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The Last Word Festival 2017 - Poetry Slam Final - Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

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A Feminist's Choice to Wear the Hijab | Attiya Latif | TEDxUVA

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What does the Quran really say about a Muslim woman's hijab? | Samina Ali 

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What does the Quran really say about a Muslim woman's hijab? | Samina Ali 

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What does the Quran really say about a Muslim woman's hijab? | Samina Ali | TEDxUniversityofNevada

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https://www.everydaymuslim.org/podcast/

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Britain's Everyday Muslim Voices; is a podcast which helps us to share stories and discussions that are important in the British Muslim narrative.

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Centre for American Progress: The Spirituality of Gender Identity 

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Centre for American Progress: The Spirituality of Gender Identity 

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Key Points:

While there’s growing acceptance of lesbians and gays in many faith traditions, there is less familiarity—and acceptance—of transgender individuals.

Acceptance is growing

“Transgender people and those in the process of transitioning are simply practicing a virtue religious leaders have praised for centuries: They are being faithful to who they are. For faith communities to turn away their transgender brothers and sisters amounts to a denial of this spirit.”

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Posted on

Susan McIntyre hails from Des Moines, Iowa. Until her recent dismissal, she worked as a housekeeper and part-time counselor for the St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Student Center at Drake University. Susan is a devout Catholic convert who holds the values of her faith close to her heart and worships on a regular basis. So why would the Bishop of Des Moines fire this Catholic woman?

The answer: Susan McIntyre was born Jim Ford. She is transgender.

While there's growing acceptance of lesbians and gays in many faith traditions, there is less familiarity-and acceptance-of transgender individuals. Many religious institutions believe that those who are transgender live in defiance of God's law and should not be included in the faith community.

This picture is beginning to change. Reconstructionist Judaism, Reform Judaism, and various Quaker groups openly allow transgender worshippers in their congregations. Certain Christian denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA), Ecumenical Catholic Church, United Church of Christ, Metropolitan Community Church, and the Unitarian Church openly accept gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Critics may charge that such faith communities represent liberal politicized distortions of their traditions and sacred texts. But a closer examination of such texts reveals a more complex and nuanced picture-and, in some cases, acceptance of transgender individuals.

For instance, the Christian Bible explains differences between types of "eunuchs," or castrated men. The Book of Matthew states that there are "eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs," (Matthew 19:12) or chosen to change their sexual anatomy, and that they should be "received," or accepted. Further, in Acts, the Apostle Philip baptizes a eunuch, telling him that as long as he "believe[s] with all [his] heart" (Acts 8:37), there is no reason he cannot be baptized.

More important than texts, however, are the core religious principles of compassion, love, and acceptance. As Rev. Dr. Ted Jennings, a professor and former acting dean of the Chicago Theological Seminary, says, "While the fact of transgendering may make some folks uncomfortable, Christian faith and faithfulness is not dependent on gender in any way... In short, there is no problem in principle either in doctrine or in Biblical texts for the full acceptance of trans folk in Christianity."

There is a reason physicians consider sex reassignment surgeries for people who are transgender to be legitimate, noncosmetic surgery. The American Medical Association House of Delegates proclaimed in 2008 that denying patients with gender identity disorder with otherwise insured treatment constitutes discrimination. The AMA also explicitly supports "public and private health insurance coverage for treatment for gender identity disorder as recommended by the patient's physician."

Transgender people and those in the process of transitioning are simply practicing a virtue religious leaders have extolled for centuries: They are being faithful to who they are. For faith communities to turn away their transgender brothers and sisters amounts to a denial of this spirit.

McIntyre's tale illustrates the fact that transgender people play active roles in our churches, communities, and society at large. Her story also illustrates the magnitude of the ongoing fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and human rights.
Sy Mukherjee is an intern with the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. He is a sophomore at Dartmouth College.
Advocates with the National Center for Transgender Equality will be coming to Washington, D.C. on March 14 - 16 to urge Congress to pass legislation that makes it illegal for employers to force their employees to choose between their human nature and their financial livelihood. If they succeed, an employer could judge someone like McIntyre only on the basis of her professional skills and merits. Perhaps one day her diocese will do the same.

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The Spirituality of Gender Identity - Center for American Progress

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Posted on Susan McIntyre hails from Des Moines, Iowa. Until her recent dismissal, she worked as a housekeeper and part-time counselor for the St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Student Center at Drake University. Susan is a devout Catholic convert who holds the values of her faith close to her heart and worships on a regular basis.

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Alaa Murabit: What my religion really says about women 

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Alaa Murabit: What my religion really says about women 

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Key Points:

misrepresentation and misuse and manipulation of religious scripture has influenced our social and cultural norms

Religious institutions are dominated by men and driven by male leadership, and they create policies in their likeness, and until we can change the system entirely, then we can't realistically expect to have full economic and political participation of women.

the only way to ensure the full participation of women globally is by reclaiming religion.

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Transcript of "What my religion really says about women"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Strong faith is a core part of Alaa Murabit's identity -- but when she moved from Canada to Libya as a young woman, she was surprised how the tenets of Islam were used to severely limit women's rights, independence and ability to lead.

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Agent of Change: An Interview with bell hooks

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Agent of Change: An Interview with bell hooks

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What was your first exposure to Buddhism? When I was eighteen I was an undergraduate at Stanford and a poet and I met Gary Snyder. I already knew that he was involved with Zen from his work, and he invited me to the Ring of Bones Zendo for a May Day celebration. There were two or three American Buddhist nuns there and they made a tremendous impression. Since that time I’ve been engaged in the contemplative traditions of Buddhism in one way or another.

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bell hooks is a seeker, a feminist, a social critic, and a prolific writer. Her books include"Ain't I a Woman?": Black Women and FeminismTalking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black; Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (with Cornel West); and, most recently Black Looks all from Southend Press.

She was born Gloria Watkins forty years ago in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and was educated at Stanford and Yale. Currently she teaches English and Women's Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio. This interview was conducted for Tricycle by editor Helen Tworkov.

What was your first exposure to Buddhism? When I was eighteen I was an undergraduate at Stanford and a poet and I met Gary Snyder. I already knew that he was involved with Zen from his work, and he invited me to the Ring of Bones Zendo for a May Day celebration. There were two or three American Buddhist nuns there and they made a tremendous impression. Since that time I've been engaged in the contemplative traditions of Buddhism in one way or another.

