JULY 8, 2004
No More Excuse Notes From God:
Deconstructing The Religious Imperative of Patriarchy
By Lucinda Marshall, @2004
It is an oxymoron of our highly developed world that wars are no longer fought on battlefields, but rather, in cities and towns. Because of this, civilian women and children now make up the majority of the casualties in war. And as they have always been, rape, sexual assault and prostitution are still used as weapons of war. Despite that, women are consistently excluded from having a real voice in conflict resolution, or the peacemaking process.
These facts are not accidental by-products of war. They are an inherent part of a societal structure that depends on violence for its very existence. Making war is always about power and control over an 'other' that has been defined as 'less-than'. Any form of change threatens the establishment and maintenance of that control because that which changes is not controllable by the arbitrary assertion of power. The reality is that change is enormously threatening to the coercive maintenance of power and control.
The principle reason that women's lives and women's voices are systematically extinguished in the making of war and its aftermath is precisely because women are the embodiment of change. We develop breasts, we menstruate, we go through menopause, and sometimes we give birth. These changes that a woman's body goes through during her lifetime are manifestations of power that comes from within that will always elude power-over attempts to control it.
Men can never truly control the changes that women's bodies go through, let alone the process of giving birth. Giving birth is an evolutionary act of renewal and change. Whether or not we chose to use it, the capacity to give birth is enormously powerful. It is the power to create, the gifting of life. The connection of the umbilical cord. The nurturing of a mother's milk. The shelter of the womb. Women, by their very existence, embody the kind of power that comes both from within and by connection.
The power that comes from connection or from within is non-hierarchical in nature and thus, highly problematic for those who wish to maintain power-over, which must be maintained through the establishment of a hierarchy (where someone has to be at the top and someone must be at the bottom). What could possibly justify the relentless attempt to squelch power from within and power among by the brutal assertion of power-over? All too commonly, the taking of power is justified by religion.
God, as defined by many religions, is the ultimate poster child for the paradigm of power-over. God, after all, is at the top of the heap, looking down upon his children. Unchanging, perfect, all-knowing and all-powerful. An unlimited force that must not be questioned. We talk about man being created in God's image but because women's bodies change far more than men's (and by definition, that which changes must not have been perfect), from the point of view of patriarchal religion, women are far less in the image of God than are men.
To maintain such omnipotent control one must be essentially independent, disconnected from the controlled because to be connected is to risk being affected by love, which risks change and thus belies perfection. Women, inasmuch as they are (literally) connected to the children they birth, cannot embody this ideal and thus, are once again seen as less-than.
As has already been said, most modern religions teach that man was created in the image of God. Yet we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the story of creation is a myth, or more likely a deliberate hoax. If for no other reason than that the study of evolution has shown that the world could not possibly have been created in seven days, we know that the story of creation is a fairy tale. Perhaps it is one that made sense when it was first written, but in the face of what we know these many years later, we have to ask why this tale of all powerful insta-creation is still gospel today.
The answer to this question is not because God created man who must therefore worship him and submit to his power, but because man created God as a justification for why man should be worshipped and all powerful. As Elaine Charkowski puts it, "Scripture is a collection of statements attributed to God and copy-edited by men."* If one looks back before the patriarchal era, there is ample evidence of Goddess-centric cultures where power was defined by relationships to other beings and to the earth and where the birth of children and the flowing of menstrual blood was taken as a sign of power within. It is with great urgency that we must soon reclaim this cultural grounding that celebrates and honors the power of creation and connection, the power among and the power that is within us all.
Author's note: I am deeply indebted to Marija Gimbutas for reclaiming the history of Goddess-based cultures that came before the patriarchal age. Riane Eisler's groundbreaking work on partnership thinking and Carol P. Christ's inspiring work in defining a feminist theology have both been a strong influence on my thinking as well.
*"Men Who Batter Women Are Terrorists" by Elaine Charkowski, <www.awakenedwoman.com/charkowski_terrorists.htm>http://www.awakenedwoman.com/charkowski_terrorists.htm, May, 2004.
Lucinda Marshall is a feminist artist, writer and activist. She is the Founder of the Feminist Peace Network, www.feministpeacenetwork.org. Her work has been published in numerous publications including,Awakened Woman <http://www.awakenedwoman.com/marshall_paradigm.htm>, Alternet, Hip Mama, Off Our Backs, Rain and Thunder, ZMag and Expository Magazine.