Mozaik 15/2005 Human Rights: A Gender Perspective by WSCF-Europe

Not to Mention We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

Ayn Rand

Active oppression is usually noisy enough to be noticed. It is difficult to hide a prison full of people or to pretend that Siberia is nothing but a natural paradise. There is, however, a more subtle form of oppression that is much less noisy and thus much harder to detect. This is oppression by silence. If a wrongdoing is not mentioned, it perpetuates itself. Not to mention can be a refined method of disfavouring an individual or a group. Many liberation movements started their operation by trying to convince the public that there actually is something wrong in society. One of the problems of contemporary Europe and contemporary world that needs mentioning is the issue of the rights of women and more specifically, the phenomenon of trafficking in women. This issue was chosen as the key topic for the spring gender conference of WSCF Europe, Respecting Human Dignity and Integrity: Gender and Theological Perspectives on Human Rights, which took place in April 2005 in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is also at the core of this issue of Mozaik which focuses on human rights from a gender perspective. Self-criticism is a value that should accompany every discourse about rights and oppression. History teaches us that it is very easy for the oppressed to become oppressors once they gain power if they view reality only through the prism of their own suffering. On the other hand this kind of discourse also needs unequivocal statements, even at the risk of one-sidedness. To discuss rights and their violation in an impartial way is almost impossible. Still this should be an impetus for more and not less discussion. Furthermore, in every liberation struggle there are stages. Systematic breaking of silence needs to become a continuous discourse that collects ideas for the optimal realisation of liberation. The authors of the articles brought to you in this journal make the reader uneasy at times, which is a sign that they take the discourse about human rights and gender in a passionate way. We hope that the passion of the writers will be received with authentic open-mindedness by the readers, who are cordially invited to send comments, feedback, questions and further ideas to our e-mail address: wscfmozaik@yahoo.co.uk. The topic of this issue of Mozaik finds its way to the reader also through the artwork of our illustrator Kamelia Konstantinova from Bulgaria. This versatile artist, who deals both with icons and childrenâ€™s illustrations, expresses in her art the modalities of the relation between unity and diversity. This issue of Mozaik is my first as editor-in-chief. I remain grateful to my predecessor NAGYPĂ L Szabolcs for the amazing work he has done in resuscitating and shaping Mozaik. I am also thankful for his assistance and advice during the process of handover and hope for a continuation of our co-operation in the future. I would also like to thank my fellow editors Angharad and Rebecca, with whom it was a pleasure to edit this first issue of mine, and whose invisible hand you will encounter throughout the journal. Ut omnes unum sint.

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Eilidh W H I T E F O R D

Women and Human Rights —How Much Progress Have We Made? Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) worth the paper it’s written on as far as women are concerned? We may well ask this question when we consider the position of women in the world today, because for millions of women, human rights are, at best, an abstract concept far removed from the daily realities of life. For women, human rights have proved much easier to invoke than to realise. Of course many people, men as well as women, across all continents, find their human rights infringed upon and violated in a variety of ways; but in practice women are often disproportionately affected by the collective failure to secure and implement human rights effectively. While there’s a tendency in some quarters to draw a theoretical distinction between civil and political rights (‘hard’ human rights) and social and economic rights (‘soft’ human rights), in practice a deep interconnection between economic agency and political agency betrays the falseness of any firm distinction. In other words, poverty and political marginalisation often walk hand in hand.

WOMEN IN THE WORLD TODAY Extreme poverty is possibly the most stark example of unequal gender relations (often compounded by race issues) contributing to the denial of human rights. Of those suffering extreme poverty today, that is, the billion-plus people who survive on less than $1 U.S. per day, seventy percent are women and girls. Access to food, water and shelter—the key essentials of life that ensure our most basic human rights—are distributed in such a way that systematically excludes and discriminates against women. Very simple medical interventions could save the lives of almost all the women who die as a result of childbirth— one woman every minute—and yet, even the minimal health care required to support the natural process of childbirth is denied to millions of women in developing countries. It is not simply that resources are scarce; rather, the problem rests with the uneven distribution of resources and the low priorities attached to meeting women’s needs. Similar patterns can be observed in other areas of social and economic life. Of the hundred million children missing out on primary schooling today, two thirds are girls— a discrepancy that becomes even more marked in secondary and higher education. Three quarters of the world’s illiterate adults are women. On a global level, women put in two thirds of the world’s working hours and produce half of its food (incidentally, a reality far removed from the European stereotype of women as homemakers rather than breadwinners). Yet women earn only ten percent of income globally, and own only one percent of the world’s property. It’s not simply economic, though. Even in countries where women have some degree of economic independence, they are still under-represented within political structures and institutions. Women constitute only eight percent of persons in government worldwide and hold a mere fourteen percent of parliamentary seats. These figures reflect the reality in rich countries with strong dem-

ocratic traditions, as well as that of poor countries or those with more fragile governance. Another indicator of the status of women around the world that bears no direct correlation to poverty, geography, nationality, or ethnicity, is that of violence against women. This encompasses a range of actions, from domestic violence, to sexual abuse, to human trafficking, all of which not only violate women’s rights, but also destroy women’s lives. The United Nations estimates that one in three women experiences some form of genderbased violence during her lifetime.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Yet this rather depressing global picture is not inevitable. Rather, it sets us a historical challenge. Back in 1929 the English cultural theorist and novelist Virginia Woolf claimed that with ‘a room of one’s own’ and £500 a year, a woman could soar to the heights of cultural achievement. For women of Woolf’s generation this was a luxury open only to an economically privileged elite. Yet, even if few of us are destined to match the artistry of Virginia Woolf, as I write today from my own desk, in my own home, I cannot but be aware of the benefits women of my generation have accrued from the efforts of our foremothers to secure rights for women. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that women really enjoy full equality in the UK (or many other parts of Europe, for that matter). We don’t. There is a sizeable ‘pay gap,’ in that women earn significantly less than men in the workplace, even when ‘optional’ career breaks (such as those to care for young children or elderly relatives) are factored into the calculations. Women are disproportionately represented amongst people living below the accepted poverty ‘breadline.’ And there is significant under-representation within the political system (only 15 percent of elected representatives). Unlike women in some parts of the world, however, we do enjoy equality before the law. We have voting rights, property and inheritance rights, employment rights, reproductive rights. We can live independently, we don’t need chaperones on the streets, and for the most part we can choose whom to love, whom to marry, and how to live our lives. That wasn’t necessarily true for women of my grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ era, so change definitely happens! What would those women think of our situation today, and the situation of women around the world? My great-grandmother, who was dead many years before I was born, was part of the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland in the early years of the XXth century. She was a committed socialist who, with the limited formal education available to women of her background, was more than capable of making the intellectual connections between gender and class issues that too often seem to tax more highly educated minds in our own time. I suspect that women of her generation, who campaigned not only for the right to vote, but also for the right to decent wages for their work, and for the right to a decent education, would find a lot in common with women around the world who are campaigning for women’s labour rights and girls’ access to education today.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

By contrast, I suspect that my great-grandmother might find her world very far removed from mine—a life punctuated by higher degrees, the stresses of professional life, and international travel, though unencumbered by the demands of children or household management. Nevertheless, I hope we would be able to celebrate together the choices and opportunities her activism opened up to the daughters of subsequent generations. The other perspective I hope my great-grandmother and I could share would be the recognition that the far-reaching political and economic changes brought about by the campaign waged by her and her sisters were hard-won and keenly contested. The most significant changes to the position of women did not come about due to some civilized discussions that led to a neat consensus. Quite the contrary, there were big arguments, a hard-fought struggle and bitter divisions before women gained the right to vote, gained access to universities, and started to enter professional life. Many men played a positive part in that struggle, but ultimately women had to lead it for themselves. Then as now, we should not expect our stance on gender equality to make us universally popular.

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MOVING FORWARD To return to the question I posed at the outset, does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights make a difference for women? At the end of the day, international legislation enshrining human rights does not, on its own, change anything very much. But people do make a difference, by how they live and how they act. As human beings with a shared understanding of our collective responsibilities, we can use the framework of human rights to assert the equality and dignity of all people, and to challenge the terms of any cultural discourse that posits women’s subjugation and marginalisation as either natural, inevitable or ordained. That in itself is a significant step forward. Suggested Reading Woolf Virginia, A Room of One’s Own. London, 1929. de Beauvoir Simone, Le Deuxieme Sexe. Paris, 1949. Davis Angela, Women, Race and Class. New York, 1981. United Nations, Progress of the World’s Women. www.unifem.undp.org (Note: all facts and figures in this article are drawn from this report.) Eilidh Whiteford is a Vice Chairperson of the WSCF, and former Chairperson and Women’s Co-ordinator of WSCF-Europe. She studied English language and literatures in both Scotland and Canada, receiving a doctorate in Scottish Literature from the University of Glasgow in 1998. Eilidh now works as policy and public affairs co-ordinator for a large international development organisation. Her email is eilidhwhiteford@yahoo.co.uk.

Bogdan P O P E S C U

Human Rights in Early Christian Writings Human rights are not simple secular inventions. The Christian Church also fought for these values even before the edict of Milan (313 A.D.) during the time of the persecutions. Christian communities spread and developed in the Roman world—the centre of civilisation but also an unjust empire. The inhabitants of this state were not equal, women and slaves being the exploited social categories. In those difficult conditions, courageous Christian writers raised their voices against opression and discrimination.

THE CONDITION OF WOMEN Women certainly had better conditions within the Christian communities than in the traditional Roman society. For this reason, Adalbert Hamman stressed that “women embraced Christianity also because the new religion offered them the chance of equality and emancipation, freedom of decision and expression.” Over the centuries there were attempts to improve the condition of women in the Roman world, but the results were not that visible. The Stoics and the Platonists realized the importance of this step, but they didn’t succeed in changing the old traditions. Girls were forced to marry when they were very young and they had to choose between the authority of their husbands (cum manu) and that of their fathers (sine manu). According to Roman law, the other possibilities were: usus—they had to accept the authority of the husbands after one year of marriage; and coemptio—in this case they were bought by their future partners.