And that excludes Nichiren Shoshu? Which is the only Buddhist organization in America with a substantial black membership? Yes, Tina Turner Buddhism. Get-what-you-want Buddhism-that is the image of Buddhism most familiar to masses of black people. The kind of Buddhism that engages me most is about how you're going to live simply, not about how you're going to get all sorts of things.

How do you understand the absence of black membership in contemplative Buddhist traditions? Many teachers speak of needing to have something in the first place before you can give it up. This has communicated that the teachings were for the materially privileged and those preoccupied with their own comforts. When other black people come to my house they say, "Giving up what comforts?" For black people, the literature of Buddhism has been exclusive. It allowed a lot of people to say, "That has nothing to do with me." Many people see the contemplative traditions-specifically those from Asia-as being for privileged white people.

We find references and quotes from Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh throughout your work. Is part of your attraction to him his integration of contemplation and political activism? Yes. Nhat Hanh's Buddhism isn't framed from a location of privilege, but from a location of deep anguish-the anguish of a people being destroyed in a genocidal war.

In addition to Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist references in your work extend to those books that fall into the category you defined as exclusive. How did you get past that? If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn't start with race; I wouldn't start with blackness; I wouldn't start with gender; I wouldn't start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I'm a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.

Does it have a name? If love is really the active practice-Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic mysticism-it requires the notion of being a lover, of being in love with the universe. That's what Joanna Macy talks about in World as Lover, World as Self (Parallax, 1991). Thomas Merton also speaks of love for God in these terms. To commit to love is fundamentally to commit to a life beyond dualism. That's why love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms: dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong.

"To commit to love is fundamentally to commit to a life beyond dualism. That's why love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms."

Considering your critiques of the sexist, racist patriarchy, this path of love is pretty challenging. That's why I enjoyed Stephen Butterfield's article (in Tricycle Vol. I, Number 4) dealing with sexual ethics and Buddhist practice-precisely because he said, Let's leave this discourse of right and wrong, and let's talk about a discourse of practice. Something may in fact work for one person, and may be fundamentally wrong for another, and that's complex. If I'm a teacher and you enter this room, it's a lot more difficult to think about what would be essentially useful to you than to think what the rules are. That's about love, and I think that's what Butterfield tries to say in talking about passion. Teacher/student relationships are arenas for disrupting our addiction to dualism, and we are called upon to really strip ourselves down, to where we don't have guides anymore. In real love, real union, or communion, there are no rules.

As a prominent black feminist, how difficult is it for women, especially other black feminists, to hear you say that your fundamental sense of yourself is as a seeker on the path? Does it evoke a sense of betrayal? I think so, certainly a few years ago it did. But feminists in general have come to rethink spirituality. Ten years ago if you talked about humility, people would say, I feel as a woman I've been humble enough, I don't want to try to erase the ego-I'm trying to get an ego. But now, the achievements that women have made in all areas of life have brought home the reality that we are as corruptible as anybody else. That shared possibility of corruptibility makes us confront the realm of ego in a new way. We've gone past the period when the rhetoric of victimization within feminist thinking was so complete that the idea that women had agency, which could be asserted in destructive ways, could not be acknowledged. And some people still don't want to hear it.

To what extent has the issue of victimization in feminism been diffused by the national obsession with-as you call it-victimage? In a culture of domination, preoccupation with victimage is inevitable.

And this keeps dualities locked in place? I used to believe that progressive people could critique the dualities and dissolve them through the process of deconstruction. But that turns out not to be true. With the resurgence of forms of black nationalism that say white people are bad, black people are good, we see an attachment to notions of inferiority. Dualities serve their own interests.

How does this come up for you in your daily life? Life was easier when I felt that I could trust another black person more than I could trust a white person. To face the reality that this is simply not so is a much harder way to live in the world. What's scary to me now is to see so many people wanting to return to those simplistic choices. People of all persuasions are feeling that if I don't have this dualism, I don't have anything to hold on to. People concerned with dissolving these apparent dualities have to identify anchors to hold on to in the midst of fragmentation, in the midst of a loss of grounding.

Your anchor is love? Yes. Love and the understanding that things are always more complex than they seem. That's more useful and more difficult than the idea that there is a right and wrong, or a good or bad, and you just decide what side you're on.

We see this in your relationship with Thich Nhat Hanh. You quote him with obvious reverence, but not with blind devotion. You have also referred to gender-related problems with his teaching. When Nhat Hanh is talking about work or our engagement in social issues, his vision is so vast, so inclusive, so generous. But on questions of family and marriage and sex, we get the most conventional notion of what's good. Celibacy is good or having a family is good. There's nothing between celibacy and family life.

I've been puzzled by the same contradiction in his work. But I've wondered if it's a contemporary pragmatic response to the lives of his students. One of the threads that I see in all his writing is a particular kind of memory of childhood that he holds to: a childhood of preawareness of anguish, one might say. He evokes the child as an aware being but it's the child who has no anguish and no sense of horror. And in his romantization of the heterosexual family-which is always biased-it's very clear that it remains biased in favor of the old order of patriarchy and hierarchy.

Have you ever met Thich Nhat Hanh? I've been afraid to. As long as I keep a distance from that thread, I can keep him-and I can critique myself on this-as a kind of perfect teacher. Reading about his attachment to certain sexist thinking in a book is one thing, but actually experiencing it at a gathering would be another thing. That would be sad for me. I want his wisdom to extend into his thinking about family and gender relations or sexuality, and I don't see that.

Do you see it anywhere? Trungpa Rinpoche's thinking is still the most progressive in terms of desire and sexuality. Whether he was able to live those theories out in their most expansive possibility is another thing. What I get from him and Merton, that I don't get from Nhat Hanh, is a real willingness to think of pleasure as a potential site of spiritual awakening and enlightenment. Thich Nhat Hanh cuts off sensual pleasure from any continuum that would lead to desire and to sexuality.

