My First Letter to Michelle Obama

Dear Michelle,

I am soon to begin my new graduate program at Yale Divinity School, and I’ve made a commitment with myself to write you a one-page letter once a month. In each letter, I plan to let you know what I am learning and why I think my education is preparing me to help co-create a world of greater justice, beauty, and equality. My specific research at Yale is focused on the intersection of feminist studies and religion—and why we need to put these two subjects in better dialogue as we work for a world of greater gender justice. I think that writing letters to you will give me a space to reflect each month about the necessity of my education connecting with knowledge and activism outside academia.

When I was doing interviews for potential grad schools, I was alarmed by an assumption I found lurking within higher education: if you want to be a serious scholar, you will have no time also to be an artist or a social activist. If you want to be a serious scholar, you will be writing books for 20 other serious scholars to critique. And if you want to be a serious scholar, you will simply have to let others do the praxis while you spend more time gazing at the theory in your navel.

Fortunately, this summer I started reading the words of womanist and mujerista theologians who named the essential value I had longed to be named: communities create social change, not experts in their ivory towers. Scholars and experts have their contributions, but they are not exempt from practicing mutuality and working within a community of diverse voices who value active participation in social change. Academic theory is certainly important, but it must be the kind of theory that compels a sense of urgency and creative imagination for the lived task of creating a more whole world. Theology is important, too, but only the kind of theology that is incarnate—the kind that is connected to hungry bodies and exploited earth and the Jesus who is amongst the "least of these." The kind of theology that is courageous to grieve the harm in the world and equally brave to celebrate beauty and claim hope beyond the brokenness.

Michelle, I leave in a month to start my program, and I am making a commitment with myself to stay connected to the words I just wrote here. As I am studying for my Master of Arts in Religion, with a concentration in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, I will be asking myself what it means to be a participant in communities of change. I will be wondering whose voices are allowed at the table, and whose voices are still being marginalized. I will be looking at where power gets distributed within higher education. I will be questioning whether the theory espoused by academic feminists—theory that values mutuality, boldly critiques power systems, and gives lip service to the empowerment of the marginalized —actually gets practiced within academic walls. I will let you know.

Sincerely,

Kimberly B. George

All Podcasts are Up

Just a quick note that all 4 podcasts from the recent Faith, Women, Justice series I taught are now up. You can access them here. Each podcast is about 1.5 hours. The first podcast looks at why and how a women's rights movement emerged in the U.S.; the second  examines constructions of gender in the advertising industry; the third is a lecture on the role of women in the church, as well as the problem of domestic violence within churches; and the 4th is a recap of the entire series, as well as a time of personal sharing. 

87% is Not Good Enough

Did you know that the U.S. Congress is 87% men? The U.S. ranks 72nd in the world for representation of women in parliamentary bodies. 

And yet, research shows that women politicians tend to prioritize issues related to women, families, and children, as well as the needs of the poor. So, what happens to our democratic process when Washington is run primarily by privileged white men? What is not brought to the table? 

This NPR story on women in politics, which was recorded in May of 2008, is a fascinating round table discussion on these issues. I recommend listening to all 17 minutes of it and thinking through the different perspectives brought forward.

And just as a disclaimer, I don't think that we should be electing women for political positions just because they are women, nor do I think that a candidate should get so much attention for being a woman that we fail to look at the crux of the issue, namely, what are her qualifications for holding the office for which she runs? But, all of that said, it is a real problem that women—and particularly women of color—are not equally being represented in the U.S. Congress. What could be some of the reasons for these statistics? And why should we care?

Summer Classes

If you live near Seattle, here is some information on the last writing class I will be teaching before I run off to Connecticut to start my new grad program at Yale Divinity. While my class is a writing workshop, the theory in the class draws heavily on the writings of feminist thinkers who advocated seeing "the body as text." Here's the info:

Writing (and Living!) From Your Body 

~A seminar for writers, therapists, and entrepreneurs~

or anyone who wants to explore the value of mind/body connection in the work that they do

We don’t live in our bodies well.

Since at least the time of the Enlightenment, Western science and philosophy has privileged the “rational” mind over the feeling body. “I think therefore I am,” said Descartes, famously locating human existence—and the knowledge we gather of the world around us—solely in abstract mental processes. To Descartes and the ensuing rationalist legacy, trustworthy knowledge was not in a sensing, experiencing body, but rather in the “objective” mind somehow removed from the body.

