bear on God Himself, feminizing God. Some feminists have even gone to the extent of 'transmutating' God into a 'Goddess', as they redefine God according to their distorted view of the world. Women-church soon also came into existence as a result of their feminization of God and theology. In the last section, Kassian does some analysis of Feminism as a whole, especially of the movement called 'Biblical Feminism'. This is not to suggest that she did not do any analysis throughout the other three-quarters of the book, but the analysis there is minimal, as she allows the feminists to speak for themselves.

Before we start looking at certain various issues, I would like to mention that the three categories of the aspects of Feminism as mentioned in this book are arbitrarily set by Kassian as she determines that the major issues in Feminism can be placed into these three categories. And historically, there is a general trend as shown in the order of the chapters; i.e. naming of self temporarily precedes the naming of the world which procedes the naming of God. However, such a trend does not in any way imply that somehow Feminism proceeds strictly along this order historically. In other words, there is a certain overlap between the events which are grouped in the different categories.

With that, let us look at the issue of 'Naming Self'.

'Naming Self', this is the name of the first section of the book, which details the issue of women struggling for equality on legitimate issues such as equal pay nad job opportunity, being treated fairly in legal matters etc. However, that was not the main issue which was under contention, although that was the visible manifestation earlier on. More intangible, however, was the subtle paradigm shift which occured, and which was manifested in the later emergence of the various aspects of the Feminist movement. To understand Feminism, therefore, one has to understand this paradigm shift, otherwise it is doubtful whether one can make sense of anything else in the movement.

To perhaps no one's surprise, this shift occurs at the philosophical arena. And in the source for this view can be already seen the fundamental flaw in Feminism — human autonomy (and rebellion), which we will discuss later. One of the main founders of modern Feminism is the French philosopher Simone deBeauvoir, the love interest of the Existentialist philsopher Jean-Paul Sartre (they were engaged in a fully consumated love affair) (PDF p. 16). Anyway, DeBeauvoir adopted Sartre's existentialism, which can be roughly defined as 'the individual is entirely free, and must therefore accept commitment and full respeonsibility for his acts and decisions in an uncertain and purposeless world' (p. 17). It is upon this existentialist philosophy that DeBeauvoir build her model for male-female interaction, and thus in part the foundation for feminist philosophy.

So what was it that DeBeauvoir came up with? In her book The Second Sex, DeBeauvoir wrote that:

(DeBeauvoir's primary thesis, as the title of the book suggest,) was that women as a group were assigned to second-class status in the world. Woman was "defined and differentiated with reference to man and not by reference to her" (Bold added). DeBeauvoir believed that the male sex comprised the prime measure by which the whole world — including women — were named and judged. Therefore, the world belonged to men. Women were the non-essential "other". DeBeauvoir argued: "... she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute — she is the Other."

...

DeBeauvoir argued that it was a "man's world." Women were forced by men to conform to a mold that men had created for their own benefit and pleasure. The model she named "the eternal femine". According to DeBeauvoir, it was a mold that caused women to be "frivolous, infantile, irresponsible and submissive." ... DeBeauvoir argued that the women of her time were not allowed or encouraged to do or become anything other than that which the eternal feminine dictated; they were trapped into a restrictive role of "Küche, Kirche, und Kinder": "Kitchen, church, and children" (Nazi Germany's official statement regarding the place of women). According to DeBeauvoir, women were to exist solely for the convenience and pleasure of men. (p. 17-18)

Of course, if she is correct in her analysis of the situation, then Feminism would be in some sense justified. After all, with such incendiary statements like "women ... exist solely for the convenience and pleasure of men", a strong reaction of indignation would be expected, espeically from women. However, besides all the fiery rhetoric, is there anything of real substance? We will look into this later on. At the moment, let us look more into the Feminist view.

... Women ... were autonomous beings with the need to "transcend" self, but this need was being suppressed by men. According to deBeauvoir, men has named and defined the world, and in so doing had identified all humanity as male, thus robbing women of autonomy.

....

According to deBeauvoir, the dilemma for women was in being denied the right to autonomy, and therefore the right to transcend and develop. She viewed the right as the essence of human existence (p. 18)

Another early Feminist write, Betty Friedan, who described the supposed female dilemma as the feminine mystique, wrote:

... self-fulfilment came from having a defined purpose and from shaping and contributing to the world in tangible and creative ways. Men could seek self-fulfilment, but women — curtailed by both conformity to the role of wife and mother, and the femine mystique — could not. This creates a dilemma. ... Friedan called this dilemma "a problem with no name" It was caused by women trying to adjust to an image that did not permit them to become what they could be. It was the growing despair of those who had forfeit their own existence. (p. 22)

Later on, this problem was named patriarchy, to 'signify the societal dominance of the male, and the inferiority and subservience of the female. Feminists saw patriarchy as the ultimate cause of women's discontent'. (p. 23). This of course, would lead to serious implications further on, which we shall see much later.

As it can be seen so far, the whole epistemological foundation of Feminism is either philosophy (DeBeauvoir — Existentialism) or Experience/ Emotion (Friedan and others). From a biblical point of view already, we can throw Feminism out, since it starts off not from the Bible but from the world's philosophy and experience, and we know what the Bible says about THAT (Col. 2:8; Jer. 17:9). Yes, there are so-called biblical feminists, which we shall look at later also, but it is my contention that they are not biblical in their Feminism. Having said that, the questions they do raise are legitimate (the practical ones, minus the rhetoric of course), but the answer they give is not in accordance with Scripture. The answer is in the biblical command regarding men and women under God in society, which I would cover at the end of this series. Suffice it is to say that the biblical answer to their questions is NOT Feminism or anything resembling it in any form.

As a preliminary counter against their points, I would just ask 'Upon what basis is existentialism right in the first place? Why is self-fulfilment the supreme good to be seeked, and thus women who are 'not self-fulfilled' are having a bad life?'

With this, let us analyze biblically the process of 'Naming Self' in Feminism — in fact, of naming anything.

[To be continued]