In your interview with Andrea Juno (in Angry Women, Re/Search, 1992) you talk of having been a cross-dresser, which, for women is, among other possibilities, a foray into the dominant culture. How does it experiment with the deconstruction of the self and, simultaneously, with the patriarchy? I thought of it as an experience of erasure. When Joan of Arc erased herself as female, she was also trying to erase the self to which she was most attached. And her experience of cross-dressing was a path leading her away from the ego-identified self. She didn't replace one attachment with another-"Now I'm the identity of a man." It was more, "Now I'm away from the identity I was most attached to."

This is the same kind of experimentation as using your grandmother's name-bell hooks-for writing? I think so. It's primarily about an idea of distance. The name "bell hooks" was a way for me to distance myself from the identity that I most cling to, which is Gloria Watkins, and to create this other self. Not dissimilar really to the new names that accompany all ordinations in Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic traditions. Everyone in my life calls me Gloria. When I do things that involve work, they will often speak of me as "bell," but part of it has been a practice of not being attached to either of those.

As in: "I'm not trying to be bell hooks." The point isn't to stay fixed in any role, but to be committed to movement. That's what I like about notions in Islamic mysticism that say, Are you ready to cut off your head? It's like asking, Are you ready to make whatever move is necessary for union with the divine? And that those moves may be quite different from what people think they should be.

What would you say is the Buddhist priority? What are our moves? I think one goes more deeply into practice as action in the world and that's what I think when I think about engaged Buddhism.

Are you making any distinctions here between Thich Nhat Hanh's use of the expression "engaged Buddhism" and "liberation theology"? No. I like that the point of convergence of liberation theology, Islamic mysticism, and engaged Buddhism is the sense of love that leads to commitment and involvement with the world, and not a turning away from the world. A form of wisdom that I strive for is the ability to know what is needed at a given moment in time. When do I need to reside in that location of stillness and contemplation, and when do I need to get up off my ass and do whatever is needed to be done in terms of physical work, or engagement with others, or confrontation with others? I'm not interested in ranking one type of action over the other.

Why are so many other people? I think that it goes back to our relationship with pain. One of the mighty illusions that is constructed in the dailiness of life in our culture is that all pain is a negation of worthiness, that the real chosen people, the real worthy people, are the people that are most free from pain. Don't you think that's true?

That was a prevalent idea among white Buddhists when Buddhism took off in this culture in the sixties and seventies-that the teachings are about how not to suffer, rather than how best to deal with the inevitable suffering that life deals out. We see that denial in a lot of New Age thinking in the rhetoric that connects becoming more wealthy, more happy, and more free from all forms of pain with becoming more spiritual.

Are love and suffering the same? To be capable of love one has to be capable of suffering and of acknowledging one's suffering. We all suffer, rich and poor. The fact is that when people have material privilege at the enormous expense of others, they live in a state of terror as well. It's the unease of having to protect your gain, which then necessitates even greater control. That's why we see fascism surfacing right now in Europe and the U.S., a compulsion to control. This phrase New World Order is so significant because it confirms everybody's sense that life is out of control. And we are weakened by nihilism.

That's what Cornel West writes about. Yes. Nihilism is a kind of disease that grips the mind and then grips people in fundamental ways, and can only be subverted by seizing the power that exists in chaos.

The power of self-agency? Absolutely. And collective agency, too, because of the idea-as in Nhat Hanh's work-that the self necessarily survives through linkage with the collective community.

A lot of oppressed people seem to prefer to blame, rather than to relate to the teachings of mind and transformation of consciousness. Your work does not typify either the black or the female voice in America. But a lot of the young rap artists are saying the same thing, in a different way. I think KRS One and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy are trying to say, We really are people of the mind, that black youth are not just creatures of the body. In a lot of contemporary music one hears a certain sense of anguish that is felt in the mind. Malcolm X is such a hero to certain rap musicians because he was totally focused on the mind. Black youth culture is very much aware of that but they are not sure where to go with it.

For all of your commitments to an integrated view, are there places of conflict between the political and spiritual? As a woman, as an African-American? Absolutely. The places of conflict are always there. Look at this whole question of sexual harassment and sexual violation. What's so interesting is how much it conforms to very traditional notions of gender. In Buddhist practice, intimacy with the teacher is the space of potential violation.

In your own experience? In one of my earliest encounters with a Buddhist guide, he tried to have sex with me. I was infinitely more interested in what he had to say about Buddhism than I was in his body. Yet he was saying that the closer I got to his body, the closer I got to what he thought about Buddhism. This is fundamentally discouraging.

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about women in a very traditional way. When I read a book like Shambhala: Path of the Warrior (Shambhala Publications, 1984) I ask myself, Where am I located in this as a woman? Again, the mother is evoked in the traditional role of nurturer, and separate from the world of warriorship and lineage that is so clearly defined as male.

Women are particularly susceptible to abuse with regard to the spiritual qualities of surrender and humility. What do we do about that? That is tied to reshaping Buddhist practice so that one really sees fundamental change. We all have to have a lived practice. For example, if we see a female who is powerful yet humble, we can learn about the kind of humility that is empowering, and about a form of surrender that does not diminish one's agency. But it seems to me that that "me" has to be altered in the very way we structure any kind of practice, any kind of community.

And whatever problems we encounter in the Buddhist communities must pale in comparison with those in the black communities? The collective black community does not allow women to become leaders in the same way we allowed Malcolm or Martin to spring up and be in a position of leadership. And nobody in the community wants to deal with that fact. There are a lot of women out there who are able to lead, and the problem is that people will not follow them.

Do you frame this around one central problem? The central problem for women is that you can't give up the ego and the self if you haven't established a sense of yourself as subject. It seems to me that questions of humility and surrender don't even come in until one has something to give up.

I do think that women like myself have to integrate the processes by which we change, and speak about those processes more. Gloria Steinem, in Revolution from Within (Little Brown and Co., 1991) says that in part there are many women now with skills and resources, but if they still feel shaky in the deep inner core of being, they cannot move forward against patriarchy. This goes back to all I've been saying about victimization. A lot of black people with resources and skills are so convinced inwardly that they lack something, that they cannot move forward.

