Female = Feminist?

A friend of mine currently blogging over at Theology PhD Mom is in the midst of an interesting and helpful series of posts on the academic job market.

She raises a very interesting point in this post about the not-entirely-realistic expectation that female theologians are conversant with feminist theology.

I know the important names, the basic thrust of their work, and the kinds of concerns that may be common to those who label themselves feminists, but I have far less expertise in feminist theology than I do in, say, philosophical ethics, scripture, systematics, Thomism, or Wesleyan theology.

Of course, in some sense, I do feminist theology, whether or not I do it in concert with explicitly feminist theologians, simply by dint of being a woman. In a more significant sense, I do feminist theology because some of the issues, approaches, and convictions that tend to be of particular concern to women are part of my intellectual landscape. (That is, I am more likely than my male colleagues, on the whole, to notice, theorize, or write about some of the sorts topics that feminists tend to notice, theorize, and write about.)

But I have never identified myself as a feminist theologian.

Despite never having identified myself as a feminist, or even admitted to being conversant in feminist theology, I have been asked by colleagues to "present the feminist perspective," to give a lecture on feminist theology, or in other ways to speak for or about feminists in academic settings.

I have finally stopped graciously apologizing for my lack of knowledge and interest. The last time a (male) colleague asked me to give a presentation on feminism, I answered, "Hey, you know what would be awesome? Let's do something really wild. Why don't you present on feminism, and I'll present on masculinity."

He didn't take me up on it.

Overheard

An actual in-class exchange:

"These prophets are pictured as giving counsel, advice, or correction to the king. So, you have Nathan rebuking David over the affair with Uriah, Elijah pronouncing judgment on Ahab for . . . everything, and Huldah counseling Josiah when-- Anybody notice the prophetess in our reading for today? Huldah, the prophetess, one of the instigators of Josiah's reform?"

"I noticed her, Mrs. Sours."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I read it and noticed that you always make us read the stories that have women in them."

"Sneaky, aren't I?"

Anorexia and Autonomy

Rudolph Bell's book Holy Anorexia is an important example of the fruitfulness of cross-disciplinary study in religion.

His study probes the theological, historical, and psychological meaning of extreme fasting behaviors in medieval women whose asceticism was usually seen as evidence of holiness. Avoiding the facile ascription of mental illness to these women ("Oh, they must've been, like, anorexic or something!"), he nonetheless takes his cue from current psychiatric evaluations and treatments of (modern) anorexia nervosa.

Anorectic behavior comes about in response to an intricate yet convoluted web of signals a modern girl (anorexia generally arises in females and during adolescence) receives in regard to her appearance. Thinness (and physical beauty more broadly) is one of a few traits consistently approved and rewarded in young females, yet the steps that a girl might take to achieve those rewards may prompt correction, disapproval, or intervention from parents or such other authorities as educators or medical caregivers. The twin incentives of societal approval and parental opposition feed the anorexic girl’s choice to control her own body through self-starvation—all the more so as her successes in weight loss and self-assertion mount.

Analogously, a medieval woman had fewer avenues of expressing or embodying holiness than were available to men, and the ascetic practices which might identify a woman as holy could just as easily have been viewed as evidence of heresy or demon possession as of beatitude. The “holy anorexic” is confirmed in her path of self-starvation both by the ascription of holiness conferred on account of her suffering and by the suspicion aroused by her extreme practices of asceticism, especially where that suspicion is allayed or countered through divine intervention.

The struggle for autonomy looms large in Bell’s renarration of these saints’ vitae. While his efforts to offer a psychoanalytic reading of these women are unimpressive—particularly in the absence of any serious or consistent engagement with the problem of collaborative authorship present in virtually all of these texts—his identification of the persistence of themes of self-assertion in the face of parental, religious, or social conflict is helpful.

When one is obliged to suffer the removal of one’s autonomy—whether in the form of a forced marriage, opposition to taking religious orders, or physical or sexual abuse—choosing another form of suffering—starvation, disfigurement, isolation—functions as a reassertion of one’s autonomy. The relationship between suffering and consent is inverted, transforming utterly the meaning and experience of them both. In the first case, the injury is all but identical with the removal of choice; in the second, the retrieval of autonomy is identical with the (chosen) injury. That the chosen suffering is further rewarded by its association with otherworldliness, whether of the divine or demonic sort, only amplifies the sense of transformation.

Despite his misstep in attempting to psychoanalyze historical figures with fragmentary, consciously scripted, and/or heavily edited literary works as his only evidence, Bell's work is enormously important for his having probed this intersection of autonomy and suffering. Many modern discussions of suffering (and its relief) are dependent on inchoate assumptions about exactly this relationship, and any work that prompts a more intentional examination of the topic is worth a read.

Nuns Continue Calcium Study

I know this was supposed to be a sweet story about a bunch of grandmotherly-type ladies who have been contributing to scientific knowledge for decades, but I couldn't help thinking how it exemplified the sort of gender blindness that plagues biomedical research.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

What are the top three symptoms of a heart attack--do you know?

[Takes responses from the audience]

Yes, that's right. Chest pains, tingling arms, and shortness of breath.

Actually, that's also wrong. Those are the top three signs in men. In women, it's totally different. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Bet you also didn't know that most pharmaceuticals are not tested on women of childbearing age--men and post-menopausal women (if women are included at all) form the research pool for most drugs. Between a woman's monthly hormonal fluctuations and the possibility that she might be/become pregnant during the study, she is considered a completely undesirable subject for research.

Even if the drug in question is likely to be prescribed to women of childbearing age.

Isn't that interesting?

Anyway, back to the nuns. According to the article, this study has been the source of the government's recommendations for calcium intake for women for decades. The study population is comprised exclusively of nuns--a very convenient study population, the researchers noted with glee, because of their lack of family commitments. (Women with families tend to be too busy for such an involved longitudinal study.)

Hmmm . . . does that make you think anything? Lack of family commitments, lack of family commitments . . . hmmm . . . Gosh! These seem to be women who don't have children!

So, "scientific" recommendations about women's calcium intake are primarily based on a study whose research population is comprised exclusively of women whose bodies have never done what over 80% of women's bodies will do some time in their life.

Anybody see a problem here?

It's the same problem as the pharmaceutical studies, really. The normally-functioning female body is seen as an impediment to proper research, so it is ignored during the period of research. Presumably, if they think of it at all, scientists are assuming that pregnancy is something that is "added on" to a "normal" female body. So, if we know what "normal" women need, then we can just slap on some extra pregnancy recommendations onto that.

There seems to be no understanding whatsoever that pregnancy and childbearing (much less childrearing) might change a woman's body such that her needs are completely different from these darling nuns' needs. That pregnancy and childbearing are not conditions superadded onto a "normal" body--they are constitutive of "normal" for the vast majority of women.

You'll forgive me, then, if I don't ask "How high?" every time the "latest nutritutional study" says "Jump!"