Second Wave Feminism and the Study of Gendered Religiosity
Introduction
The academic study of what is described as the gendered character of religiosity –a study undertaken by such diverse disciplines as anthropology, sociology, history, comparative religion and theology– appeared for the first time in the 1960s, whereas since the 1980s it has started being established in the guise of academic units of study, undergraduate / postgraduate courses and / or university chairs. From this point of view, it undoubtedly has to be counted amongst the most up-to-date and modern fields of research in the humanities and social sciences. Nevertheless, both the emergence and development of this study owe –one way or another– a lot to feminism, and especially to its so-called ‘second wave’. Without feminism, its appeals and theoretical explorations during the early part of the second half of the 20th century, it is impossible to understand the academic study of gender in general and of gendered religiosity in particular. Consequently, a reference as succinct as possible to the so-called ‘second wave’ of feminism is regarded as absolutely necessary before one proceeds to focus their interest on a historical overview of the academic study of the interrelations between gender and religion.
The Hierophanic Relevance of Feminism
In the case of feminism after World War II, the term ‘second wave’ denotes feminism as a radical ideology and social theory. It is also noteworthy that both these aspects of feminism offer themselves greatly to a study of feminist approaches regarding religion at large. However, as far as fundamental texts are concerned, the following are certainly the most significant: Le deuxième sexe by Simone de Beauvoir (1949), The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963), Sexual Politics by Kate Millett (1969), The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone (1970) and, last but not least, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970). It is common knowledge, so to speak, that these texts allowed feminism on the one hand to adopt a much more radical theoretical agenda –compared to the so-called ‘first wave’ of feminism before World War II– and on the other hand to aim at a revolutionary change of society in its entirety. More specifically, regarding theoretical concepts, it is quite evident that this shift involved the implementation of a number of ideas from radical traditions such as Marxism, psychoanalysis and anarchism.
Terminology such as the one already used, namely, ‘radicalism’, ‘revolution’, ‘post-war period’, ‘Marxism’, ‘psychoanalysis’, ‘anarchism’, suggests –if anything– the religious or, to put it more precisely, the hierophanic dimensions of feminism. In particular, the radical demand for revolution is intrinsically associated with the ambiguity of the Sacred, which by the way is the only possibility for a radical questioning and undoing of the status quo. In turn the post-war period inaugurated the quest for new alternative forms of sacredness, so that solutions could be found to the impasses brought about by the old order of things in Western European civilisation. For example, one could mention here the so-called ‘New Religious Movements’ that appeared and developed in the context of the overall post-war crisis. Lastly, the turn to ideological and cultural entities such as Marxism, psychoanalysis and anarchism, which for many a scholar constitute secularised substitutes for religiosity, by necessity places the ‘second wave’ of feminism at the level of hierophanic manifestations.
Simone de Beauvoir
Although the oeuvre of Simone de Beauvoir does not belong, strictly speaking, to the period of the ‘second feminist wave’, it is generally acknowledged that it had a direct and deep impact upon the basic trends of radical feminism. Thus the negative critique of Beauvoir concerning religion is formulated on basis of the following points: (i) the well-known category of patriarchy and (ii) the so-called ‘compensation thesis’ (die Kompensationsthese). More specifically, Beauvoir focuses on the one hand on what she along with others regards as the historically persistent patriarchal structure of religion, and on the other hand on the religio-mythico-symbolic capital that patriarchy time and again employs. Concerning the former, Beauvoir writes in total accordance to Sir James George Frazer’s dictum ‘men make gods and women worship them’: ‘men indeed decide whether their ultimate deities should be female or male; the position of women in society is always what men allow it to be’. One the other hand, she mentions the so-called matrilineal societies, stating explicitly that only patrilineal societies –which, by the way, are exemplified primarily through the dominant position of their ‘male’ gods – managed to evolve both technologically and ideologically.
Regarding the religio-mythico-symbolic capital employed by patriarchy, Beauvoir proceeds to demonstrate the internal dialectics that is necessary for the founding of patriarchy. At this point one comes across an element that could be characterised as an ideological one according to the Marxist sense of the word. Termed differently, ‘patriarchal’ societies integrate within their context a certain amount of women’s mythology, so that women can consciously conceive themselves through and thanks to the conditions of androcracy. Beauvoir looks into and at the same time criticises equations of the following type: woman = flesh = night = death = world. For her the myth of the mystery of the female, which dissolves woman within nature, is nothing but a prejudice. Of course, woman is mysterious but not more so than man; she is mysterious in the sense of the Other. Also Beauvoir emphasises that there should be a distinction between the meaning of real experience, on the one hand, and myth, on the other. This distinction is further stressed for Beauvoir does accept that the experience of women, determined largely by their physiology, has provided and still provides sufficient reasons for its own mythological exploitation.
The second point of Beauvoir’s criticism against religion belongs to the Marxist tradition concerning the notion of compensation. She explicitly writes: ‘There is a justification, an ultimate justification, which society uses always to bestow upon women: it is about religion. There must be some religion for women, as there must be one for the common people, and for exactly the same reasons. When one of the sexes or a social class is doomed into immanence, a need emerges to offer them the illusion of some sort of transcendence… In modern civilisation… religion seems less like a means of restriction and more like a means of deception… ’. This claim, although closely related to the internal legitimising dialectics with regards to the mythology of women in the context of patriarchy, focuses much more on the individual and has undoubtedly been influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy of immanence and transcendence.
In conclusion, we could say that for Beauvoir the position and role of women in any religious context –and more so in the so-called ‘monotheistic’ ones– are very specific: the securing of the male status quo, the consolidation of social norms and the success of dominant interests. In other words, the domain of harmony is reserved for women! Doomed to non-action, women are satisfied with the illusion that their presence makes tangible the ultimate action: the harmony of the cosmic system…
Betty Friedan
If the approach to religion on the part of Beauvoir can be described more as historical and / or ethnological, the one on the part of Betty Friedan comes closer to a sociological and psychological interpretation. Friedan studies religion synchronically: ‘in every step they took feminists had to confront the idea that they were transgressing the god-given nature of women. Pastors interrupted conferences about the rights of women, waving Bibles and reciting from the Scriptures: St Paul said… St Peter said… ’. And Friedan goes on adding: ‘the myth that these women [feminists] were unnatural monsters was based upon the belief that the destruction of the god-given submission of women would break apart the household and would make slaves out of men’. It has to be noted, of course, that Friedan does not refer to religion in general, but to the so-called Judaeo-Christian tradition. As to her comments, those focus on the practical aspects of this tradition, aspects which –regardless of whatever positive evaluations of women one can find at the level of theory– have contributed or have been largely conducive to the formulation of the degraded or even non-existent socio-political presence of women in Western societies.
Lastly, according to Friedan women’s vital existential space has been identified with the household, while the potential that they could develop were the virtues of being a housewife, a faithful spouse and mother. Friedan concludes by stating that the image of a good housewife ‘is kept devoutly amongst the rules of [women’s] religion, the origins of childhood, both of their own and their husbands, as well as the definitions of the Church concerning what is marriage and motherhood’.
Germaine Greer
All other figures within the ‘second feminist wave’ regard as self-evident the validity of the aforementioned criticism waged against religion, both the historical / ethnological one by Beauvoir and the sociological / psychological one by Friedan. They more or less repeat the same motifs, simply backing them up with the most recent findings of the human sciences. That notwithstanding, it is worthwhile to mention here the indirect but highly insightful criticism against Christianity that one can find in the work of Germaine Greer. This is all about the criticism of sacrifice. Greer –this time at an anthropological level– traces the ‘neurosis of sacrifice’ that tortures women in the West. The mechanism of this neurosis wants women to play the role of a martyr who sacrifices themselves for the sake of the world’s balance. This sacrificial motif, very typical in the case of Christianity, many a time takes on the form of a woman’s sacrifice by a man, who in this manner purifies the world of women –in other words, of evil.
The Positive Side of Religion…
If one would like to look into whatever positive evaluations of the Christian tradition might be present in the texts of ‘second wave feminism’, it would be quite difficult to trace expressis verbis any specific statements. Such statements are basically limited to either a relatively favourable treatment of some female figure of the Christian tradition (for instance, the way in which Beauvoir looks at certain female saints), or the mentioning of some ‘enlightened’ –according to feminists– Christians who had a positive view about feminism at some stages of its development. Regardless, however, of this difficulty, the very demand for equality cannot be understood but within the context of the theoretical premises of Christianity. The latter had theoretically resolved the problem of equality between the sexes; a resolution that, although never expressed practically at the socio-political level, did not cease being a legacy of Christian anthropology, constituting simultaneously a constant –conscious or not– reminder of a pending crucial issue on the part of Christianity. In this sense it could be maintained that to a great extent both the struggle and the concern of the feminist movement represent the resurfacing of this unsatisfied demand.
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