Can you tell us something of your own life that reveals how you arrived at your current understanding? It was a tremendous liberatory moment in my painful childhood, when I thought, I am more than my pain. In the great holocaust literature, particularly the Nazi holocaust literature, people say, All around me there was death and evil and slaughter of innocents, but I had to keep some sense of a transcendent world that proclaims we're more than this evil, despite its power. When I'm genuinely victimized by racism in my daily life, I want to be able to name it, to name that it hurts me, to say that I'm victimized by it. But I don't want to see that as all that I am.

Sartre's two ways to enter the gas chamber: Free and not free. Yet, I must admit that when I read your essay on Anita Hill (in Black Looks, Southend Press, 1992), I was surprised at how hard you came down on her. Yes, but I never once tried to deny the reality that she was sexually harassed. At the same time I said she's more than that sexual harassment. She's also a political conservative who has totally allied herself with the white male supremacist patriarchy, just like Clarence Thomas has. She is anti-abortion and was pro-Bork, for example.

You also call into question her inability to take responsibility for what happened with Thomas. Even when she came forward, she was still saying on TV "other people urged me to come forth." She was still presenting herself as a passive person, without agency, responding to other people. That bothered me. And I was disturbed that so many women identified with that. What I want to know is, where is her ability to say, I feel that this man should not have certain forms of power, and I wanted to come forward of my own free will and not because other people urged me to.

How do you explain Anita Hill's popularity? I make bumper stickers in my mind. And one of them is "Everybody loves a woman who is a victim." Would people love Anita Hill had she actually been able to block Clarence Thomas' appointment? Would she then have been perceived as a woman who was too powerful? What actually catapulted her into stardom was the fact that she lost. That even though she came forward, even though she sacrificed a lot, she didn't attain the desired goal. And this is absolutely in tune with the culture of domination. I remember reading a book on lying that said Americans are lying more and more in daily life, with simple things such as how are you feeling today, or what did you do today, who did you talk to on the phone? And I'm thinking, My god, if people cannot tell the truth about things that have absolutely no layer of risk, of danger, how do we expect people then to stand up in situations of crisis that are matters of life and death? To the degree, again, that people do not wish to experience pain, they will engage in denial. And denial, I think, is always a practice of narcissism because it's always about protecting the self.

"I make bumper stickers in my mind. And one of them is 'Everybody loves a woman who is a victim.' Would people love Anita Hill had she actually been able to block Clarence Thomas' appointment? What actually catapulted her into stardom was the fact that she lost."

Again, that's why I like Butterfield's piece, because he says that these narratives of victimage go back to the self, and that denial protects what people think has to be protected and guarded.

And there are also real abuses. How can we deal with that? What was problematic for me about Butterfield's piece was that I don't think he gave us the whole picture in the sense that he wasn't really willing to acknowledge those real abuses. It's a lot harder to frame your argument if you say, Yes, exploitation occurs, but something else occurs at the same time. Yes, racism occurs, but something else occurs at the same time. How is one to get in touch with all of those different things?

But how do you make a distinction when, for example, someone turns to you and says, "You feel victimized? That's your problem." The Zen communities functioned this way for years in response to individual complaints. People are genuinely exploited, but that reality doesn't take away from the many, many instances where people give up their own agency and, in that way, help create a setting for exploitation. Only by holding on to the sense that we can never be completely dehumanized by "others" can we create a redemptive model. If you're attached to being a victim, there is no hope. One has to work out points of blockage, or victimage to agency, and from there build a collective process that can change an institution and can change a societal direction.

Let's take a version of that in Buddhism. The gender problems with Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, are not "abuses" but there's an attitude. Do you "confront" the teacher? If there was more of a collective call on the part of students to say to a teacher, "We are concerned that there are all these other areas that we see changes and growth in your thought, but when it comes to questions of gender and family, we don't." I think a real problem is how we frame devotion to the teacher. And the question of questioning. That's something that has to be done more collectively. I think that if an individual alone tries to question, they get crushed, sometimes not just by the teacher, but by other students.

What is the dynamic of victimization in our society? A culture of domination like ours says to people: There is nothing in you that is of value, everything of value is outside you and must be acquired. The tremendous message in this culture is one of devaluation. Low self-esteem is a national epidemic and victimization is the flip side of domination.

To what extent is your work considered a contradiction by progressive blacks? Not that much. Because people hear me saying revolution must begin with the self, but it has to be united with some kind of social vision.

"A culture of domination like ours says to people: There is nothing in you that is of value, everything of value is outside you and must be acquired."

But I see many people deeply engaged in complicity with the very structures of domination they critique. And I think that that is an illusion. It's true that often, let's say, when I talk about theory, I do have to argue for the fact that theory making or certain forms of critical thinking are essential to a process of change because people have been led to believe you can have change without contemplation.

To a lot of people they would say, You can use your rage. I feel that, yes, I can use my rage, but only if there's something else there with that rage.

Take the Rodney King case. The verdict comes down, the cops are not guilty. How do you go from there to not feeling victimized? I don't think it's that you don't feel victimized. You acknowledge that you're being victimized. But the question becomes, is rage the only or the most appropriate response? What would people have thought if rather than black people exploding in rage about the Rodney King incident, if there had been a week of silence? Something that would have just so unsettled people's stereotypes about black people.

One of the things that characterized the riots was the tremendous empathy across the country for King. The sad thing is that the empathy came from a sense of total victimization.

So they are victimized but they have self-agency. Right. I think it serves the interest of domination if the only way people can respond to victimage is rage. Because then they really are just mirroring the very conditions that brought them into victimization. Violence. The conquering of other people's territory. If we talk about the burning down of other people's property as a takeover, is that different from what the U.S. did in Grenada or Iraq? It's not a stepping outside of the program, it's a mirroring back, and that's why I think so many white people and masses of other groups felt sympathy. Because the other side of total victimage is rage.

Victimage... I was thinking about the victim identity. If you look at the early feminist movement and the women who were seeing themselves the most as complete victims also had this blind rage, because those two things go together. That's why it's so dangerous, because then you're not operating outside the forces of domination at all. You're still tied intimately to that psychology of domination.

So consciousness is the only way to transmute the forces of domination. The only way. There is no change without contemplation. The whole image of Buddha under the Bodhi tree says here is an action taking place that may not appear to be a meaningful action.

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Agent of Change: An Interview on Buddhism with bell hooks - Tricycle

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bell hooks is a seeker, a feminist, a social critic, and a prolific writer. Her books include"Ain't I a Woman?": Black Women and FeminismTalking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black; Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (with Cornel West); and, most recently Black Looks all from Southend Press.

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Episode 6 | Can You Be A Muslim Feminist? | Girl on Girl

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Islamic feminism: many think its a contradiction in terms, however they use it as a way for change and equality

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Islamic feminism: A contradiction in terms?

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Islamic feminism critiques Islamic patriarchy by historicizing and reinterpreting sources of scriptural authority. Secular feminists, however, rule out any possible compatibility between feminism and Islam. Belgian social scientist Ghaliya Djelloul reviews the arguments and suggests a way past restrictive dichotomies.

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Indian women form human chain for equality | CNN

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Tens of thousands of women in the Indian state of Kerala have formed a series of human chains as a protest against a refusal to admit women to the Sabarimala Temple, one of Hinduism’s holiest sites.

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Indian women just did a remarkable thing - they formed a wall of protest | Snigdha Poonam

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They were asserting their right to enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala - and have given hope for women's rights in India, says Snigdha Poonam, a journalist based in Delhi

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dawsonera.com: Direct access to your library's ebook collection

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How Islam made me a feminist | Zena Agha | TEDxWarwickSalon

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How Islam made me a feminist | Zena Agha | TEDxWarwickSalon

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How Islam made me a feminist | Zena Agha | TEDxWarwickSalon (Women)

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At 17 Zena was the youngest member of Operation Black Vote's MP Shadowing Scheme, campaigning for a boycott of Israeli Settlement foodstuffs in Westminster as well as Deputy Member of Youth Parliament. Part of her extensive community work includes running poetry workshops, and she was shortlisted for the London Mayor's Young Person Peace Prize.

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Faith Forum: Is Religion A Barrier To Gender Equality

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Faith Forum: Is Religion A Barrier To Gender Equality

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Although religions state that men and women are equal (with each religion and denomination claiming that they are better than others in terms of gender equality), gender equality proponents stress that a lot of work needs to be done in this direction by religions.

Gender equality proponents point out that although women are considered generally more religious than men, many religions and denominations continue to treat each gender differently, including:

Religions usually are androcentric

Some leadership roles still restricted to males

In many religions, only men are ordinated

Religious traditions, law and cultural factors treat women differently than men

Religion provides the structure on how women should live their day-to-day lives

God is traditionally portrayed as a masculine figure

Sex segregation is still present

Stress on modesty is usually focused on women

Religious texts and practices are patriarchal

Protocols are more strictly applied to women

Women are more regulated than men

Women are not part of the decision-making machinery

Proponents indicate that although women have overcome barriers in various spheres, religion seems to be the hardest nut to crack.

We asked our panel of distinguished religious leaders of the region the following question: Is religion a barrier to gender equality?

Here is what they have to say:

TRUE COMPASSION BRINGS EQUALITY
Matthew T. Fisher, Reno Buddhist Center resident priest
The Buddha taught that we are all struggling sentient beings. Through our experience of rebirth we have existed as every gender, in every role, and every place already. Through this saga of rebirth we realize that our apparent differences are not real. We have been mother, father, sister, and brother before. A broad spiritual view shows all are truly equal.

Through cultural limitations the religions have imposed man's bias on women and this is unfortunate. In the time of the Buddha he was asked three times to start the order of Buddhist nuns. But he was concerned about social backlash against the sangha and hesitated. Finally he did create the nun order with his aunt as the abbess. The view of Buddhism is to empower all sentient beings to live completely and fully, and equally share in the wisdom and compassion of the universe.

FULL AND EQUAL PARTNERSHIP
Ryan J. Earl, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assistant area public affairs director
On this Easter morning, we celebrate the most important event to occur in the history of mankind: the atonement and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, a gift which applies equally to all men and women (Matthew 28). In this all-important way, religion is not a barrier to gender equality.

In other respects, religion provides many truths concerning gender. We believe that gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose (see lds.org, "Family Proclamation").

Men and women are by nature different, and while they share many basic human traits, we each have unique talents and must develop the virtues and attributes upon which perfection and exaltation depend. We believe that men and women have different roles and responsibilities, but that only together, in an eternal marriage and as faithful, equal and full partners, can they attain the highest kingdom of heaven.

RELIGIOUS. FEMALE. SUBJUGATION.
Brian E. Melendez, American Indian spirituality scholar
Limited demographics of women have been afforded entry-level opportunities in religious spheres; juxtaposed to all other relegated women of faith throughout history, this is progress, I suppose? Suggesting women possess equal footing in the religious/spiritual boys' club is reprehensible - engineering the appearance for equality is not equality, until it's equal.

The malignancy of male-centered traditional or customary practices has degenerated our connectivity from the predominantly feminine aspects of the natural world, which in turn fosters a default mechanism of authority based on sex - not merit or ability - and especially not faith.

As a man, I recognize that my role and struggle will be vastly different that those of my sisters. To mitigate the existence and implementation of sexism and the total marginalization of women institutionally is not only a violation of spiritual sovereignty, but a true disservice to humanity and every little girl divinely gifted with sacredness and Godly direction.

CULTURAL BARRIERS
ElizaBeth Webb Beyer, rabbi, Temple Beth Or and N. Tahoe Hebrew Congregation
Religion is less of a barrier than culture, which often dictates how religion is practiced. For millennia, a male-dominated culture affected our texts subduing a feminine perspective. Even so, Judaism considers G-d beyond gender. Some names of G-d in Hebrew indicate gender: masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral. Some names indicate G-d as a space or place, or energy (i.e. compassion). G-d's most intimate name indicates space-time-process (i.e. verb).

From a Biblical perspective, there are examples of women leaders: matriarchs as well as women who were prophets and judges. Hannah is our model for prayer. In practice, Judaism sought to provide divorced women with property rights through a marriage contract. Thus, our core theology and perspectives do not demand male domination.

Cultures evolve slowly. In American culture, where there are considerations of gender equality, there are now women rabbis in all denominations. When world culture shifts towards greater gender sensitivity, likely religion will follow.

