Here: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/03/10/the-obligatory-yes-virginia-you-can-be-a-feminist-and-a-christian-without-compromising-the-core-tenets-of-either-post/

and here: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/08/29/faith-and-feminism-another-post-on-reconciling-the-two/

I immediately get my warning lights flashing at anyone who says something along the lines of there being no way to be a fundamentalist atheist (or non-religious fundamentalist of any sort). I can’t link or attribute this in any way, because I seriously can’t remember where I read it, but I just came across someone who said “If your movement doesn’t have at least one person in it whose opinions drive you up the wall, it’s not big enough”. And in those conversations, we need to go back to the baseline, and be willing to both ask “Okay, so why are we here again? And how can we channel these disparate views simultaneously onto that very agreed-upon first purpose?”

Rather than, you know, telling people what to think.

And damn my inability to close tags.

this

seems like you can take pretty much any good idea (”say, let’s all be nice to each other”) and twist it into something that’s exactly the opposite of what it once was. that goes for the message of the Gospels and it also goes for feminism. among many other things.

Yeah I think so, i think one of the ways to stop this happening is that you need to keep going back to the baseline like “what is the point of this” again and again. and you need to give people space to grow and move and think.

I’m noticing the fundamentalism in certain types of feminism more and more and very much the atitude of “we are the elect few only what we decided is “real, true” feminism” and becomes more and more prescriptive and elitist as time goes by. And there is an absoloute refusal to dialoge with anyone else who is seen to be not feminist in the exact same way, (re this

So nicely put.

I’ve written a few times on the intersection of my feminism and my Christianity, but this one, from way back when I first started this latest blog, is probably the most relevent:

<a href = “http://purtek.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/on-being-a-christian-feminist/” On Being a Christian Feminist

i also think fundamentalism is as valid a concept when applied to various secular “isms” as anything else. it’s just that historically it can be more dangerous in religion because the ultimate appeal to authority is a supernatural Being. frankly, though, you don’t need it: witness, say, Maoism, Stalinism.

and yeah, I’m more and more inclined to point to certain strains within feminism as “fundamentalist.”

there’s an intriguing looking book out, which I came within a hair of buying the other day before deciding i really have enough books i haven’t read yet. but i think it was called “The Fundamentalist Mind,” something of that sort. interesting stuff.

also related: the work Robert Jay Lifton has done on cults and cult mentality (“authoritarian” if “cult” is too loaded or too extreme to be applicable. or, “totalism”). ultimately it’s not about the doctrine, it’s about certain core characteristics:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/esp/esp11.html

btw, Purtek’s great. per Christian feminists, you might also check Lynn Gazis-Sax and Seraph:

http://notfrisco2.com/leones/index.php

http://seraphicfeathers.blogspot.com/