Today has been an extremely fruitful day so far! Not only did I tremendously enjoy my first American Tribal System belly dancing class with a new teacher, but she’s willing to barter with me for the training! That means I can actually take the class, thank goodness — especially considering my tightly budgeted finances as…
The apparently overwhelmingly powerful need to control women which some men appear to have is painfully expressed yet again in a form which is recorded by anthropology professor Barbara Tedlock’s research for her 2005 book Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion & Medicine. Granddaughter of an Ojibwe midwife and herbalist, and…
Closely examining our matrifocal past and present offers a solid basis from which to theorize a possible healthier future — one not damagingly based in androcentrism. Such a future will not come about on its own, of course; if women are to regain their rightful positions as cultural creators and leaders then they will have…
Both Sanday (reviewed by me here and here) and Du are anthropologically trained ethnographers researching indigenous societies. As previously noted, their work offers explicit epistemological modifications of great benefit for a more humane, feminized science. This is not the only valid methodology available, however, to a women’s spirituality scholar, as is demonstrated by the next…
The following was part of a subsection in my comps essay which was titled “Theorizing Patriarchy Past & Present,” which performed said theorizing via a variety of epistemologies. I reviewed the hypothesized roots of patriarchy, surveyed the broad cultural expression of its impact on women of antiquity as well as more recent history, researched its…
…and now back to my comps essay book reviews! :) A more sweeping view of women throughout history, including both their loss of power and their struggle to both resist and reclaim it within the kyriarchy, is brilliantly demonstrated by English journalist, broadcaster, and social critic Rosalind Miles’ book Who Cooked the Last Supper? The…
As was noted yesterday, Biaggi’s essayists examine the emergence of patriarchy in order to persuasively analyze and explain our current global issues — such as environmental devastation, a near-perpetual social injustice which particularly oppresses women and the poor, the increasing corporatization of the massive war and prison industry — then posit a brighter and feasible…
Interestingly, it is only recently that socially gendered coding and categorizations have been recognized, such that the biological condition of being male is not automatically conflated with the social production of masculinity. I believe the next book — white American feminist, award-winning columnist, independent scholar, and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich’s Blood Rites: Origins and History…
My next selection to showcase here is Euro-American radical feminist philosopher, professor, and theologian Mary Daly’s fiery and iconoclastic Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big. I believe the book is a fascinating exploration of Daly as shaman for her community of women. Deliberately written to occasionally flout standard (as in: patriarchal) rules of…
As we work towards shaping social realities, research on women-centered societies which are based upon cooperation and partnership facilitates a more sophisticated discussion of cultural alternatives. This discussion also ensures that the voices of women of color are respectfully heard and recognized as both researchers of integrity applying a wide variety of methodological approaches to…