Third Wave Feminism survey on Spirituality
I was recently emailed by Christine Brooks, PhD and Shayna Korb, “two feminist women researchers from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California.” The ITP is an organization which describes itself as “at the frontier of psychology and spirituality,” and with an educational paradigm which “[values] the mind, body, spirit connection.”
Christine and Shayna are doing a study on third wave feminists and their spirituality:
Are you a 3rd Wave Feminist?
How do you experience spirituality?
Share your voice with us. We’re doing a pilot study on third wave feminists’ experience of spirituality. If you identify as a woman and a third wave feminist and you’re between the ages of 18-40, fill out our short (we estimate under 20 minutes) narrative survey!
The study is at http://ThirdWaveSpirit.questionpro.com and Christine and Shayna said they could be emailed at ThirdWaveSpirit@gmail.com. I just completed the survey, and I’d say their time estimate is pretty accurate. It also has some interesting questions that required some thought about where I am with religion, spirituality, and my sense of self.
Themocracy
Just took it — I found it interesting and stimulating as well. I’d love to hear some of the thoughts you had while taking it if you feel like sharing.
Hm. I guess I hadn’t thought much how how there is a disconnect for me between spirituality – defined loosely for me as “the feeling that there’s something more than what we see around us” – as opposed to religion – defined loosely for me as “the organized act/ritual of worshiping a supreme being.”
I don’t have much trouble feeling like a spiritual person, but attempting to cross over into what feels like ‘religion’ has been difficult (and, thus far, ultimately impossible).
Thinking in an unrelated direction, I also feel like my identity as a feminist (and specifically a third wave feminist, at that) connects with my thoughts on spirituality. Whatever “more” there is than what we can see around us is definitely linked for me with the futility of reducing individuals to an essentialist definition of race/gender/sexuality/nationality/religion/etc. I feel strongly that, while those things are not unrelated to who we “truly” are, what could be called a soul, there’s not a one-to-one relationship between the two. That is, the individuals are composed neither of purely nature or purely nurture, but a healthy mix of both, with whatever divine spark is needed for consciousness, to boot.
(Rereading this reply, it seems rather rambling. Sorry if it’s not entirely coherent!)
It’s perfectly coherent. : )
I’m sure that religion/spirituality disconnect is a very common one, but it’s not one I experience. For me, individual interior experience just doesn’t feel like… quite enough, somehow. I need that connection to history, that repetition of something my ancestors have done countless times, in order to feel, well, spiritual. That’s where the meaning, mysticism and profundity come from for me.
I strongly suspect this variety among people is largely dispositional. I’m as radical as the next queer, but I have a deep and wide traditionalist streak that I just can’t steer around (and don’t want to). Something about the dense dusts of history coating a ritual or a song is inherently appealing to me, especially when it’s my own history doing the dusting.
On the topic of third wave feminism, my faith and practice are grounded unshakably in justice. For me, though, feminism comes from religion — maybe that’s a difference between religious and spiritual people, the order in which our theories of the political vs the metaphysical emerge? Do you know which comes first for you?
(Let me know if this is boring to you! I know I’m thread-jacking a bit.)
It’s not boring at all! And no worries about thread-jacking. =)
I think that makes a lot of sense, and I’ve definitely felt at times like I’m on the outside (of religion, and Judaism specifically) looking at something I’d like to participate in, but I’m just not able to get past my own issues (which I believe we’ve discussed before). In short, my inability to get past what I don’t like about Judaism – now or in the past – prevents me from full and actively participating in what I do.
To use a somewhat silly analogy, I don’t have this problem with the US Constitution or, more broadly, the US government. What you said about “the connection to history” made me think about my ability to feel excited or passionate or patriotic about the US, even though it (like Judaism) has not had an entirely pure or clean history. Likewise, I don’t agree with everything that “America’ stands for, or everyone who considers themselves “American.” I have no problem calling myself an American, or saying that my vision of America is just as “right” as someone who vehemtly disagrees with me.
But I’m not able to find a similar comfort level with Judaism.
(Hopefully my analogy, which I intended to use as a way to think about where I do and don’t have mental blocks, won’t offend anyone…)
See, I don’t even disagree. I think that’s beautifully put, and I just want to know where this big block I have – preventing me from finding a similar, untarnished, appeal – is coming from…
That’s an interesting thought. I’m not sure which comes first for me; it seems something like a chicken-and-egg problem! Does my sense of justice and equality come from a spiritual and intangible belief in our interconnectedness, or does that same spiritual belief stem from my sense that everyone deserves justice?
I think the spiritual does come first, though. That is, I believe – even if it’s simply as a metaphor – that my actions can cascade and effect everyone else on the planet, and vice versa. From there, I’m lead to the primacy of justice, rather than the other way around.
But I’m not sure. I need to think more on it, because I don’t think I’ve strongly considered why or how justice/feminism/equality/etc are important to me, just that they are.
Your Judaism/US analogy is really interesting to me; it clarifies your struggle (I’ve definitely had that same struggle with the US), but I don’t understand why you can embrace American identity and not Jewish identity. It seems to me that by every measure the US is worse than Judaism. The colonialism of Israel is abhorrent but it doesn’t compare to the sweeping, massive imperialist genocide of the US. Nothing in Jewish history (a history of underdogs, exile, and just barely surviving) compares to American slavery. You know?
Not that it has to make sense to me — your experience is your experience and that’s cool. But I too want to know where your big block is coming from; you’re definitely not the only one and I want to understand (if possible).
I think the spiritual does come first, though. That is, I believe – even if it’s simply as a metaphor – that my actions can cascade and effect everyone else on the planet, and vice versa. From there, I’m lead to the primacy of justice, rather than the other way around.
But I’m not sure. I need to think more on it, because I don’t think I’ve strongly considered why or how justice/feminism/equality/etc are important to me, just that they are.
That makes sense. Looking forward to those thoughts when/if you want to share them!
I’m not claiming that it makes sense, even to me. ::grin:: I offer no argument that my feelings are consistent, just that they are.
I understand where you’re coming from, but what I’m feeling (again, not necessarily what reality is, just my emotional impression) is a connection to the ideals of freedom and self-determination of the US, as compared to a history of a vengeful and capricious deity, slavery, and colonialist land-grabbing.
This is intentionally oversimplifying, and I realize your visions of the US and Judaism are just as accurate as mine. I don’t actually view the US purely through such rose-tinted glasses, nor do I view Judaism in such a universally negative light. But I feel like, for example, the US is able to say “Yeah, that whole slavery stuff? We fucked up” and then go and include that in the Constitution. Conversely, in Judaism, slavery is, without a doubt, unacceptable and against every precept of the Judaism in which I was raised, but you can’t actually find that language in the Bible. You can interpret your way there from other precepts of justice, but there’s never an explicit condemnation.
I guess that goes back to one of my main frustrations with Judaism, as a religion rather than a culture, in that the source text seems so removed and out-of-date when compared to the living experience. I’m wanting God to have come down and issued a “Slavery: Out. Women’s rights: In.” update in a sixth book of the Torah.
Ultimately, I’m worried these are all somehow masks for some bigger issue that I’m unable to articulate, since obviously there are many people (such as yourself) who are able to reconcile the not-always-rosy history of Judaism with their present-day experience of it. I just wish I was one of them, and hope I one day might be.
I’m not claiming that it makes sense, even to me. ::grin:: I offer no argument that my feelings are consistent, just that they are.
Which is more than fair! : )
I hear everything you’re saying and it’s all reasonable. I respect your position.
As to your last paragraph, if you figure out what the bigger issue is (if there is one) I’d be curious to hear. I’ve written and deleted a dozen responses to your last sentence and none of them seems right. I think what I want to say is: It’s an experience; you can’t think or talk your way into or out of it. Some people say stupid shit like “If you want to feel it, you already do” — that’s not true at all. I do think that if you want to, you can feel it, as in it’s possible, but it can take a long time. It took a long time for me.
I’m wanting God to have come down and issued a “Slavery: Out. Women’s rights: In.” update in a sixth book of the Torah.
I think this is in many ways what Judaism is: the attempt to cope with the lack of that. What does it mean to listen to the word of God in a world with so much silence?
There is no easy answer to that and I think that’s the point.
First, if I haven’t mentioned this before, I really enjoy talking about religion and Judaism with you (among many other things). It’s really helped me work on figuring out where I am, and I appreciate it.
That’s ultimately part of my problem – I operate on the assumption that everything can be picked apart until understood, and I’m realizing more and more how that’s just not always the case. I can’t turn off the voices in my head enough to solely feel something – particularly weighty and charged somethings like religion – so I end up frustrated.
I guess that’s something I’ll just have to keep working on.
I really enjoy talking to you about Judaism and everything else too. : )
That’s ultimately part of my problem – I operate on the assumption that everything can be picked apart until understood, and I’m realizing more and more how that’s just not always the case. I can’t turn off the voices in my head enough to solely feel something – particularly weighty and charged somethings like religion – so I end up frustrated.
This was the case for me too for a very long time. Once again I’m writing and deleting response after response and can’t seem to get it right…
I’m not sure if this is too much information or whatever, but: What changed it for me was that I got so depressed about injustice and the problem of evil that I wanted to kill myself. I remember once I spilled a cup of coffee and fell down sobbing (as teenagers tend to do), and when my mom asked what was wrong I said “There is no God.” Haha. So I wasn’t like a lot of folks who are content with secularism; I was in excruciating pain about it.
I eventually realized that I was at the turning point people sometimes face where they either find God or die. “I have placed before you life and death; therefore choose life.” I went to temple and in a stroke of luck for which I am still unspeakably grateful, I met a very kind queer rabbinical student who saw me and understood me and told me everything I needed to hear — she saw all my pain and rage and told me it was empathy. There’s a lot more to the story — mystical dreams of Hebrew letters and such — but that’s the heart of it. I turned to Judaism because I had to, and it saved my life, and continues to save my life. It’s manna.
Anyway. I wish you the best of luck on your journey and I’m always happy to talk with you about it, wherever you find yourself.
Yeah, I think I need to find me a good in-person resource in Chicago if I’m really interested in exploring this further…
And I don’t think that’s too much information at all. It really helps me understand more about where you’re coming from, so thank you for sharing.