The adultery committed by a woman was punished through the Lex Iulia de adulteriis, while men were free to have concubines. The wives were forced to eat separately, together with their children, and had no access to education. The feminine descendance (cognatio) was accepted only in the year 178, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, while before only the masculine (agnatio) was accepted. Men were able to divorce and the procedure was quite simple. According to the Law of 12 Tables, they only had to ask for the key of the house and to banish their wives (claves ademit, exegit). This procedure was, however, much more complicated in the case of women and the post-marital situation was very hard for them. They were not accepted in public life, in politics, administration of justice, literature or sport. The Christian writers of the first centuries condemned the discrimination of women, particularly their image as “possessed objects,” and defended their freedom to marry the persons they loved. Clement of Alexandria stressed that women must be treated the way men are treated. They should love their husbands by conviction and not by force. According to the same writer, women are different only from the physical point of view, but they are endowed with the same nature that men are. There is only one human nature (mia fisis). There is not a good and bad nature, but there are good and bad persons, men or women, who belong to the same nature. Virtue must be

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

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Bogdan P O P E S C U

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achieved by women as well as by men (Stromata II.23, IV.8). In the Roman Empire women had their own religious life, dedicated to a Magna Mater, while men observed masculine religions like Mithraism. Within the Christian communities, women had the right to join men in the same religious life. Clement showed that there was only one God for men and women (Pedagogue I.4). Concerning children, women had also limited rights. Only pater familias had the right to accept or to abandon a child. The situation was different for the Christian families, which never accepted the practice of abandonment. The Letter to Diognet stressed: “Christians get married like all the people do but they don’t banish the children” (c.V) and Tertulianus accused the Romans: “You abandon your children in the street!” (Apologeticus IX). Minucius Felix suggested that the Romans learnt this sad tradition from their immoral gods: “You leave your children in front of the beasts. You learnt that from your gods. It is true that Saturn didn’t banish his children but ate them” (Octavius XXX). The equality of men and women is stressed after the edict of Milan by many other writers. Ambrose of Milan emphasized this idea in his Letters (LXIII), considering that women must be partners of men and not servants; and Gregory of Nazianz condemned the laws made up by men for men: “Why did they punish the woman but considered the man innocent? The wife is considered sinful while the unfaithful man does not suffer. I don’t accept this legislation. I don’t accept this tradition. Men are legislators and all the laws are against women.” (Sermon XXXVII).

THE CONDITION OF SLAVES In the case of slavery, the Christian Church did not attempt to initiate a revolution in order to change the social structure of the empire. The transformations started only within the Christian communities, where the slaves were considered brothers and sisters, children of the same God. In the Roman world, the slaves played the role of objects (res) and their situation was regulated by the laws concerning animals and objects. One famous expression went: “slave or other cattle.” Until the 2nd century, masters were allowed to kill their servants without any explanation (ius vitae necisque). The Law of the 12 Tables also considered the slaves

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

simple tools. Their marriages didn’t receive official recognition and according to the laws they lived in contubernium—concubinage, their children becoming properties of the masters. The Christian writers condemned the institution of slavery but didn’t ask for sudden changes that could have compromised even more the sensitive relation between state and the Christian Church. The Teaching of the 12 Apostles advised masters to respect their servants because they are children of the same God (c. IV). Ignatius of Antioch recommended the same attitude but emphasized the importance of inner freedom. According to this writer, the moment of general liberation (manumissio) hadn’t come yet and such an attempt could lead to greater persecutions. Therefore, slaves must be treated in a different way within the Christian communities (Letter to Policarp IV.3). As in the case of women, Clement of Alexandria emphasized the importance of a common nature. Slaves were not considered objects but human beings who shared the same nature with their masters. The same author said: “Take away the robes and the jewellery of the masters and you’ll see, they are not different from their slaves, they are not superior at all. They are even inferior because their bodies are weak and they get sick more easily than the servants.” Clement also emphasized the right of slaves to a free religious life. The real master is God and God must be obeyed even when the masters of the earth forbid this attitude. Christians must also learn how to work without slaves. They have to consider the servants as equals and love them (The Pedagogue I.12, III.6,11). After the edict of Milan the attitude of Christian writers became more radical. Gregory of Nazianz interceded for a slave who had been ordained bishop in order for him to be liberated, and John Chrysostom considered slavery a mark of sin because God created human beings to be equal. In the Homily XXII on the Ephesians, the patriarch showed that “slavery is a fruit of covetousness, of degradation, of savagery, since Noah…had no servant, nor had Abel, nor Seth,” and stressed that the Church should not adopt this unnatural institution. He often protected the slaves and accused the officials who wanted to be Christians but wanted to preserve this “sinful” institution. In case of Augustine of Hippo, dominion over human beings is considered a regrettable consequence of the Fall: “This is prescribed by the order of the nature: it is thus that God has created human beings. For “let them,” God says, “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. God did not intend that a rational creature, who was made in God’s image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation, not human being over human being, but human being over beasts. …The righteous human beings in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings.” Thus slavery is a non-natural institution of civitas terrena. Augustine stressed that the word “slave” couldn’t be found in history until Noah branded the sin of his son with this term. Possessed by the libido dominandi, the children of this world tried to exercise

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

their power by conquering and subduing, because they don’t like to share and live in harmony (The City of God XIX.14,15).

CONCLUSIONS I intended to emphasize this early contribution of Christianity in order to prove that human rights don’t belong only to natural law. Freedom, equality of chances, and mutual respect are not just secular products. In a new Europe, if we want to defend human rights, we must not forget the importance of Christianity. Of course, throughout the centuries, rulers, political or even ecclesiastical structures tried to justify injustice through Christian ideas. The writings of the first centuries prove that injustice does not have Christian roots. On the contrary, Christianity succeeded gradually in changing the pagan society, fighting for the rights of women and slaves. It is true that there is injustice within the contemporary world, mainly because the two pillars of the Roman

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Empire, the Oriental mentality and the Western pragmatism, survived. For this reason the Christians of our days have to pay attention to the heritage of the first centuries, to continue the direction initiated by early Christian writers. Suggested Reading Ariès Philippe and Duby Georges, Histoire de la vie privée I. De l’Empire romain à l’an mil. Paris, 1985. Carcopino Jéroˆme, La vie quotidienne à Rome à l’apogée de l’Empire. Paris, 1989. Cizek Eugen, The History of Rome. Bucures¸ti, 2002. Christol Michael, Rome et son empire. Des origines aux invasions barbares. Paris, 1990. Glancy Jennifer, Slavery in Early Christianity. New York, 2002. O’Donovan Oliver and O’Donovan Joan Lockwood, From Irenaeus to Grotius. A Sourcebook in Political Thought. Grand Rapids, 1999.

Bogdan Popescu was born in Bucures¸ti, Romania, in 1976. He graduated from the Orthodox Seminary of Bucharest (1996) and from the Faculty of Theology, University of Bucharest (2000). He has a Master’s Degree in ecumenical studies (Bossey, Switzerland, 2002); his thesis dealt with Church and state relationship. Currently he is a Ph.D. student in Sibiu, doing research on patristics and an assistant lecturer of Church history in the Orthodox Seminary of Cernica. He also works as an inspector for the Department of Education of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate. His e-mail adress is bogdanpopescu76@hotmail.com.

Thorsten N I L G E S

Gender Inequality in Politics Gender inequality is a problem not only across Europe—all over the world there is a power gap between men and women. Women have less access to parliamentary and executive power; they are less educated, have fewer good jobs and are less wealthy than men. The underlying reasons for gender inequality can be found in the patriarchal structure of the cultural background of every ethnicity, nation or people. Also all religious communities, whether Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, traditional or Christian, give more power to men than to women. Lots of Europeans think that gender inequality is not as much of a problem in our generation as it was in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, or not as much of a problem as in developing countries or Arab countries; but we Europeans are also living under unequal gender conditions. This article aims to analyse gender inequality in the political system. Democracy—rule by the people—should include all segments of society. One instrument for the empowerment of women in the government is a quota system, since aside from the aforementioned cultural, economic and social and historical reasons, female participation also depends on the electoral system.

MEASURING GENDER INEQUALITY To measure inequality the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) developed two indicators: the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The GDI measures (the same as the Human Development Index, HDI) life expectancy, knowledge and the quality of life. The indicators are (1) the life expectancy at birth; (2) the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools; and (3) the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP).

The GDI was developed in 1995 and measures women and men separately to show the differences in status between the genders. The outcome is a figure between 0 and 1; the perfect score of 1 (equal conditions) has not yet been reached by any country of the world (see table 1). The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) has the following indicators: (1) Seats in parliament held by women; (2) female legislators, senior officials and managers; and (3) female professional and technical workers. The scale is between 0 and 1, with 1 as well being the perfect as-yetunreached score. Only six European countries have a GEM of more than 0.8. This result shows the extent of the problem of empowering women in Europe.

WHY GENDER EQUALITY IS NEEDED IN POLITICS First, the Universal Human Rights Declaration of 1948 (HRD) states in Article 2, “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status...” Equal dignity, rights, power, and possibilities for all human beings are written down in many international declarations, conventions and treaties. Also lots of national constitutions call for equality and especially gender equality. Every citizen of a liberal democracy should have human rights; like the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Art. 19 HRD), the right of peaceful assembly and association (Art. 20 HRD), and the right to take part in the government of her or his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives (Art. 21 HRD). Human rights like the right to work, the right to free choice of employment, the right to equal pay for equal work (Art. 23 HRD) and the right to education (Art. 26 HRD) are important requirements of society and pertain directly to the issue of gender equality.

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their power by conquering and subduing, because they don’t like to share and live in harmony (The City of God XIX.14,15).

