Opinion: Sisters are doin’ it for themselves. Or actually, they’re doin’ it for Jesus. Is there a difference?
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As we get this week’s Katha Pollitt-Amanda Marcotte Dust-Up on the state of feminism under way, here’s a woolgatherer: One of my favorite post-Enlightenment theories is that religions were in some ways proto-feminist institutions. The idea is that, in the days of yore and to some extent even today, religious practice has provided women greater autonomy and more freedom to be left alone than many other lifestyles. Granted, this heady and counterintuitive argument is often made in papers like this one [pdf], which warns the reader:
By discussing from the approach of female agency, constraints and possibilities for individual action and gender role patterns, answers are sought to the question why women opt for monasticism.
Still, I found this lady-saints wall of fame at L.A.’s own St. Nicholas Orthodox Church to be pretty interesting in the types of women it presents:
There are some people who treasure the Orthodox church as a less brutal alternative to Catholicism. I am not one of them. I also agree with Charles Barkley on the topic of role models. But there are some interesting models of femininity here. Dig the crown on the rule-making, life threatening St. Helen and the attractive brooch (not quite discernible through my lousy photography) on St. Christina:
These are hard girls, willing to eschew vanity in the service of God. In the case of St. Mary of Egypt here, they’re redefining the cultural meaning of broad shoulders and grizzled features:
The degree to which religious life created a space for women is suggested in the white-hot curiosity of men locked out of the convent. There were distinctly anti-woman tones to 19th-century American anti-Catholicism, for example. The Massachusetts Nunnery Committee, a state-empowered panel charged with investigating monastic activities in the Old Colony State, was motivated by allegations of sexual deviancy and infanticide, but it can easily be seen as just another attempt by men to impose their grotesque presences on unwilling women. Don’t believe me? Check out this nun-sympathetic description, from the April 6, 1855 Boston Advertiser, of committee members’ antics when they came across a girl being treated in a sickroom during one convent raid:
We need not tell our readers how gentlemen of ordinary refinement and dignity would have behaved in such a case; our business is to tell what these visitors did. On reaching the chamber where the girl lay, the superior stated the fact. Did the ‘gentlemen’ shrink back? No, the pressed forward. One, it is believed, actually entered the room; and, at all events, several approached within twelve inches of the bedside. The chamber is scarcely larger than a closet; the bedstead is a small iron structure, and is placed close to the door — so that the inquisitors, without actually crossing the threshold, could carry their presence into its privacy. What were the feelings of that weak and suffering girl as these rude men hung over her, we shall not attempt to describe. They were not content with the view obtained by the ordinary door. She saw two men’s heads peering into the room by another door, which was open, at the foot of the bed. To obtain this view these two ‘gentlemen’ must have leaned over another bed, which stands across the open doorway in an adjoining room. We trust their curiosity was gratified.
Even through the genteel phrasing, you’ve got a pretty compelling picture of women doing their own thing and being imposed upon by men ostensibly acting for their benefit. The question of women’s autonomy and intense religious belief persists today, in the Texas polygamy fiasco and the apparent electoral stength of Hamas among Palestinian women who believe, correctly or not, that the party is more attentive to their concerns than its more liberal alternatives. Is premodern separateness an attractive or fulfilling option for women who don’t feel much freedom in contemporary life? It seems unlikely, but what do I know? And dig the zest, the freedom, the pure joy of being alive in the faces of Sts. Nina, Sarah and Thekla: