Thursday, March 19, 2009

Sexism is a Sin!

As we all already know, March is Women's month, and among the causes women fight for around the world, is a cause I have believed in since I was very young; Women's Ordination. For those of you who don't know what that means, it consists of women's right to become priests, deacons, and bishops in the Catholic Church.

While preparing for our international women's day activities last week, a friend of mine asked me how I can be a feminist and still be religious. I answered back with a question: how can you be a feminist and still live in Lebanon? Lebanon is a country where women are extremely oppressed. Lebanese society does not acknowledge women as full human beings, and, still, we're here instead of moving to another country where women have full equality. We stay here and fight for our rights because we love our country, because we believe in it, and because we believe things can change.

The Roman Catholic church has a patriarchal structure that oppresses women today, and a lot of people who don’t want to give up on their religion and their church work on changing this situation to "return the church they love back to the example of Jesus, to be a radical table community where all are invited and included." The Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) is an organization that fights for women's equality in church, and celebrates diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, language and symbol in the church community. Among their causes are:

1. Work for women's equality and justice in all dimensions of life and ministry in the church

2. Eliminate all forms of domination, discrimination and oppression against women in the church

3. Advocate for inclusive, democratic and transparent church structures

4. Promote feminist, womanist, mujerista, and other liberating spiritualities

5. Change the word ‘man’ to ‘person’ in Canon 1024

So, the reason I am posting this today is because next week, on March 25, they celebrate the World Day of Prayer in Support for Women's Ordination. Among their very cool slogans are:

“Sexism is a Sin!"

"Jesus included women. When will you?”

" You can't preach justice unless you practice justice."

"Equal RITES for women,"

and my personal favorite: "God is not a boy's name."
Rania Ig.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very well put Ran. Thank you for this.

Unknown said...

I agree with you and I'd like to appreciate your love and passion for your country as well as for religion. I have observed that religions are not against women, problem is with the interpretations. Everyone concludes in his/her own way as it is done at most places even I have seen racism and sexism at microsoft while I was there for ase certification and taking 220-601 and 70-622. I mentioned it because we think that west is quite liberal and now once again I want to appreciate your belief that 'WE CAN CHANGE' and that should be the spirit.