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Thorsten N I L G E S

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Democracy is defined or translated from the greek as FEMALE PARTICIPATION “rule by the people.” A good description of democracy is “Participation,” from the Latin participatio, means takthat it should be inclusive, participatory, representative, ing part. In another way it can be understood as taking accountable and transparent. part, as well as giving part. Political participation comBut how can we describe a nation as democratic if prises all actions of people to influence the political syswomen do not participate as much as men? How can we tem at the local, regional, national or international level. call it representative if women are 50 percent of the popParticipation could be conventional (in political parties, ulation but only 15.7 percent of the members of parlia- as voters); unconventional (in social movements or nonment in the world average (single house, lower house, governmental organizations); legal or illegal (non-violent upper house and senate)? as in demonstrations or civil disobedience, or violent as in Not only the input-orientation of politics and democracy terrorism). and the internationally recognised human rights constiGenerally women don’t participate as much as men due tute reasons for more gender equality. Also the output-ori- to the aforementioned reasons. If they participate they use entation of politics is showing reasons for more gender more non-conventional ways. They are more engaged in equality. social movements and non-governmental organizations Numerous reports state that increased women’s partici- than in governments, parliaments or political parties. pation will have a strong influence on policy results. Many Political participation can also be measured by means of scientists explain that women are often more trustworthy political representation. Represen-tation means that and public-spirited than men. A higher female participa- legally authorised citizens should be elected to the parliation would promote a more peaceful government. ment and form the government. Generally the parliament A policy research report of the World Bank asks, “Are should be a mirror of the society. All groups should be women really the ‘Fairer’ Sex? represented equally. Corruption and Women in Female political participation Government.” This report from 1999 or better representation can be GDI and GEM concluded: “We find that at the counshown by three indicators: what try level, higher rates of female parof the European Countries is the percentage of female ticipation in government are associmembers of parliament? How Source: UNDP: Human Development Report 2004 ated with lower levels of corruption.” many women are in the governCountry HDI GDI GDI GEM GEM ment? And finally, which posiRank Rank Rank WHY WOMEN NEED tions do women hold in governments or parliaments? Are they Norway 1 0,955 1 0,908 1 SPECIAL RIGHTS party leaders? Or do they lead Sweden 2 0,946 2 0,854 2 The measurements of the GDI and Netherlands 5 0,938 5 0,817 5 any key ministries? GEM show that women’s power, Belgium 6 0,938 7 0,808 7 Parliaments reach a sufficient opportunities and quality of life are Ireland 10 0,929 14 0,71 16 critical mass to allow a more lesser than those of men. Globally Switzerland 11 0,932 11 0,771 12 gender-related policy when it two out of three illiterate people are United Kingdom 12 0,934 9 0,698 18 has more than 30 percent women. In 1995, 24.5 percent of girls Finland 13 0,933 10 0,82 4 female members. Austria, did not go to a school, compared Austria 14 0,924 17 0,77 13 Denmark, Finland, Germany, with 16.4 percent of boys. In South Luxembourg 15 0,926 16 …… …. Iceland, Netherlands, Norway Asia, especially in Pakistan, the situFrance 16 0,929 15 ….. ….. and Sweden are the only ation is worse: there the school Denmark 17 0,931 13 0,847 3 European countries out of the 14 enrolment of girls is is 50 percent Germany 19 0,921 19 0,804 9 countries of the world which less than that of boys. Spain 20 0,916 20 0,716 15 have more than 30 percent of Of the 1.2 billion people in the Italy 21 0,914 21 0,583 32 female members of parliament. world living in extreme poverty, 70 Greece 24 0,894 25 0,523 43 Regarding governments, politipercent are female. As a result Portugal 26 0,894 24 0,644 23 cal scientists and political jourwomen’s health condition is worse. Slovenia 27 0,892 26 0,584 31 nalists often talk about a “glass Violence against women is another Cyprus 30 0,875 30 0,497 49 ceiling” effect: this means that specific problem; especially in the Malta 31 0,866 31 0,48 53 women don’t get to the highest private or family setting. Statistics Czech Republic 32 0,865 32 0,586 30 level of government or business. say that every 9 seconds a woman is Estonia 36 0,852 33 0,592 28 Often women who are in govPoland 37 0,848 34 0,606 27 violated by her boyfriend or husernment at the ministerial level Hungary 38 0,847 35 0,529 39 band in the United States. In India have only less important or Lithuania 41 0,841 37 0,508 47 around 10.000 female newborns are weak ministries, such as the Slovakia 42 0,84 38 0,607 26 killed every year because their parCroatia 48 0,827 43 0,56 36 ministries for social affairs, ents cannot afford the dowry. Latvia 50 0,823 45 0,591 50 youth, women, family or enviThese are some of the reasons why Bulgaria 56 0,795 48 …. …. ronment. Seldom are they in everyone should start to fight for Russian Federation 57 0,794 49 0,467 55 charge of the ministries of women’s rights. Political rights and Macedonia 60 …. …. 0,517 45 finance, defence or foreign relapolitical participation are one aspect Belarus 62 0,789 51 ….. …. tions. of women’s empowerment and …. …… ….. … Bosnia and Herzegovina 66 The first female prime minisincreasing women’s life quality. To Romania 69 0,775 56 0,465 56 ters in the world were elected in put it the other way around, an Ukraine 70 0,773 57 0,411 65 Sri Lanka (1960) and India increased life quality will empower (1966). Countries of Europe more women to participate in politics.

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which have had a female president or prime minister in the modern era (1945-2003) are: Bulgaria, Finland, France, the German Democratic Republic, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

ELECTORAL SYSTEMS Elections, generally to choose amongst political parties or candidates for a house of representatives, can be held in different systems. There are two main systems of representation: proportional and majoritarian representation. In the majoritarian system, the winner of the electoral district is the candidate who gets the relative majority (first past the post) or the one who has the absolute majority (more than 50 percent of the votes). If no one gets 50 percent in the first run, there has to be a second run, as in the last French presidential elections. The proportional system represents political parties proportionally. The delegates come from party lists. The percentage of party delegates represents exactly the percentage of votes the party got in the election. Both systems have positive and negative aspects. The majoritarian system is simple to understand and the person elected is directly accountable and responsible for her or his decisions. The proportional system makes sure that minorities are represented as well. It is not only the relative or absolute majority of votes that brings a candidate into power. Every single vote is counted and sends party delegates into the house of representatives. On the other hand, the representative is more accountable to the party than to the voter, because the representative has to take care to get a good place on the list for the next elections. From a gender perspective the proportional system is much more helpful to elect female representatives than the majoritarian system. The reasons for this are: 1) The gender identity in the mind of the majority (women and men) is still that men are better in politics than women are. So if a woman runs for elections in the same electoral district as a man, the chance for the male candidate is higher. 2) Male candidates are often better equipped than female candidates. They are richer and have better networks to support them. That makes the majoritarian system more difficult for women, who generally get less support from their parties. 3) If a political party does not put enough women on its party-list, you can make the party responsible for the gender gap and put the party under pressure.

QUOTAS TO INCREASE FEMALE PARTICIPATION The core idea of quotas is to increase the political participation of women or religious or ethnic or other minorities. Quotas are an instrument against under-representation and especially they are helpful to realise a critical minority instead of only a few token women in political life. Quotas could be laid down in constitutions and national legislation or by political parties on their own. They can exist only for a limited period of time to tear down the barriers of female political participation. Once female participation is established there won’t be any need for quotas anymore. Negative aspects are that politicians could be chosen only by gender criteria; or that voters cannot decide on

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their own which politician they want to choose; or that the candidates are not equal anymore because there is a quota for women—and not for men. Positive aspects are the destruction of existing barriers, an increased participation of women and more equal gender representation. Some people argue that quotas are discriminatory. However in the end they are against discrimination as they result in more equal representation. Furthermore, a step forward could be a gender-neutral quota such as: “Males and females should each represent at least 40 percent of the parliament, the working group, the committee or the government.” This kind of quota ensures that themes are not female- or male-dominated. The problems with quotas are that they sometimes only increase the female representation and have no influence on female participation. For that, the political parties have to train their female candidates to get enough qualified candidates to fulfil quotas. Also, reaching a critical mass of women to influence political norms and culture is important.

POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE Women’s political participation and representation is not democratic. The causality of the power gap between women and men is very difficult to explain. There are lots of reasons for female under-representation: family background, cultural and religious background, gender identity, education, age, job, income, and time budget, all these influence the political career of a woman. All the reasons for under-representation are the results of female under-representation as well. Women all over the world each fit into their own special context which is created by their religion, nation, ethnicity and economical situation. It is not only gender that defines identity. There is no general instrument to increase women’s power in every society. The introduced example of quotas might be one instrument to increase the number of female parliamentarians. An increased participation of women will be helpful to change peoples’ minds about their fitness to govern. But before that the political internal efficacy must be trained. Women have to be trained for political discourses and motivated to speak up for their rights or their political interests. Another important point is to show that the difference between women and men is just a result of their respective behaviours. Men as well as women have to learn that gender identities belong to history and that it is not the sole option for women to stay at home and take care of children. A higher political representation of women will also be helpful to break down this kind of stereotypes and reasons for inequality. Suggested Reading Ross Karen, ed., Women, Politics and Change. Oxford, 2002. Rai Shirin M., International Perspectives on Gender and Democratisation. Basingstoke, 2000. Jaquette Jane S. and Wolchik Sharon L., Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. Baltimore, 1998. Goetz Anne Marie and Hassin Shirin, eds., No Shortcuts toPpower: African Women in Politics and Policy Making. London, 2003. Thorsten Nilges, 26, is Roman Catholic, a member of the Evangelische StudentInnen Gemeinde (ESG) (Lutheran Student Movement in Germany) and a member of the Adivasi-Tea-Project, the India working group of the ESG. He lives in Düsseldorf and is studying political science in Duisburg at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His email is thorsten.nilges@gmx.de.

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Similarly, reflections on interreligious and interfaith marriage and family were made in a joint study document in 1997, emphasizing their role in uniting humankind in a spiritual way as well.

8. PARTNERSHIP AND UNITY The longest-ever initiative in ecumenical history was conducted on the unity of the Church and the unity of humankind, between 1971 and 1991. It was a Faith and Order (F&O) study on the eschatological promise of the coming Reign of God. The basic assumption was that the Church is a sacrament, a mystery and a prophetic sign of intimate union with God and of the unity of humankind. In their method of intercontextualisation, the contexts reciprocally provide the interpretative framework for each other. They researched unity in today’s world (1978), the unity of the Church and the renewal of human community (Lima, 1982), Jesus Christ as the life of the world (Vancouver, 1983) and God’s purpose to restore all things into unity in Christ. The glory of God is humanity fully alive, as Irenæus teaches us. The aim of all of us is theosis or divination, our human life made God-like in Jesus Christ. Against the politics of death, therefore, we should build the culture of life, reconciliation and healing. Women and men, too, should be free to live out the gifts which God has given them and to respond to their calling

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to share fully in the life and witness of the Church. Women’s and men’s equal and profound participation, therefore, is not simply a matter of social justice, but also of profound theological integrity. Suggested Reading Ariarajah S. Wesley, Did I Betray the Gospel? The Letters of Paul and the Place of Women. Genève, 1996. The Ecumenical Dialogue on Moral Issues: Potential Sources of Common Witness or of Divisions. A Study Document of the Joint Working Group of WCC and RCC. The Ecumenical Review 1996/2. 143–154. Herzel Susannah, A Voice for Women. Genève, 1981. Lossky Nicholas – Bonino José Míguez – Pobee John – Stransky Tom F. – Wainwright Geoffrey – Webb Pauline, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Genève, 2002. Parvey Constance F., The Community of Women and Men in the Church. Genève, 1981. Rozs-Nagy Szilvia, Interconnected Relations in Ecofeminism. In Nagypál Szabolcs – Sˇajda Peter, A Pentatonic Landscape. Central Europe, Ecology, Ecumenism. Budapest, 2002. 41–50. Oduyoye Mercy Amba, Who Will Roll the Stone Away? The Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women. Genève, 1990. Slavkovsky´ Adrián OP, Hl’adanie l’udskej identity (The Search for Human Identity). Banská Bystrica, 2004. von Wartenberg-Potter Bärbel, Wir werden unsere Harfen nicht an die Weiden hängen: Engagement und Spiritualität. Stuttgart, 1986. Webb Pauline, She Flies Beyond: Memories and Hopes of Women in the Ecumenical Movement. Genève, 1993. Nagypál Szabolcs (1974) is a graduate in ecumenical theology, law and literature. He is a theologian in the Benedictine Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI) in Pannonhalma. He was chairperson of KÖD (Magyar SCM) and WSCF Central European Subregion (CESR); a member of the European Regional Committee (ERC) and global Executive Committee (ExCo). He co-edited the books: A Pentatonic Landscape: Central Europe, Ecology, Ecumenism (Budapest, 2002); The River Book: Identity, Culture, Responsibility (Bial/ystok, 2003); and medi(t)ations, (re)conciliations. Conflict Resolution and European Integration (Bratislava, 2004). He is the editor-in-chief of Student World (2003–), and was editor-in-chief of Mozaik (2001–2004).His email is nagypalszabi@yahoo.com.

David B A L L

Gender Empires: Personal, Spiritual, Political I’ve always struggled with being a man, especially a white man living in a wealthy land. Ever since I began high school, I didn’t fit in with the other boys; they seemed to me so competitive and judgmental. I hated their attitudes towards women, whom they treated as sexual objects. I was never able to understand their lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others, or to justify their glorification of violence. When I started university six years ago, my life was inextricably altered by feminism.

“COURAGE, MY DAUGHTER” Feminism, as a critical understanding of gender, suggests that the personal is political and vice-versa. For me, the personal, political and spiritual weave in and out of my life as they do in this story, illuminating new realities, revealing pathways of action. Jesus was a great feminist activist and a fascinating male role model. One day Jesus is in a massive crowd and everyone is clamouring to hear a word and receive healing. The president of the synagogue, a well-respected male, gets his attention first and Jesus sets off with him. Nothing unusual. Then it gets interesting. A woman who has been bleeding for 12 years, and is therefore ritually unclean, slips unnoticed out of the crowd, touches Jesus’ cloak and is healed.

Jesus stops in his tracks. He senses her presence, despite the throngs of people and all the noise and pushing. “Who was it that touched me? I felt that power had gone out from me.” Of course the woman wouldn’t dare to ask him for help directly, since she was shameful: an untouchable who risked polluting anyone she touched. The healed woman falls at his feet. Jesus addresses her in an unusually intimate way: “Courage, my daughter,” he says, “your faith has saved you; go in peace.” In blessing his ‘daughter,’ Jesus totally subverts the gender system, in which many women were seen as ‘pollution’ to social and religious purity. Since they were considered defiled, they were to be avoided and ignored. By all accounts this daughter should have been invisible in this surging, male-dominated crowd; certainly not vying for the attention of a famous wandering rabbi, or sneaking up on him (Matthew 9,18–22; Luke 8,40–48). Many see feminism as a dirty word, or as something once useful but now outdated. It is a misconception, however, that feminism is just a women’s movement for equality with men. Rather, it offers us a whole new way of understanding our world—a process of thinking about how our world is and should be. It starts with gender, but it goes much deeper, opening a space for us to question and resist racism, homophobia, and the global Empire we live in as Christians today. The tools of feminist analysis are crucial for men, women and

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Christians if we are to understand our world. In the words of black feminist writer bell hooks, “Feminism is for everybody.” Feminism is also much more than a human rights issue. Writers like Chandra Talpade Mohanty argue that the idea of women’s human rights has been too often used to justify colonial violence, allowing Western nations to exercise power over the already exploited. At the same time, critical gender analysis opens our eyes to the urgent need for democratic social change.

A MATTER OF SURVIVAL Picture a scene in my country, Canada, in June this year. This scene is set in the rainy west coast city of Vancouver, which lies on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and will host the Winter Olympics in 2010. A van is driving along the road downtown amidst many other cars. Inside are several men, indigenous folk whose cultures were here long before the British and French occupied this land. (Consider what is happening now in Iraq under the United States; the fact of occupation is common to our world. In my country, it has been so for almost 300 years.) These men are driving their van on their way to teach young people how to hunt and survive in the wilderness. Indigenous youth have the highest rates of suicide, poverty and drug abuse among anyone in Canada, a painful legacy of colonization and the theft of their cultures. Today, Aboriginals are trying to teach their youth the traditional ways, living respectfully on the land our Creator provides for us. Much has been lost, but many hope to restore some of what has been destroyed. They know this is their only hope of cultural—and spiritual—survival. Suddenly, this van is surrounded and stormed by dozens of riot police from the anti-terrorism tactical squad set up after September 11, 2001. The police seize their tents, camping equipment and hunting rifles, and throw them in jail. Let it be clear that this does not happen to white people here. (As Boy Scouts, our survival camping expeditions were thankfully never raided by riot squads. We, of course, were ‘upstanding citizens.’) But this does happen to colonized people, especially those who try to assert their human rights to hunt on their own lands, to pass on the traditional teachings—to survive. These Native teachers say that they have been under surveillance by the state ever since they opposed logging by massive multinational logging corporations on their own territories. Already these companies have destroyed most of the ancient old-growth rainforests of British Columbia, with trees older than Europe’s most ancient cathedrals. Many First Nations (a preferred name for Aboriginal peoples here) have vowed to stop them.

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If this story seems unrelated to gender, I hope the connection will soon be clear.

HERE I STAND This story is political and spiritual, but above all it is my own. So here I stand, still confused about my own gender and how I fit into this world. I enjoy the power and privileges of being a man, but inside I don’t identify with that label at all. I want my gender to flow unconstrained into something new. Something that seems less like polar opposites, and more like water in its various states. I want to escape from a gender that perpetuates sexism and the rape of the planet. My story involves some of the biggest, most powerful and dangerous ideas operating in Western culture. In a world of so much injustice, I find myself privileged in almost every aspect of my identity. Being an educated white male, and an economically comfortable citizen is like carrying an invisible knapsack full of benefits with me wherever I go. We live every day with labels and categories, some of which we have chosen for ourselves; others have been imposed. At root, however, the categories are nothing more than arbitrary constructions. Yet, in times of danger, water needs to freeze to keep itself from getting diluted. Identity labels—like ‘Christian,’ ‘gender-queer,’ ‘male,’ ‘faggot,’ ‘straight’—can become like protective blankets. Identity is sometimes fluid, sometimes solid, sometimes in response to outside stimuli. Ultimately, however, it must be self-defined and owned. What was Jesus thinking in that surging crowd two thousand years ago? There he was, confronted with a situation where he was expected to fit into a whole bunch of social scripts, ones he never chose. He should have ignored her. He should have scolded her for being so rude as to break religious purity laws (Leviticus 15,19–30). He should have dismissed her, ordered her away with a warning: “Get back in your place, you dirty whore.” (Women who violate social norms have always been accused of being prostitutes, invoking the historic, uncompassionate stigma against sex trade workers, as in Leviticus 19,29.) Instead, Jesus turned all his attention towards this woman, crossing the boundaries of social stigma (and risking his own reputation) and affectionately calling her his ‘daughter.’ In Europe, as borders are supposedly eroding with the European Union, extreme nationalist parties are disturbingly on the rise and fears of foreigners are growing; there are similar trends here in North America. ‘Outsiders’ come to be seen as pollution to the body of the nation, and people become afraid, particularly when they falsely associate terrorism with race and culture. There is a perception that too much is changing too fast. It is here that gender fits into this picture. Gender, unlike physical sex, is not biological. It is a set of social attitudes, expecta-

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tions and scripts that shape our society, and is in turn shaped by society. This becomes obvious when one considers that ideas of gender vary widely across times and cultures. Western culture has two genders. The ancient Greeks had a handful of genders. Some North American indigenous traditions have even more, and still others see individuals as containing many genders within. Gender is all about boundaries and borders. It is made visible only by what it is not, defined by what it excludes, and it lacks any real, unchanging essence. Jesus, however, refused to deal in the logic of exclusion. He showed us a way to cross such borders, identifying with the oppressed and marginalized (Luke 6,20). These were impoverished people, but the powerful called them ‘dirty whores’ and ‘savages.’ It is even probable that the two ‘bandits’ the Romans crucified with Jesus were political rebels, not ordinary criminals (Mark 15,27; Luke 2,37). Jesus took risks upon himself personally, but his interactions with women in particular were very political and subversive. Just as this bleeding woman was forbidden by purity taboos from touching Jesus, the whole idea of the modern nation-state depends upon policing borders and preventing ‘pollution’ from outside. In fact, Old Testament culture directly linked sexual prohibition with the pollution of the nation (Leviticus 19,29). While Jesus overruled such stigmatization as fiercely uncompassionate (John 8,1–11), it illustrates some of the logic behind the moral panic we witness today: racism

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against immigrants, attacks on sex trade workers, and fear of terrorists in our neighbourhoods.

IN WHOSE NAME? There is a sexual element to the history of the nationstate, particularly clear in the era of colonialism. When Britain colonized the world, for instance, it imagined the ‘savages’ it encountered as having gendered traits. Africans were considered ultra-masculine—sexually aggressive, well-endowed and dangerously violent. Asians were seen as ultra-feminine—passive, weak and easily conquered. Today, racism is officially out of style. And yet most of the old stereotypes like those above are still applied in the media and in political rhetoric. We hear that all Muslim cultures oppress women and threaten democracy—therefore it is ‘civilized’ to forcibly remove girls’ veils in French schools, as happened this year. It was a testament to ‘progress’—in 1958, French women colonizing Algeria ripped the veils off Muslim women to liberate them. (When the New York Times printed photos of the grateful ‘Muslims,’ they conveniently ignored the fact that those photographed were in fact French women disguised as Algerians.) Once again, the West is called in to defend the rights of women in ‘other’ patriarchal cultures that oppress women. We think it is therefore ‘civilized’ to invade and impose Western-style ‘freedoms’ on the rest of the world: the ‘right’ to be brainwashed with advertising, to be obsessed with being dangerously skinny, to surgically alter one’s beauty, make oneself into a sexual object, and to buy an endless supply of cars, clothes and cosmetics. This kind of freedom is a meaningless freedom. Feminism is a way of looking at the world through a gender lens. Further, it provides insights into modern-day racism and imperialism, and consequently the modern nation-state and our whole economic system, with its base of exploitation of cheap (and free) women’s labour. We must remember that it is women of colour who are most exploited. They are the equivalent of the haemorrhaging woman in Jesus’ time. They work in sweatshops and ghettos and brothels underneath the glamour of white Western imperial capitalist culture today, silenced within the boundaries of ‘free’ trade, economic regulation and sexual taboo. Here in Canada, ‘liberating’ Native women from servitude to their ‘savage’ husbands was used as an excuse by the Victorian British to justify conquering indigenous cultures, stealing their children, and murdering them with disease and outright genocide. (In fact, the British were apparently outraged that Native women worked in the fields and did hard labour with the men, at a time when wealthy white women were pampered and protected.) At risk of sounding crudely ideological, I cannot emphasize this point enough: to understand our world, we must understand our history. Western culture is rooted in exploitation and genocide. It takes real courage, then, to start questioning the whole system that we live in, which has not changed as much as we imagine. This becomes more and more evident when we take the time to

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

actually listen to what colonized and marginalized people are saying. Indian writer Arundhati Roy rejects the Western activist ideal of being a ‘voice for the voiceless’: “There’s no such thing as the ‘voiceless,’” she said. “There are only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard.” Listening is the kind of act feminism requires of us. It is the same call we hear from the Gospels, and it goes against the purity codes of our time.

DECONSTRUCTIONIST HELL Sexuality and gender are too complex, too deep, too nuanced for a single, simple explanation. My own identity oscillates between concepts and categories, old and new. Sometimes I feel ‘male,’ sometimes not. Sometimes I feel ‘straight,’ sometimes not. Where are my own roots? Let me start by going to the freezer and taking a single cube of ice from the tray. Holding it between my fingers, I feel the ice’s glass-hard surface is crisp, sticking slightly to my skin. Within seconds the cube begins to melt, slowly, at the edges. Soon it rapidly shrinks into a puddle and runs down my arm in a single determined stream, dripping onto the table. The water can always be refrozen, but it will eventually melt again. Gender and sexuality are like this ice cube. The water— my core being—is always there. But when my identity seems solid, I’ve realized it’s a temporary illusion. Impermanent. Fluid. An idea that can never truly be pinned down, defined, or frozen for all time. I. Am. Not. Unchanging. Try saying that in the mirror every morning; it sounds like deconstructionist hell. It’s one of the scariest places to venture, a place where solid categories blur in and out of focus. But this, I think, might be freedom. At least, it seems a lot like faith.

IDOLS OF IMPERIALISM: A CONFESSION This essay began by asserting that feminism has changed who I am. My learnings in university complicated everything I’d taken for granted. I discovered that the simplistic, gender-binary categories of the XIXth century were not only outdated; they completely over-simplified the complexity of human diversity. To this day, identity is seen as some kind of universal unchanging essence found within. This assumption—referred to as ‘essentialism’—quite simply excludes the experiences of many people. At root, the categories we take for granted are in reality historically specific, mind-made, imposed … dare I suggest, even arbitrary, coincidental products of our history and changing values? Our civilization has created false gods of progress, materialism and domination—idols of imperialism. We in the ‘civilized’ West have placed ourselves at the top of the social and ecological food chain, and we think we have subdued the world with our minds. But as people of faith, we answer to a different call. Science and money are not evil, but we have constructed a new religion out of them, offering them sacrifices (such as warfare’s ‘collateral damage’), policing their moral purity, and destroying those who live differently—those who live by the land, who depend upon the Earth, who seek refuge in foreign lands, who are so audacious as to try to teach youngsters how to hunt and survive. Through our worship of modernity, we are worshiping “gods that are not gods at all” (Jeremiah 5,7). These false

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gods have demanded sacrifice after sacrifice. But God commands us: “You shall have no other gods to rival me” (Exodus 20,3). I have come to feel okay with allowing my own identity to melt into different shapes, like an ice cube that will never be forever frozen. I can still feel the sensation of icy water coursing down my arm as who I am melts and flows with the warmth. And I still fight like hell in the face of hatred and discrimination, against anyone. The ideas of gender and human rights have been corrupted by the powers that be—the Guardians of the Religion of Modern Civilization. Its god is Progress, and it is a fundamentalist religion because it cannot see outside of its own logic. Its fruit is seen in the sheer hypocrisy of George Bush and Tony Blair justifying the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of human rights, women’s rights and ‘enduring freedom.’ Why do people believe this rhetoric, this ‘noise’ and ‘clanging’ of words without love (1Corinthians 13,1)? I have struggled with this question and am convinced that we live not in democracies but within a global Empire. In their book Multitude, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that today’s empire relies not on territory but on a global logic of rule (what I have called ‘false gods’) cloaked in the language of universal human rights and freedom. Feminist analysis has not only informed my view of gender. Once I started asking the questions that feminism raised, I saw the world in a new way. I realized that even the beacons of enlightenment we call ‘liberal democracy,’ ‘the free market’ and ‘international development’ are still within the Empire’s logic. Negri and Hardt warn us not to confuse Empire with historical colonialism, nor to blame solely the United States or George Bush. We haven’t truly listened, and so even well-meaning social justice and church campaigns can perpetuate exactly what we oppose. I am not suggesting that democracy must be abandoned, but that it is time we reclaim it through collective action and solidarity— informed by critical, feminist approaches. Our calling, as followers of Jesus’ way, is to the path of love. As Richard A. Horsley writes in his book Jesus and Empire, the way of Jesus will necessarily call us into rebellion against Empire. Christianity was originally a movement against the Empire of its day, and so it has much to teach us. Amidst the clamour of today’s crowds, can we even hear those voices persistently sneaking up behind us, touching our cloak? Or do we turn and follow our presidents blindly, ignoring the pleas of the multitude and pretending there is peace (Jeremiah 6,14)? Do we have the courage to follow in the ‘way of love’ (1Corinthians 14,1), and in the footsteps of our Lord? “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” Suggested Reading Fabella Virginia and Sugirtharajah R.S. (eds.), Dictionary of Third World Theologies. Maryknoll, 2000. Hardt Michael and Negri Antonio, Multitude: War and Democracy in an Age of Empire. New York, 2004. hooks bell, Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. London, 2000. Horsley, Richard A., Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder. Minneapolis, 2003. Mohanty Chandra Talpade, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. London, 2003. David Ball is a writer, youth minister and activist involved in the Student Christian Movement of Canada. Ball is passionate about liberation theology and studied political theory and women’s studies at the University of Victoria, Canada. His website is www.davidpball.net.

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

N A G Y P Á L Szabolcs

Partnership of Women and Men in the Ecumenical Movement “We intend to stay together.” (WCC Basis; Kathleen Bliss)

The question of the partnership of women and men in the Church has been connected with the ecumenical movement since its beginnings, because the unity of the Church is always dependent on human partnerships as well. The words of Saint Paul should constantly be kept in mind: “There is no longer Jew and Greek, there is no longer slave and free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 3,28). Let us, therefore, examine the most important topics, the key words, the leading initiatives, the fermenting movements and the blossoming institutions of partnership in the movement for the visible unity of the Christian Church. We start with the ecumenical history of events and institutions. The second part highlights the two topics which stirred the most controversies in the ecumenical movement: feminism and the ordination of women. And at the end we underline potential areas for harmony and reconciliation: marriage and family, including their ecclesiological significance.

I. ECUMENICAL HISTORY 1. WSCF AND THE EARLY DEVELOPMENTS The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF, 1895) and the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA, 1894) have been fertile training grounds for women leaders, such as Ruth Rouse, or Suzanne de Diétrich, the mother of the Biblical renewal. These movements started to liberate the lay forces of Christianity, among them women, and attempted to restore the lost unity between worship and work (the Benedictine rule of ora et labora). They also recognized that lay Christians are leaven, salt, and letters from Christ to the world. As Adrián Slavkovsky´ OP writes: “It is an important step to embrace a certain identity, one’s own place in life, social roles, values and objectives, and it does not necessarily have to lead to the negation of other identities and thus to intolerance among individuals, communities or even larger units.” Indeed, all members of the Church, because of their common baptism, are qualitatively equal in receiving God’s grace and in realizing it as a new life. We all serve as reflecting mirrors or focusing lenses, to beam light into all parts of the life of the world. Already in 1923, a study was done by the International

Missionary Council (IMC, 1920) on the place of women in the Church in the mission fields. The women’s World Day of Prayer (WDP) started in 1927 and has been celebrated on every first Friday of Lent ever since.

2. WCC INITIATIVES After the establishment of the World Council of Churches (WCC, Amsterdam, 1948), interest was primarily focused on the life and work of women in the Church. Reflections on the service and status of women in the Church were published by Kathleen Bliss in 1952. Sarah Chakko became the chair of the corresponding commission (later department, and finally sub-unit), followed by Madeleine Barot, who was the first executive secretary (1953–1966), dealing with the cooperation of women and men in Church and society. A study of Church unity, directed by Constance F. Parvey, was undertaken on the community of women and men in the Church between 1978 and 1982, with particular regard to the experience of women. A conclusive study book on identity, sexuality, marriage, family life, Scripture and Tradition, theological education, worship and ministry, used a peculiar experience-based methodology. This study was evaluated in a meeting at Sheffield in 1981. A main initiative afterwards was the ecumenical decade of churches in solidarity with women, between 1988 and 1998. The project marked an important shift from solidarity towards accountability. The discoveries of the wideranging ecumenical team visits were published as “living letters” in 1997. Its objectives were to challenge oppressive structures, racism, sexism, classism and all discrimination, by shared leadership and decision-making, theology and spirituality; by giving visibility to women’s perspectives and actions; and through actions of solidarity. The most recent initiative focuses on being the Church and listening to women’s voices and visions, since 1998. Its objectives are to describe and enhance participation, vision, theological insight, hope, struggle and faith. It is visible from this short historical overview that the issue of partnership between women and men has been a task in its own right for the ecumenical movement, even though it has at times been coupled with liberations from other oppressive structures.

