Listening to Women's Voices

Today we hear about patriarchy from four women of color. What stands out to you? What are you learning? How is the Spirit speaking to you?

Women oppress other women because patriarchy rewards those who follow the rules.
- Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native

Genesis 2, after God creates woman and the man calls her such, the text says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24 NIV). What’s interesting about this passage is that it stands in opposition to traditional patriarchal norms in the ancient world—namely, that women leave their families to join their husbands’. It isn’t until after the fall that the patriarchal ordering of the household is introduced.
- Kat Armas, Abuelita Faith

When complementarian group The Gospel Coalition endorsed female subordination in the marriage bed (utilizing the following quote: “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”) evangelical feminist blogger Rachel Held Evans expressed her dismay to her 155,000 followers. “This is such an overtly misogynistic post that I wouldn’t bother commenting on it had it not appeared on a mainstream complementarian site like The Gospel Coalition,”
- Deborah Jian Lee, Rescuing Jesus

The divine title “Lord,” adonai, is the plural possessive (literally “my lords”) of adon, lord. And since “lord” is a substitute for the four sacred letters of the Divine Name that cannot be pronounced, it is not actually God’s name. “Lord” is also a male honorific and is applied to human men in the Hebrew Bible several hundred times. In Exodus 21:8 the slave owner who decides the fate of female slaves based on whether or not they please him sexually is called “her lord.” As a woman and as a feminist woman, I have great difficulty extending the title of the male slaveholder to the deity, particularly when the slaveholder’s authority extends to sexual use of enslaved girls and women. I follow longstanding rabbinic practice and substitute language drawn from the wider biblical tradition for the Tetragrammaton.
- Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash