Anyways, the patron saint* of this blog... or maybe the godmother... well, let's call her the instigator of this blog (see the first post) posted something about feminism today. You should read it. It got me thinking about something I came across recently on respect.
OK, see, I would consider myself a feminist, or if males can't be real feminists, a friend of feminists. However, the roots of this attitude in my life don't come from feminist theory or anything so obvious. I got it from my mother. My mother was raised in a fairly conservative home, is one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and has always subscribed to a 'male headship' doctrine of marriage. On the other hand, she married later in life and had already learned to be an independent person when she did. In words and actions, she conveyed the idea that women are capable, intelligent and resourceful human beings who shouldn't be stereotyped, pushed around or treated as second-class citizens.
Now, to jump to my second idea. I was reading Returning to the Teachings by Rupert Ross, which is about First Nations approaches to restorative justice. The concepts he was discussing got me thinking about the traditional aboriginal teaching on respect - from what I've heard about it, that spirituality stresses respect as an active and central virtue, an idea which has always resonated with me. The teaching (once again, from my limited understanding) is that human beings must have respect for one another, for living things and for the physical world, because they are only a small part of a much larger web of life. Further, all things are imbued with spirits and come from the same Creator.
That same day I bought a little book compiled by Wendell Berry, the poet and environmentalist, called Blessed Are the Peacemakers. It consists of Berry's selections from the teachings of Christ on love, compassion and forgiveness, and two short essays reflecting on them. Berry asks "Why was the unbounding of this love so important to Jesus?" and goes on to refer to the biblical idea that, since all humans are created in the image of God, they are worthy of respect. But then (p. 64-66):
"It is certainly something we need to bear anxiously in mind. But is also too human-centred, too potentially egotistical, to leave alone. I think Jesus recommended the Samaritan's loving-kindness, what certain older writers called "holy living," simply as a matter of piety, for the Samaritan was living in what Jesus understood to be a holy world. The foreground of the Gospels is occupied by human beings and the issues of their connection to one another and to God. But there is a background, and the background more often than not is the world in the best sense of the word, the world as made, approved, loved, sustained, and finally to be redeemed by God. Much of the action and the talk of the Gospels takes place outdoors: on mountainsides, lake shores, river banks, in fields and pastures, places populated not only by humans but by animals and plants, both domestic and wild. And these non-human creatures, sheep and lilies and birds, are always represented as worthy of, or as flourishing within, the love and the care of God. ... And so the Samaritan reaches out in love to help his enemy, breaking all the customary boundaries, because he has clearly seen in his enemy not only a neighbour, not only a fellow human or a fellow creature, but a fellow sharer in the life of God."
This struck me as saying substantially the same thing as the aboriginal idea. The next day I came across two more quotes which, I believe, support the same concept:
Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills -
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.
Czeslaw Milsoz
and then this, from the character Father Zosima in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov:
"Do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasure, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself."
Now, what does all this have to do with feminism? I guess what I'm getting at is that you don't have to be ideologically educated in explicit feminist thought (though I believe it is an important and hard-earned philosophy) to hold the respectful values which can lead to feminist attitudes. I suspect my mother's traditional upbringing and beliefs informed her 'feminist' stance more than most people would think.
My friend wrote:
"Complaining comes naturally to me, but feminism does not. I feel very weird about the label, for one thing, and it doesn't accurately describe my views. For me, it's not really about women, it's about equality. I know that not everyone can be equal in all things, but no one should be discriminated against or ignored."
I think my mother would say much the same thing.
*I suppose the real patron saint of this blog is St. Isidore of Seville. Or perhaps St. Jude. You know, lost causes and all that.