3. EUROPEAN ENDEAVOURS Regional endeavours contextualise and inculturate global developments. Among the European initiatives we can enlist the ecumenical forum of European Christian Women, established in Bruxelles in 1978. Their meeting in Budapest in 1994 dealt with not being afraid, and with the topic of “remembering the future”, in order to work out a theology of human fullness and wholeness.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

In the conference for Orthodox women in Agapia in 1976, various women from communist (Second World) countries clearly stated to the other participants that partnership is already a living reality in their countries. Indeed, from a certain perspective, it was true. The solidarity and partnership of the equally oppressed women and men was one of the few positive consequences of the communist totalitarian dictatorships. Women and men want to live together in friendship, as allies and partners on the way to liberation. In that light, the women’s synod movement (WSM) for change in the XXIst century organised the European women’s synod in Gmunden in 1997.

II. FEMINISM AND THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN 4. FEMINIST THEOLOGY Feminist theology is a method of doing theology, entailing a creative re-visioning of what it is to be the Church. It creates networks of shared experience, knowledge and community, by recovering female images of the Divine. Sexism as a patriarchal and paternal ideology of male supremacy and discrimination against women on the basis of sex was thoroughly studied at a WCC meeting in Berlin in 1974. This consultation marked a significant shift from cooperation to social and economic justice and the liberation struggle. It demanded a full access and participation in leadership, ordination, inclusive language, the re-reading of Bible and Tradition, and equal opportunities in all fields of life. As a consequence, inclusive language has been mandatory in WCC since 1981. It depicts women and men as both equally normative. It is important to note that it has been easier to revise language about the worshipping people than about the One they worship, which sometimes tests the elasticity of the Christian faith.

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agreed in 1978 to remain in communion with one another, in spite of the various beliefs, practices and controversies in this matter. But also in the Anglican understanding, the issue still remains a matter of discernment and open reception in the whole Church.

III. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY 6. MARRIAGE AND LOVE According to the growing ecumenical convergence and tradition, marriage is the voluntary, consensual, mutual, equal, monogamous and holy joining of the life of a woman and a man, based on love, fidelity and companionship and intended to last for the life-time of the couple. It is at the same time a family (matrimonium) and a household (patrimonium). Family is a network of relationships established by marriage, birth and adoption. Its two dimensions are the nuclear and the extended family. Both of them serve as focal points of affection, socialisation and nurturing. Humanity, as female and male, is gifted with the ability of procreation and is called to share in the life of the Triune God. Therefore, in many (but mostly in the Roman Catholic) pastoral practices divorce (dissolving a marriage because of its failure) seems to be almost the only “unforgivable sin”, and the pastoral care of divorced persons there remains largely unresolved. In dealing with other forms of union, like polygamy (polyandry or polygyny), and homosexuality (lesbian or gay relationship), we should also keep in mind that genuine love, in whatever form, is rare, precious and possibly an indicator of God’s redemptive power. It is usually more effective and constructive to look at issues in the light of Tradition, rather than traditions in the light of issues and topics. Furthermore, in the field of sexual ethics, physical sexual union can be a means of grace in effecting, developing and sustaining the unity of a couple.

7. ECUMENICAL FAMILY CHURCHES 5. ORDINATION OF WOMEN Women and men are of equal worth and have complementary and essential contributions to make within the community; therefore we should constantly blend female and male spiritual insights. The relationship between the sexes, as reflecting a divinely ordained order (Herrenalb, 1956), should happen in mutual submission and in common obedience to the authority of the Reign of God. There are rapidly changing patterns of women–men relationships nowadays (Madras, 1961), and the Christian woman, as well as the Christian man, is also a co-artisan in changing the Church and the society (Taizé, 1967). The ordination of women is one of the questions where there is no ecumenical consensus yet. Their recognized though not ordained ministry has been present always in the history of Christianity. The apostolic (mostly the Orthodox and Roman Catholic) denominations do not really have this issue on their agenda. For their positions, they use arguments from the Bible and Tradition, but also from anthropology and even theology. It was a breakthrough when the (Evangelical–Lutheran) Church of Sweden ordained women in 1960, as a denomination which has maintained the historic Episcopal succession. Another similar milestone was the ordination of the first woman bishop, Marjorie Matthews of the United Methodist Church, USA, in 1983. The Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion

Marriage is a miniature, where unity (uniqueness, monogamy and fidelity), sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity (moving towards others) are present, and so it becomes a model of the uniting grace of God. The family is the smallest integral unit which can be called Church (ecclesiola: small church): “This mystery is a profound one, and … it refers to Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5,32). The Church, on the other hand, is also an extended family, where every member finds a home. If the family is “mixed” in an interdenominational way, then it can constitute an ecumenical marriage and an interchurch family with double belonging and ecumenical membership. Furthermore, when the members decide to work for the unity of the Church in reconciliation and dialogue, their household (oikumene) and local ecumenical partnership (LEP) becomes an ecumenical family church (ecclesiola œcumenica). Since wife and husband are already one body in Jesus Christ, they can effectively prefigure the One Holy Church (Una Sancta), and of course the Reign of God. In so doing, they are no longer fratres seiuncti (disjoined or separated brethren), but fratres coniuncti (conjoined or conjugal partners). The Association of Interchurch Families (AIF) was established in 1968 to lead ecumenical couples and the Church from competition, through co-existence, to cooperation, and then to commitment, on the way to genuine dialogue and full communion.

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Similarly, reflections on interreligious and interfaith marriage and family were made in a joint study document in 1997, emphasizing their role in uniting humankind in a spiritual way as well.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

David B A L L

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Esohe A G H A T I S E

Women Trafficking from West Africa to Europe: Cultural Dimensions and Strategies This article intends to give a general overview of the problem of trafficking of women from West Africa, principally from Nigeria, for prostitution in Italy. It shall briefly explain some of the social, economic and cultural dynamics of trafficking, as well as its psychological and social effects. It shall also examine the development of the phenomenon of trafficking and present a variety of social activities carried out by Italian governmental and non-governmental agencies to assist victims of trafficking.

TRAFFICKING IN ITALY Trafficking of persons in Italy involves minors, workers and young women. Minors are exploited in various illegal activities, which include begging, stealing and illegal international adoptions, and there are fears that they may also be involved in pornographic activities and in the trade of organs, etc. Workers are exploited in jobs where they are forced to work in sub-human conditions and are employed in criminal activities. Women and young girls are exploited in prostitution. It is estimated that there are between 25.000 and 75.000 women and children sold into prostitution in Italy. The main country of origin of the girls sold for prostitution is Nigeria (although Kenya, Ghana and Ivory Coast appear sporadically as well) and the number of Nigerian women continues to grow. Nigerian victims constitute more than 65 percent of victims trafficked into prostitution in Italy. Of that number, more than 85 percent are from the Edo ethnic group in the south central region of the country. Other countries of origin are, in order of highest numbers, Romania, Moldavia, Albania, Russia and Bulgaria. There are, however, differences in the modalities of trafficking between girls and women trafficked from Africa and those trafficked from Eastern Europe.

TRAFFICKING FOR PROSTITUTION FROM NIGERIA The trafficking of Nigerian women into Italy for prostitution started in the second half of the 1980s following the increasing economic difficulties caused by the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the then-Nigerian government on the orders of the International Monetary Fund. Women and girls started leaving the country on promises of fantastic well-paid jobs in Europe, in factories, offices and farms. They arrived in Italy only to find themselves sold into sexual slavery and forced to prostitute themselves to pay the so-called debts which they were told they had incurred in being ‘helped’ to come to Europe. A number of those who came in this earlier period ended up as ‘madams,’ who were later to perpetuate the trade and to become exploiters of their fellow countrywomen. It is, however, necessary to remember that, in the last few years, from 1995–96 onwards, most of the girls who agree to come to Italy know that they are likely to fall into the

prostitution market. It is also necessary to underline the fact that most of them are illiterate and have never had any experience of urban life before they find themselves in the enormous urban centres of Turin, Milan and Rome. All this notwithstanding, they don’t have the slightest idea of what prostitution is really all about, since most of them have never been in prostitution. They therefore find themselves having to cope with a new country and new social context without any friends or family support network, a lot of violence and exploitation, and most important of all, a new kind of reality—such that they never imagined even in their wildest dreams. The Nigerian girls are made to believe that they are being sponsored to come to Italy to work and are told that the ‘madam’ who paid for the trip is in Nigeria, while the person they are to stay with is just the support person of the ‘madam.’ In reality they are accomplices, both the ‘madam’ in Nigeria and the ‘hostess’ in Italy. Thus, the girls tend to see this sponsorship as having been ‘helped’ to leave the misery of their lives and come to the European ‘paradise.’ That is, until they are exposed to the harshness of the circumstances they are forced to live in, the blows and the cold they have to suffer and the money they receive from their prostitution, but which is taken from them.

CONTROLLING FACTORS IN EXPLOITATION The traffickers are usually men who bring in the girls on a ‘commission’ by the ‘madams,’ or on their own initiative, intending to sell them to the highest bidder. The girls are made to undergo special black magic juju rites, in which parts of their bodies (pubic hair, nails, menstrual blood, hair and pieces of intimate clothing) are taken and placed before traditional shrines. The girls are made to swear an oath not to disclose the origin of their trip abroad, to pay their ‘debt’ (usually not stated at the moment of stipulating the ‘blood contract’) and never to reveal the identity of their traffickers and madams to the police. Their failure to respect this oath means that some grave ill or misfortune will befall themselves and/or their families. These are rites of great significance and have a notable efficacy in assuring the payment of the ‘debt.’ It is a special phenomenon noted by the Italian police that Nigerian girls undergo much less physical control/check-up from their exploiters, compared to other foreign girls trafficked into prostitution. They have no need of physical control, because the rites they are made to undergo psychologically impose the control on them. The debts, imposed on the girls by their traffickers upon their arrival in Italy, are large amounts, which range from 30.000 to 60.000 EUR. The ‘debts’ must be paid within a few months, at the risk of violence against them and/or their families in Nigeria by their madams. It should be noted that the girls charge an average of 10–15 EUR per client and at times, as little as 5 EUR. Moreover, they are also requested to make an advance

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

payment per month of a minimum of 500 EUR to ‘rent’ the roadside spot where they work. Other payments they have to make include: a weekly contribution to food, purchase of expensive provocative clothing and monthly expensive gifts to their madams. The last few years have seen an increasing number of very young girls, in most cases minors, trafficked to satisfy the ever more exigent requests of the clients. It should be clearly stated, however, that these girls do not all depart from Nigeria only due to economic difficulties. Studies confirm the hypothesis that sending female children abroad has become a sort of status symbol for some families. This is a result of the breakdown of social and cultural values, the disintegration of traditional family structures and the lack of valid, efficient social reference models in their place. The crisis of family structures is such that the weight of taking care of the family is increasingly falling on the shoulders of the women. Traditionally, polygamy is a part of the social family structure in Nigeria. Most of the interviewed families tacitly accepted the idea of prostitution as a solution where extreme poverty has made life difficult. They were, however, less ready to accept this when the violence and humiliation involved in it was made clear to them.