TAKE ON A GOD'S-EYE VIEW OF GENDER
Stephen R. Karcher, St. Anthony Greek Orthodox Church presiding priest
Unity in Christ transcends physical boundaries, including gender. But this doesn't imply a "genderless" society. Gender matters, especially when considering God's presence and work in the world and throughout history. After all, it was a woman's faith that united heaven and earth in Christ's birth, something only a woman could have done. Similarly, Jesus' first miracle happened at a woman's request, and it was also to a woman that He first revealed himself as Messiah. Although His closest disciples were men, the expanded group included women, and following His resurrection, He appeared first to a woman who then became the original evangelist by sharing the Good News to the Apostles. Both women and men received the Spirit equally at Pentecost, and the first European church was established in the home of a woman. These are examples of God's "idea" of gender equality, and our Orthodox Faith teaches the same.

RELIGION SHOULD PROMOTE EQUALITY
Bradley S. Corbin, Baha'i teacher
Bahá'u'lláh, for the first time in the history of religion, has firmly proclaimed the equality of men and women. To any objective observer the principle of the equality of the sexes is fundamental to all realistic thinking about the future well-being of the earth and its people.

"The foundational Baha'i principles have always included the equality of women and men; and Baha'is maintain that no new age can or will occur without the full implementation of that fundamental equality" (David Langness - BahaiTeachings.org). Baha'is condemn all forms of prejudice; including the supposed inequality between men and women, the two wings on which the bird of human kind is able to soar. The same education must be given to women as to men; that they may become proficient and attain to the level of men, for God has not accredited any difference between the male and the female.

DIFFERENT BY DESIGN
Steve Bond, senior pastor, Summit Christian Church, Sparks
The Bible teaches that God created humankind as male and female. These gender differences are much deeper than the more-than-obvious differences in physical anatomy. Scientific investigation and common sense both reveal that, among other things, men and women process information and experience emotions differently.

Despite these God-designed differences there is a growing trend to erase all differences by promoting gender neutrality. For example, some children are no longer encouraged to express themselves as male or female. Gender-neutral public restrooms have been proposed. Recent clothing fashions are also increasingly gender-neutral.

Gender neutrality is, in fact, the underlying bias in this week's question. The question assumes gender equality is essentially the same as gender neutrality and that this is somehow a good and worthy goal. But gender neutrality is not God's plan. Men and women are both loved lavishly by God. But we are different by design.

YES & NO
Kenneth G. Lucey, UNR philosophy/religion professor
Many religions provide no barrier to gender equality whatsoever. Unhappily this is not true of all religions. Should an especially devout Catholic woman aspire to be an ordained priest or minister in her religion, she simply cannot do so. Her religion is most definitely a barrier to her gender equality. To achieve her religious goal she must change her religion. She doesn't have to change her God. She can still be a Christian and a monotheist, but she does have to change her denomination. The Orthodox Church also precludes the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy. This is in marked contrast, for example, with Hinduism, where both men and women can be recognized as gurus. Historically there have been religions that denied that their god had any gender whatsoever and in such, I believe, there was usually no prohibition on women becoming priests.

NOT THE BARRIER
Sherif A. Elfass, Northern Nevada Muslim Community president
In Islam, men and women are equal in their rewards and punishments in the hereafter; however, equivalent (not equal) in their rights and responsibilities in this world. Both are dignified and are trustees of Allah on earth (Quran 17:70). Nowhere in the Quran does Allah state that one gender is superior to the other. Both genders complete each other without being equal. Islam established for both genders what suited their nature. The absence of women as prophets or messengers of Allah, for example, is due to the physical demands and suffering associated with such a role and not because of any spiritual inferiority. Both genders are required to dress and behave modestly. However, because of their nature, Islam required women to wear the Hijab (24:31, 33:59). A woman who wears the Hijab commands respect. Islam gave dignity and honor to women and men. It is the people who abuse their power.

EQUAL IN DIGNITY
Lauri Anne Reinhart, director of lay ministry formation leadership, Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno
The American assumption is that gender equality means males and females have access to the same jobs. Catholicism teaches that men and women are equal to each other in dignity but complement each other, rather than being identical in all things.

Based on tradition and Scripture, it reserves most positions of leadership to men. Only males can be ordained deacons, priests, or bishops. Scripturally, this relates to Jesus' calling of the twelve Apostles, all of whom were men. This is understood as the will of God, rather than just a consequence of culture.

On the other hand, Catholicism does not see God only as a male figure, having retained feminine images in Scripture: for example, Hosea 11:3-4 and Isaiah 66:13 represent God as mother, and in Matthew 23:37, Jesus likens himself to a hen.

The challenge to live our belief that all are "equal in dignity" is an ongoing, but life-giving, task.

FEMALE ASPECT OF GOD
Guest panelist Gene Savoy, Jr., International Community of Christ bishop
The feminine aspect of God or the Divine has long been a driving force in religion. The ancients were adept at expressing the divine feminine. The Greek Muses were sources of Knowledge. In Hinduism, feminine energy is the essence of the Universe. Jewish mystic writings recognize Shekinah - the Holy Spirit or Bride of the Father in Christianity - as the female vehicle of spiritual rebirth imparting Wisdom and divine Guidance. The Kabbalah declares Moses and Shekinah as husband and wife. Women played a prominent role in the life and ministry of Jesus. He is often in their company and them in his. Women joined the Buddha's monastic community. In the early Christian Church, women were more influential than in succeeding centuries. They were evangelists, ministers, teachers and Apostles. If we were created as spiritual beings in God's Image, then we are all reflections of that likeness which transcends physical gender.
Next week's topic:
Is weeping divine?
Faith Forum is a weekly dialogue on religion produced by religious statesman Rajan Zed. Send questions or comments to rajanzed@gmail.com.
Read or Share this story: http://on.rgj.com/1Mq8wna

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Faith Forum: Is religion a barrier to gender equality?

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Although religions state that men and women are equal (with each religion and denomination claiming that they are better than others in terms of gender equality), gender equality proponents stress that a lot of work needs to be done in this direction by religions.

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Date: Monday, December 17, 2018

A number of restrictive laws in the Arab States region exacerbate challenges to the promotion and protection of women's fundamental human rights. In response to this situation, Musawah, a women's organization working to support equality and justice in Muslim families, is pushing back against the ways in which religion is sometimes misused to justify discrimination against women. The group is conducting research and analysis of religious texts to provide Muslim women with the tools to assess critically prevailing gender concepts and to advocate for non-discrimination.