And yet, in more and more postmodern disciplines (from psychotherapy to linguistics to feminist theory), we are seeing a resurrection of the “body as text”—the idea that the body actually houses a wellspring of knowledge about ourselves and our world. This class is space for you to consider the value of integrating “body knowledge” into traditional assumptions about how we come to know what we know. We will ask questions like:

 

·      In valuing the mind as apart from the body, and in defining reason as abstract and transcendent, how have we lost the concrete, incarnate nature of knowledge?

·      How has disconnection from our bodies affected our work? Our relationships? Our connection to our physical environment?

·      How could the practice of writing and journaling serve to reconnect us to “body knowledge?”

 

The class will both explore relevant theory from diverse discipline and offer practical techniques for living, writing, and creating a more embodied life.

 

Dates: Fridays, June 19 & 26, July 3, 10, & 17

Time: 9:30–11:00 a.m.

Location: 444 Ravenna Blvd., #309, Seattle, WA 98115

Instructor: Kimberly George

Cost: $125 for the 5-week course. $25 deposit will hold your registration. Class limited to the first 5 people who register. To register or receive more information, please email:writeexpressions@gmail.com

 

Grief and Hope and Questions

I am sitting this morning at 6 a.m. drinking an amazing americano in one of my favorite neighborhoods of Seattle. I am not usually in the city at this hour, but I just dropped my dear friend Nick off at the airport for his trip to Italy, and I have this awkward hour before my 7:00 Bible reading, a group that I go to every Wednesday morning. (And by the way, our little committed group finished the OT a few weeks back. A year-and-a-half of reading straight through and we finally got to Jesus! It's exciting.)

As I sit here in this fresh morning, I am wondering about something which feels key to my life calling as an activist/teacher for gender justice: how do I teach on grief and how do I teach on hope and what exactly do those two things have to do with one another? 

The question has come up because for the past 3 weeks, I have been teaching a class at a local church that has plunged into very heavy subject material: power structures, spiritual abuse, gender inequalities, domestic and sexual violence. Now, I am preparing the last class, which I will teach this Thursday. I had all sorts of plans for new material to present, but one of the students wrote to tell me that she needed help grieving.  And that stopped me. Perhaps it is time to put aside my statistics, my philosophy, my data.

I was again reminded of of something I knew but need to stay rooted in as I teach: at a certain  point,  transformation in our lives and our communities comes not only from more knowledge,  but rather from engaging a  hope that has the courage to hold deep communion with grief. I do not know how it is possible to arrive at new visions of justice on this earth unless we are willing to enter the sorrow of all that is not well, and yet everything in me wants to resist that sorrow. I am still learning how to grieve; I am still learning that if I have the courage to enter the most broken parts of myself, that new life will be found in the journey. 

It is much easier to teach feminist theory and intellectual concepts than to bring all the awkwardness I feel around what it means to grieve living as a woman in such a broken world. For people who know me well, they know that I like to grieve alone. I rarely bring my tears before others anymore. And yet, there is something profound and healing about communities who are willing to sorrow together...as they collectively long and labor for more justice and mercy in this hurting world. 

And so this Thursday I will ask the participants in the class (as I will ask myself) what does it look like to bring our bodies, our minds, our personal stories to our study of huge, macro level problems? What are the boundaries to hold when we grieve as a community? What does it mean to acknowledge that hope is perhaps "cheap hope" if it has not courageously entered the depths of grief? And how, in the midst of engaging the sorrow of the world, do we remember to hold onto dancing, poetry, laughter, beauty?

Podcasts are up!

This month I am teaching a weekly class on Faith, Women, and Justice, and the first two podcasts are up and available. The final two podcasts will be available soon (the third probably  by this weekend and the fourth by next weekend). I am grateful to Rose Madrid-Swetman and her husband Rich for hosting the event at their church, Vineyard Community. It has been a great time to generate discussion around some pressing issues at the border of feminism and Christian faith.

Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power

The radio program Women: Body & Soul had a thought-provoking show in April discussing a new book, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, edited by Shira Tarrant, PhD. The program featured not only Dr. Tarrant, but also three of the book's contributers: Jacob Anderson-Minshal, a disabled, transgender freelance author; Byron Hurt, who is a filmmaker, activist and educator addressing sexual and gender violence prevention, and masculinity; and Jeremy Adam Smith, who is senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of the book, The Daddy Shift, out on Beacon Press in June.

I downloaded the show last week and listened to it one morning, and it was well worth my time. The diversity of voices represented made for a fascinating conversation. I was reminded again of how encouraging it is to hear thoughtful men  dialoguing about gender, sex, and power.

To those men who are participating in conversations like these...thank you.