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In a polygamous family setting, the patriarchal structure generates continuous conflict and competition among the wives. Women discovered that selling their bodies is a fast and fruitful way to earn a living for themselves and for their families. Their men are equally prepared to close an eye to traditional values, rules and regulations, as long as they benefit from the earnings of their wives. Another cultural aspect of trafficking in Nigerian girls is the aforementioned black magic juju rites. The strong belief which they have in these rites, coupled with an exaggerated sense of duty owed to their ‘benefactors,’ later develops into strong fear. This fear reaches the extent that even when they do succeed in paying all the ‘debt’ to their exploiters, they still continue to live in fear of some unmentionable misfortune happening to them or to members of their families, and often misfortunes are attributed to the rite they were made to undergo. It is also necessary to take into consideration the psychological aspects of trafficking. We are inundated with cases of girls, victims of trafficking for prostitution, who have serious psychological and, in certain cases, psychiatric problems because of the aforementioned rites and the mental and physical violence they are subjected to.

CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF TRAFFICKING It should be noted that one of the most curious aspects of the international trafficking of Nigerian girls is the fact that most of them come from the mid-south region and belong to the Edo (Benin) ethnic group. This is curious because traditionally this ethnic group does not socially accept prostitution. Promiscuous behaviour was customarily sufficient to ostracise any young girl or woman, both by her family and by the society. The social stigma was such that she could no more aspire to marry within her social group and remained an outcast if she didn’t leave the town. As regards a married woman, she was not allowed to let another man touch her even in the most innocent of ways. If a married woman was inadvertently touched by a man outside her home, she was obliged to report the incident to her husband upon reaching home and was to carry out special purification rites to cleanse her from the ‘cursed’ action of the strange man. In the specific social set-up of the Edo ethnic group where polygamy is common, most men who cannot face up to the task of caring for their families abandon the task to their wives. Even if they have jobs, what they earn is not enough to cater for the needs of the whole family. This leads to a situation in which each woman has to cater for her own children, while the head of the family abducts his role as the breadwinner to his wives.

Verbal and physical abuse, rape, forced abortions without anaesthetics, forced prostitution induced by the threat of magic rites and potions—some are forced to drink the water used to wash a dead person’s body as part of the magic rites, swearing to pay the debt imposed on them— are all part of the scenario of the violence suffered by these young women. One of the main factors which triggers grave psychological suffering for these women, it must be noted, is when they are freed from their exploiters but end up moving from one community house to another without any possibility for an immediate means to obtain money to send to their families. The failure of the project which made them leave the shores of Nigeria usually throws them into serious psychological crisis.

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STRATEGIES FOR COMBATING AND PREVENTING TRAFFICKING There have been various religious and lay organisations which have worked to assist the victims of trafficking down the years. The religious organizations such as Caritas, and non-religious organizations such as Associazione Iroko Onlus, SERMIG and Gruppo Abele, which already had community-housing facilities for other situations of social disadvantage, put those facilities to use in assisting victims. With the passage of the law on immigration in 1998, a legal framework was created for the assistance of victims of trafficking in the process of rehabilitation and social reintegration. This rehabilitation and reintegration involves admittance to community housing from the first period of emergency, and then, subsequently, integration into the temporary employment scholarship programme. When they finally get a regular job, they are provided with guided independent single housing before they are able to obtain their own housing facilities. There is also provision of Italian language courses and technical training programmes in accordance with individual needs. Within the programme they are also accompanied to police headquarters to make a report on their exploitation, and thereafter they are entitled to obtain a temporary residence permit. As founder and President of the IROKO Association (ASSOCIAZIONE IROKO O.N.L.U.S.), a multicultural nonprofit organization founded in Italy in 1998, I have provided direct assistance to many victims of trafficking and prostitution. IROKO’s services include protected accommodation facilities and temporary economic assistance; cultural mediation and accompaniment of immigrants to various social, health and assistance services; free legal counselling; translation of personal documents and interpretation; employment orientation and integration for victims; defence and promotion of immigrants’ rights; and preventive intervention. IROKO collaborates with local and international groups and associations to further assist victims of trafficking and prostitution in searching for jobs and housing, in learning the basic concepts of Italian language for easier communication, in providing psychological sustenance that makes use of cultural aspects in assisting victims of trafficking, and in preventing trafficking through the use and diffusion of informative materials. IROKO also carries out primary research on trafficking and violence against women and children. Much of the information in this article about the situation of Nigerian victims of trafficking comes from case studies gathered from the author’s direct service work with victims of trafficking in a network of social services in Italy. The other major source is IROKO’s research on trafficking from Nigeria entitled Research and Case Studies on the International Trafficking of Nigerian Women and Girls for Prostitution in Italy. This research includes information on the political, social, and cultural motivations behind the sex trafficking of young girls and women from Nigeria and Eastern European countries to Italy, obtained from interviews with families, young people, and government officials. Strategies for the prevention need a more global collaboration in combating trafficking. I believe the programmes and strategies already in use in Italy constitute a best practice that can be introduced in other countries.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

THE WAY FORWARD There is of course much room for improvement in the Italian system, but it is a good start. The collaboration that exists between government agencies, NGOs, religious institutions and police headquarters, and the networking between them are, I think, good examples of working together on trafficking. I believe that the huge work we are doing in Italy with the girls cannot be fully effective if a corresponding level of activity is not being carried out in their countries of origin. Also regarding prevention of prostitution, it is important to address the problem of unemployment of women in the countries of origin, which forces them to come to Italy. Some work needs to be done to address the poverty that makes them run away from their own countries. The toughening of immigration laws which is to be carried out will certainly worsen matters for trafficking, but will not solve the problem. As regards assistance, there is a need for more community-housing facilities, better funding of the agencies working with victims and language training programmes. Information campaigns are needed as well. Many European countries have recently introduced provisions for equality between men and women. This is a very welcome move, but as long as the commercialisation of women’s bodies is still accepted as part of the social order, equality shall continue to be a mirage and not a reality. It is not acceptable that the dignity and human rights of half the human race should be the object of commercial exchange. Women in prostitution must not be penalized for their own exploitation. Full attention must be paid to the male users who buy women in prostitution. There is a need to address the negative social impact of the demand for prostitution. Moreover, in a global patriarchal society, which legitimates male use of female bodies as disposable commodities, it is not possible to successfully combat trafficking. As long as prostitution is tolerated and governments permit it to be practiced as a ‘legal and valid’ employment, violence against women shall continue to be perpetrated and it will not be possible to eliminate trafficking.

Suggested Reading Rodriguez Nieves, “Prostituzione e giovane prostituta: Fattori che intervengono e analisi psicologica.” In Documentazione Italia CARITAS N° 1. Roma, 1997. IRES, Uguali e diversi: Il mondo culturale, le reti di rapporti, i lavori degli immigrati non europei a Torino. Torino, 1991. Belpiede Anna, “Dal mediatore culturaleai luoghi di mediazione nel sociale.” In Animazione Sociale N° 3. 1996. U.I.C.E.M.P., Immigrati e salute sessuale e riproduttiva: le risposte dei servizi. Milano, 1998. Pizzini Franca, Asimmetrie comunicative. Differenze di genere nell’interazione medico-paziente. Milano, 1990. Frigessi Castelnuovo D., “Il modello della nostalgia-malattia.” In Antropologia medica N° 4. 1988. Jabber Adel. “Mediazione socioculturale e percorsi di cittadinanza.” In Animazione Sociale. October 2000. Consiglio Nazionale Dell’economia e del Lavoro, Politiche per la mediazione culturale. Formazione ed impiego dei mediatori culturali. Roma, 2000. Esohe Aghatise graduated in law from the University of Ife and obtained a Master’s degree in international economic and trade law from the University of Benin, Nigeria. In 1998, she received her doctorate in international economic and trade law from the universities of “La Bocconi” of Milan, Turin and Bergamo. In 1998, she founded the IROKO Association for victims of trafficking to Italy. In 2002, she was appointed expert on trafficking to the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) Experts’ Groups Meeting. She has published articles on legal aspects of trade agreements, changing global economic determinants, immigration, and the trafficking of Nigerian women to Italy. She has also produced a short film/documentary on trafficking entitled Viaggio di Non Ritorno (Journey of No Return), which is being widely used in Nigeria to combat trafficking. Her e-mail is esoheaghatise@tin.it.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

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O r i n t a Zˇ V I K A I T E· - R Ö T T I N G

Cinderella Chooses an Exchange Programme: Au-pairs from the Gender Perspective “I am staying here in Germany. Leaving? Not now! My life here could be better, but I do not complain. I want to stay here and study. I think I can handle language problems, the constant shortage of money and expensive food. I do not think that it is wrong that my guest-family does not invite me to eat at their table or that I have no key to my room. Sometimes I even forget that it could be different! However I have a mobile, but I got it so that my hostmother could reach me whenever she needs me. So I do not like phoning that much.” (— an anonymous female au-pair)

CINDERELLAS ON SALE A journalist from the radio program Deutsche Welle named his report about au-pairs “Cinderellas of the Modern World.” He was exactly right: since the liberalisation of the regulation of au-pair agencies in 2002, any person (at least in Germany) can open an employment service agency. The Internet is full of sometimes serious and appealing, but also dubious agents, who place photos of girls on their sites as if they would be chosen for the way they look or could present themselves on-line for the “exchange job.” Unfairly, applicants from the South often have more chances. It is known that the some agencies can find a family more easily for a girl from Brazil, for example, than for an applicant from Ukraine. This prejudice can be based on individual likes or dislikes of the hosting families; their awareness of cultural differences; experiences of previous conflicts; or familiarity with certain temperaments of aupairs from one country or another. “If I spend already 600 Euros for coming to Europe, I cannot risk being evicted on the street or disappoint my hosts by asking for more time on weekends. They pay me more than 200 Euros if I stay overnight alone with the kids. Once I was left alone with just a list of phone numbers for two weeks,” says a Peruvian au-pair. African or South American au-pairs are more easily accepted since they come from far away and have fewer estimations of what it is to be an au-pair. In general, they dream about the European way of life, if such a life exists. Those girls are simply more “attractive” to host families. They lack the social or native networks which could catch them if they fail to fit into their host family; they are more relaxed, bring more temperament into the daily life. To be an au-pair can support the unenviable need of being attractive to the host family. The phenomenon of servitude -mail-order brides, au-pairs or nurses, live-in care givers- predominantly concerns employment of women migrants, where race- or gender-abusive mechanisms can occur.