"Musawah-meaning 'equality' in Arabic-was formed almost ten years ago," said Sarah Marsso, Musawah's Knowledge Building Coordinator, following a global meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, attended by over 250 Muslim activists, scholars, legal practitioners and policy-makers.

"We offer a new knowledge-based discourse and framework to advocate for equality and justice for women living in Muslim contexts. We fuse Islamic teachings with human rights principles, laws and constitutional guarantees of equality, and the lived realities of men and women," Sarah said.

Since its founding by the Malaysian NGO 'Sisters in Islam', Musawah has released numerous groundbreaking pieces of research on women in Muslim family law contexts. In 2016, Musawah started working with UN Women's Regional Programme ' Men and Women for Gender Equality ' to consolidate and analyze existing resources on Muslim family laws, to disseminate key ideas from these resources, and to conduct research on how women are affected by certain concepts in family laws in diverse country contexts.

As part of this partnership, Musawah documented the life stories of 55 Muslim women from 10 countries in the report Women's Stories, Women's Lives: Male Authority in Muslim Contexts and recently published the report Who Provides? Who Cares? Changing Dynamics in Muslim Families. Further, Musawah produced a series of knowledge building briefs on key concepts related to Muslim family laws.
Bringing change for women in the region
A range of women are benefiting from the knowledge and training Musawah provides, from Lebanon to Palestine to Egypt and beyond.

Heba Salah, from Dar Al Ifta, a major Islamic educational institute in Egypt that is linked to the leading religious university Al Azhar, joined a Musawah training conducted in Cairo in April 2017. While Heba already enjoyed significant experience working with Islamic texts at Dar Al Ifta, the insights she gained through the training was a game-changer.

"This course was an overall changing experience. The key learnings, for me, include first and foremost critical thinking skills, by which I mean how to reread Shariah texts through a gender lens and analyze their meanings in a way that fits our modern time. For me, this is what I call the 'renewal of religious discourse.'"

After completing the course, Heba prepared a long-term plan to develop Dar Al Ifta's religious discourse and public resources that address gender issues in Islam. Her plan, part of which is already under implementation, includes revisiting the fatwas (official religious verdicts) and research relating to gender equality in Islam.

But it's not only Egypt where change is afoot. Training provided by Musawah is also having an impact on a new generation of scholar-activists graduating from the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut.

Myriam Sfeir, the Assistant Director of the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at LAU is also benefitting from this work.

"When I took the course, it was at the time that we were launching a course for our master's program on Islamic Feminism. So, I took all the [Musawah] materials I got, and I gave them to the professor who was going to teach the course. She used my readings and I introduced her to some of the books from the Musawah training and we used this material to create a master's course for students who are doing interdisciplinary gender studies," said Myriam.

Marwa Kouki, a Tunisian woman living in Lebanon, who works in the women's department of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), also took the Musawah-influenced interdisciplinary gender course. She said the course was eye-opening and inspirational.

"It made me look at things from a different perspective. I used to think that western feminism was the only kind of feminism that existed. I thought women in Muslim contexts were always submissive and without a voice. But after reading I see that women there are making their own choices. We need to look closely at how women in these societies want to live."

May Mansour, another student of the gender programme who travels each week from Jordan to take her classes at LAU, said "Reading about these interpretations made me realize that religion needs to be reinterpreted. Women need to take a stand and take part in the [religious] interpretation process. The Quran can be a tool of gender equality. I want to use its ayat (verses) to give a favorable interpretation to women."

In Palestine, too, Musawah's trainings are rippling through society. Hanan Kamar, a legal analyst working with UN Women in Ramallah, took a Musawah training in 2016.

She has used her expanded knowledge and critical skills to begin shifting one of Palestine's most traditional institutions, the Sharia courts, to take on more progressive stances for women. Religious courts in Palestine, whether Christian or Muslim, decide all family affairs, like marriage contracts, inheritance, custody, and divorce.

Through this training, Hanan said, "I became more aware of the discriminatory historical and social factors that bend laws against women."

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Sarah Marsso, Knowledge Building Coordinator at Musawah. Photo: UN Women/Emad Karim A number of restrictive laws in the Arab States region exacerbate challenges to the promotion and protection of women's fundamental human rights. In response to this situation, Musawah , a women's organization

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How women from Islamic republics fight gender inequality all over the world 

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How women from Islamic republics fight gender inequality all over the world 

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Opinion: How women from Islamic republics fight gender inequality all over the world

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The world is constantly reassessing women's place in society: their reproductive rights, workplace equality, safety on the streets, education. We talk about liberation, from the patriarchy, from stigma and from religion; some people believe that the world would be a better place without Islam in particular.

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Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Hey, What About a Both Mitzvah?

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Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Hey, What About a Both Mitzvah?

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The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony stretches to accommodate the new gender fluidity.

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Credit Credit Cari Vander Yacht

Lion is a 13-year-old who lives in Brooklyn. The middle school student identifies as pangender, a term for feeling like you are every gender at once, and likes to go by "they" because it's an inclusive pronoun. "I can identify with male and female and others in between," they said. "I don't really feel masculine, and I don't really feel feminine."

They are also of the Jewish faith, and on Sept. 1, 2018, when they turned 13, they participated in a traditional coming-of-age ceremony: the one in which children become adults and mature members of their religious community.

Traditionally 13-year-old boys celebrate becoming bar mitzvahs (meaning "sons of commandment") and 12- or 13-year-old girls celebrate becoming bat mitzvahs ("daughters of commandment"). But Lion went an alternative route: a "they" mitzvah, if you will.

Their family got the idea from a set of twins who celebrated a b'nai mitzvah. "'B'nai' is just the plural form of the word 'bar' or 'bat,' so we thought maybe we can use that," said Hilda Cohen, Lion's mother. "We didn't make a big deal out of it. We just sort of did it."

Like other Jewish teens, Lion led the Saturday morning service, read from the Torah and gave a Dvar Torah, a speech about the Torah portion that focused on gratitude. After the kiddush, or celebratory meal, where the venue was covered in flowers of many hues, there was an ice-cream party in the garden of the family's Fort Greene townhouse.

