Sometimes, we are reminded quite suddenly about the importance of life. Often, this realization comes in response to a great loss.
For the last two months, I have been bombarded by the typical demands of life -- running a business, wrapping up one semester, preparing for another, enjoying the hubbub of the holidays. All of these are good and important parts of who I am. But in the meantime, blogging about gender issues continued to take a back seat to these other responsibilities.
Then, this morning, I opened an email from one of my feminist listserves to discover that feminist theologian Mary Daly had passed away yesterday after two years of struggling with ailing health. Daly was one of those writers whom I felt I knew intimately; like if we had a chance meeting at a local coffee shop, we'd chat for hours over cups of chai. I feel like she cultivated this intimacy with many of her readers, and I believe it's largely because of the incredibly honest way that she explored her theological journey.
If you've never read her work, I recommend reading it chronologically. Start with The Church and the Second Sex, a text that seems woefully outdated to most contemporary feminist theologians, but is vital in understanding the groundwork laid by pioneers in religious feminist thought. In it, Daly is so seemingly innocent about her questions about theology and ecclesiastical hierarchy -- Why are all the priests men? Is the Virgin Mary an empowering figure to women or a limiting one? Why are women and men told that they have equal access to salvation, but then, according to the Catholic church, women have to get theirs through submission to men?
Then, as you progress through her later works, prepare to have your socks knocked off.
Move on to one of her most well-known works Beyond God the Father, where she questions the patriarchal nature of God. From there, perhaps indulge in the poetry of a new theology created in Gyn/Ecology or, one of my personal favorites, her witty dictionary of new feminist theological terms in Wickedary.
Daly is playful, subversive, and poetic. When I first encountered her writing, I did not know what to do with her. In fact, if you ascribe to traditional religious beliefs, her later works will probably make you uncomfortable. And rather fidgety. For me, they were kind of like the itch I couldn't scratch. For others, they generate anger and resistance. Here's why.
Daly begins her theological journey by trying to find ways to work within the traditional church, but she quickly determines that religious practices are too mired in the patriarchal nature of God (with a capital "G") for God's true egalitarian nature to be redeemed in any meaningful way for women. And while her spiritual journey and mine digress at this point (she rejects a patriarchal God; I try to rework my understandings of God so that they are non-patriarchal), I appreciate that her anger is honest and her questioning is real. I have encountered very few theologians who have achieved this level of prophetic bravery combined with an innovative intellectual pursuit of theology.
Daly has allowed me to analyze the patriarchal aspects of my belief systems, which in turn allowed me to reject those aspects that are harmful and uncover those aspects that are empowering to women and offer voice to the voiceless. I admire Daly and seek to emulate her unabashed desire for wholeness, community, and real love.
So today I honor Mary Daly's life, not, as is typical after someone's passing, because of fond memories or good deeds (both of which I'm sure exist in excess) but because of her rich intellectual life. Daly has reminded me, once again, at how powerful intellectual inquiry can be, how it can change lives through a never-before-articulated question, a well-worded rebuttal against the status quo, or, in Daly's case, an entirely new vocabulary to mirror an entirely new way of thinking.
The next time I put blogging or research on the backburner of my life, I'll think of Daly. She has taught me in earnest that the mind is a terrible thing to waste.
From Mary Hunt, in her brief memorial to Daly from Feminist Studies in Religion:
She created intellectual space; she set the bar high. Even those who disagreed with her are in her debt for the challenges she offered.
May we all strive for such a rich legacy of ideas.
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5 comments:
I'm so glad to read you today. I had been here earlier this afternoon to see if anything new was up. Your analysis of her work and views make me so curious to learn more about this woman you describe.
I love that Mary Daly became an itch that you couldn't scratch. Thanks for your elegant elegy, which reminded me how, "powerful intellectual inquiry can be, how it can change lives through a never-before-articulated question, a well-worded rebuttal against the status quo." Those words have energized me for my day. And I too now want to read Mary Daly.
Thanks so much for this elegy and the suggestions for beginning to experience the Mary Daly canon.
I read a few articles and excerpts of her work in classes, and I'd love to dig more into her work. It sounds like she made so much progress by just making observations about the state of women in the church. And while "The Church and the Second Sex" may seem outdated, a lot of times people need to see these basic questions raised. There is a place for seemingly outdated writing when culture in most churches is still so woefully outdated.
Believe me, I was back in Ohio for Christmas, and even simple criticisms like the examples you gave seem revolutionary for the church I grew up in.
I'd like to think that I could aim my bar a bit higher than transphobia, to be honest.
It's a little ironic that a blog called 'The Gender Lens' supports a woman who condemned people with gender dysphoria as part of a 'Frankenstein phenomenon... which invades the female world with substitutes'. Isn't transsexuality a very topical gender issue, as worthy of respect as gender inequality?
And, of course, she completely ignores the fact that there are plenty of FTM transgendered people too. But of course, I forgot-- they're just betraying the sisterhood in search of masculine power, right?
Don't read Mary Daly, fellow comment-givers. She might have thought that was acceptable circa 1970 but it's 2011 now and her bullshit is not cool.
Thanks so much for your comment, Kylix. It's important for all of us to remember to be careful of those whom we laud as heroic, since it is easy to forget that they, too, are human. When we mourn someone, however, we tend to remember their positive contributions to society, which is what I had hoped to do with this post.
What is interesting about reading Daly's work is that her views change with time. Her early writings seem almost pathetically patriarchal, and year by year, book by book, she opens herself up to new possibilities. I like that she's honest about where she's at as a thinker. Sadly, she does not seem to move forward on her views of transgendered individuals.
And you're absolutely right -- her disdain for transgendered individuals is unfounded and unacceptable. Still, it does not mean that we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of not reading Mary Daly, perhaps a better approach would be to read her with an ever-critical eye, recognizing where her voice is prophetic and where it is woefully narrow-minded. In fact, we need to do this with all our feminist and trans thinkers. So thank you for reminding me of that!
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