The only difference was that in the invitation, the rabbi's speech and every blessing, in Hebrew and in English, "they" was used in place of "he" or "she."

This was a significant alteration. "If someone uses the wrong pronoun it can feel like a weight is added to your back," said Lion. "I have a friend who is nonbinary, gender-fluid, and their parents weren't as accepting. They still had a bar mitzvah even though they doesn't identify as a gender. It wasn't comfortable."

In recent years, more people have been questioning or exploring their gender expression, including teenagers. In Jewish circles this process can coincide with the time for bar and bat mitzvahs. To make space for transgender and nonbinary teenagers, more synagogues and Jewish communities have adopted they mitzvahs (b'nai mitzvahs or b'mitzvahs, as other congregations call them.)

"People want to have their whole lives reflect who they are, including major rites of passage," said Rabbi Rachel Timoner, the senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. "The traditions of Judaism adapt every generation. And this is one of the needs of our generation."

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Milah Carlone, 15, had a b'mitzvah at Romemu, a progressive, Upper West Side synagogue. "I'm gender fluid-ish," she said. "I'm comfortable with everything." Credit Sabrina Santiago for The New York Times

Milah Carlone is a 15-year-old who lives in New York City and identifies with the pronouns she, her, they and them. "I'm gender fluid-ish," she said. "I'm comfortable with everything." In April 2017, when Milah was 13, she had a b'mitzvah at Romemu, a progressive, Upper West Side synagogue.

For her Saturday morning prayer service she wore a suit with a bow tie that was navy blue with white polka dots. "I thought I looked great," Milah said. "It made me feel so comfortable." Some guests liked it so much they gave her other bow ties as gifts.

"Rabbis are always concerned if these new customs and traditions are O.K.," said Daniel Bahner, the national director of education and training for Keshet, a national organization that works for L.G.B.T.Q. equality and inclusion in Jewish life. Mr. Bahner said he gets at least one email a month from a clergy member regarding some detail of a they mitzvah.

There are, of course, etiquette challenges. "What do you do with family members who were expecting to get one invite, and they got another?" said Mr. Bahner.

Ms. Carlone said she had multiple relatives, especially grandparents and older cousins, who didn't know she identified as gender-fluid before her ceremony. They learned quickly when the rabbi kept referring to the service as a b'mitzvah and the teenager gave her Dvar Torah about her gender journey so far, and also arguing that God has no gender. "It was a really terrifying experience because I had all my friends from my school there too," she said. "But I'm lucky that everyone was super supportive.

"That's also why the b'mitzvah is amazing," she went on. "You are supposed to be growing up through this ceremony, so having this part of me in there was important."

Mrs. Cohen, Lion's mother, had many relatives, especially the older ones, who sent cards with the wrong pronoun. "I don't think they are being dismissive. They possibly don't understand it or don't know the right pronoun," she said, and added with a laugh: "We still cashed the check."

More traditional synagogues encounter problems with the Hebrew language. Like Spanish, it is a gendered language, in which every noun has a masculine or feminine ending. For example, you can't say "child" instead of boy or girl in Hebrew. So every act - blessing the teenager, addressing them, calling them up to the Torah - requires a gender specification.

Some synagogues have approached this problem by only using English, or updating English translations of Hebrew words to make them gender-neutral. But diverging from the text could take away from long and meaningful traditions if done without care, said Rabbi Tamara R. Cohen, chief of innovation at Moving Traditions, a Jewish organization that runs educational programs for teenagers and people who interact with them. (She created a curriculum to help synagogues deal with gender issues that is currently being implemented in synagogues in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Denver.)

There are some groups, like the Nonbinary Hebrew Project, that are working on building a new grammatical system for the Hebrew language, one that doesn't specify gender.

"There is a lot of work going on, but I don't know how much people will adopt it," said Rabbi Cohen. "So many people already don't know Hebrew as it stands."

Then there is the Orthodox community.

In many of these synagogues men and women don't just have different pronouns but different expectations for their bar or bat mitzvah day. In some congregations boys conduct an entire service while females have a party. Sometimes the ceremonies are only performed for the same gender (or there is separate seating), so where do gender-fluid or neutral folks land?

"We are still working on making Orthodox rabbis aware of the experience of being trans or gender nonconforming," said Miryam Kabakov, the executive director of Eshel, a nonprofit that works with L.G.B.T.Q. Jews who grew up in Orthodox communities. "And very little happens within an Orthodox synagogue without the rabbi's seal of approval."

But in her opinion, change is inevitable. "It is just a matter of time before we start hearing from more parents with younger children who are facing this dilemma," Ms. Kabakov said. "It's a good time for Orthodox leaders to start thinking about this reality."

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Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Hey, What About a Both Mitzvah?

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The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony stretches to accommodate the new gender fluidity. Lion is a 13-year-old who lives in Brooklyn. The middle school student identifies as pangender, a term for feeling like you are every gender at once, and likes to go by "they" because it's an inclusive pronoun.

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what are the best (most effective) strategies to spread awareness of alternative feminist spiritualities?

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bell hooks
liberation theology
spirituality
patriarchal religion
Western metaphysical dualism
religious fundamentalism
Creation centred - linking with patriarchy
Challenging biological binaries of gender/ sexuality
Goddess

Oyeronke Oyewumi
*Epistemology
*Poststructuralist
*Male and Western dominance
*Ifa
* English language did not translate well Yoruba meanings
*language
*biological concepts of gender

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How is spirituality used as a vehicle towards liberation in the feminist movement?

How do faith based approaches to gender both help and hinder women's liberatory progress?

How can we dismantle patriarchal readings of Christianity from a feminist decolonial perspective?

If spirituality is embedded in patriarchy how are we (decolonial feminists) are going to use spirituality as a tool of liberation?

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bell hooks

*new paths of feminism through spirituality
* alternative spiritual paths
*fundamentalist patriarchal religion that prevents the spread of feminism
*liberation
*Western ideas of patriarchy
*sacred feminine
*binary categories
* feminist transformation

Oyeronke Oyewumi
*language
*Epistemological Dominance
*Ifa