PICTURE OF A WOMAN BEHIND A STOVE Yet women’s gender identity overrides their national, ethnic or class identity. The gender policies of the recent decades have emphasized social status and education of women - instruments of empowerment for self-reliance.

They have focused less on equity in the politico-economic field or professional integration of mothers. As a result of that, more and more mothers return to work for productiveness reasons and get support -when in need of external help- from nannies. Thus young mothers pay the price for enjoying equality in their workplace! This leads to a sort of social Darwinism in a loop, where some women are soliciting assistance (without a thought about the children’s need of a mother) in order to be free for outside-the-home work, whereby a big part of the income is spent for the childcare or nanny. Families are more often forced to move for work, limiting their access to the help from extended family members. Mothers are challenged more than fathers by a labour market which constantly demands productive career progress. This imperative for mobility often leads to a gender-based division of labour, in which productivity overrules social interest of the family members. The au-pair host mothers are either affluent and can afford the time off from the children and home in taking an au-pair, or they are not so well-off and need free time for more work while putting their children’s education and well-being into the hands of an unprofessional aupair. In this fashion au-pair programmes reinvent and fortify the boundaries between the choice for women to be independent or to be taken back to the warm kitchen for the sake of the family. And the role of an au-pair? In their contracts it is fixed work: 30 hours, including small jobs in the household, cooking, taking care of the children and getting an opportunity to attend a language course. But the main role of an au-pair is the CCC work: cooking, cleaning and children. This sends women back to the unconditional role of household keeper.

REGULATIONS RECOMMENDED A proper working contract is much needed for au-pairs. It protects against misuse and abuse on both sides. The regulation of the Parliamentary Assembly in the Council of Europe in 2004 recommends a “certification” system for all agencies placing domestic workers and recommends the provision of support networks for them in each member state. Yet currently it is up to the individual preference of each agency aspiring to success and each host family to manage and interpret the au-pair role according to their wishes. “Good-will family guest,” “exchange language student,” “nanny from Russia,” “exchange daughter,” “friend of the children,” “cheap cleaner and cook,” “servant on call,” “housekeeper” and “student on holiday” hardly fit the recommendations and contribute to an ambivalent au-pair status. The Council of Europe recommends: zero tolerance for hidden domestic slavery; protective measures (i.e. helplines and counselling); fair working conditions and social coverage; reasonable fees and clear status, rights and duties; and institutional oversight of the trade (accreditation of agencies). The original conception of Au-pair was an exchange “on

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equal terms” (as the French word indicates). According to research and studies it appears that this has become a mockery of the original meaning of the 1–2 year programme, which thirty years ago was designed as a safe and controlled chance of learning a new language and gaining experience in living overseas legally. In fact today’s so-called au-pairs do not want to be that kind of old-fashioned au-pairs anymore and also generally cannot be advertised as such. Both sides - host families and the au-pairs themselves seldom accept the terms of the “exchange on equal terms”.

NEW CHANCES FOR MOBILE MIGRATION Mobility, short-term migration (“transmigration”), life from a suitcase characterise the life of the new generation of au-pairs. The au-pair programme mirrors demographics: people are more flexible, take more risks and more fully exploit opportunities; they do not live permanently in one place any more. The global movement of “intelligent goods” (human capital) changes the face of the world. Despite the threat of impermanent living conditions, modern au-pairs choose to take the risk of losing home or status or limited personal career. The programme is a perfect chance for bringing cultures together by peaceful means. Living in the midst of a family abroad has its joys founded on the condition of permanent trust: seeing the unmasked lives of people with their joys and conflicts, celebrating children’s birthdays and holidays, watching TV together or discussing problems in a kindergarten. The mobility of this one-year visit has great value in getting to know the depths of neighbourliness and teaches patience and understanding on any level of dialogical or exchange projects. Openness to mobility underlines the importance of learning by doing and accepts the factor of change implicit in any international process aimed at alliance and unification. Eighty percent of au-pairs come from the transitional societies, from Eastern Europe. They want to reach EU labour markets. In this the position of an au-pair differs from the position an exchange student or a cultural exchange participant. This unclear status and mixed motivational position is in the grey zone between what is productive and reproductive, between what is private and public. Au-pairs do not threaten labour markets with defaulting loans, but they are not volunteers either, they live in the family but are neither guests nor family members.

EXCHANGE VS. LABOUR-MIGRATION In the given context the state successfully “provides” affordable childcare to families and manages migration without coming into collision with national labour interests. This can be seen as a win–win situation. Hence the relative silence around the au-pair issue in academic discussion is a dis-

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

crete signpost of the invisibility of this type of the temporary migration. Uncontrolled and free over-the-internet “au-pair jobs” can be close to domestic slavery, operating very often illegally and without transparency on the same level as “maid” or “child-minder” jobs. Serious agencies suffer from this kind of competition. For their services families have to pay, in exchange they get support and help. But for many families this is beyond their possibilities, they cannot afford such “luxuries.” An au-pair is not a friend, but also not a servant, she is not a paid contract worker, but at the same time not an unpaid one either; she is somewhere in-between. Young people leave their countries to see the world, but also to earn money. There is a huge contradiction in demanding this type of exchange to be treated solely as a cultural exchange. A language student from Russia who works as a nanny reports: “The children are direct, they are very clever, if they do not like you, they say, ‘We have you for five more months and then you are back out to Novosibirsk.’ They even know where Novosibirsk is—‘Very far from here!’ They feel I have not much choice but to accept it—the family is the guarantee for my visa!” She continues: “One morning the guest-mother brought me to the corridor and asked me to clean the shoes. I was standing in front of a 3–4 metre high cupboard full of family shoes. I was not sure if I really understood her right! She meant exactly that, so I spent my five-hour workday with polishing. I think I did more than 50 pairs of shoes. It may sound funny, but on that day I was thinking how to prepare for the German exam of the following week.” Is cleaning windows a light duty? Is sitting with a child in front of the television work? Is a family unfriendly to leave an au-pair alone with three dogs in the house for two weeks while travelling to the Mediterranean? It depends on family practises, on the individual situation and the stamina of the au-pair. They have to struggle for their studies. And it is for just “one year”! The motivation of the contemporary au-pairs to improve their language skills, stay abroad, make new friends and study comes above childcare duties, which are necessary for survival. And most of them make it! They make it as daytime students, as brides, or as successful translators back home. The lucky ones get working visas and stay longer. There is a whole network of foreign student friends in Germany, who trick the immigration offices by sharing the money required for the proof of support over several bank accounts. There is a well-organised informal network of families who take nanny-students or servants for the elderly. Some ex-au-pairs managed to live in both of their worlds at the same time: planning for their return while serving as cheap helpers now.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

INTEGRATION OR ONE FOOT IN EACH COUNTRY Statistics show that over time the nanny business has turned predominantly into a bridge for young women and sometimes young men from countries like Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria or Romania to enter the EU. “To fit in”? It is not very clear to fit into what: whether to stay or to leave—neither here nor there. These patterns of motivational mishmash in young women illustrate the prototype of the aforementioned new mobile migration. Some scholars call it transmigration. Recent studies confirm the fact that there is no increase in long-term migration to Western Europe as the number of short-term labour migrants grows. The problem is that these people are not tourists either. Most of the young women are highly educated and risk lowering their qualifications and breaking their careers at home for the sake of the cultural capital they gain from the experience of living in the West. Their home countries are in a period of “transition”: after university there are no jobs, they can’t live with parents any more or they are underestimated in their new jobs. All this is worse than what they expect to find abroad. Then the au-pair year passes by and there is no vision of what comes next. One thing they learn to deal with is extremely risky situations, so perhaps they hope for a job in the trans-national private business sector where there is need of foreign languages. Most of these young women are not going to integrate into their guest societies according to the principles of regular integration: to “fit in,” speak the language and support themselves. Their experience makes them adjust to any possible risks, even to seek them out for the sake of non-commercial life qualities; they grow out of their “narrow” and “normatively gendered” homes and proclaim the new position of double or triple belonging. Generation Y or Z or X, what ever we call it: these generations operate on different terms—terms of living from one day to the next, neither here nor there, maybe more free from communal responsibility and with more individual determination—a very post-modern perspective.

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the understanding of cultural exchange; of the parameters of the role of women; of the market forces treating young people from the non-EU Europe as unequal in their status and jobs. The scenarios of holiday workers, volunteers, seasonal migrants and domestic servants tell us about the benefits—as well as risks—to individual and international development and emphasise their dependence on individual support and acknowledgement from wellintentioned institutions. As a closing thought, the romantics of a dream-like nanny might be disillusioned by the role the aupair and nanny working world plays. Modern children are occupied more with Cinderella than with Mary Poppins. Despite that, the successful modern part-time Cinderella takes one further step: she overcomes the different postmodern role expectations and integrates her experience into her own life choice, she learns know-how and adaptation, if she respects the challenge “to be thrown into the unknown,” making the best out of it as an integrated and clever young woman. If she gets the needed support, it can be a valuable opportunity for learning! “…you must be kind, you must be witty Very sweet and fairly pretty Take us on outings, give us treats Sing songs, bring sweets Never be cross or cruel Never give us castor oil or gruel Love us as a son and daughter And never smell of barley water If you won’t scold and dominate us We will never give you cause to hate us We won’t hide your spectacles So you can’t see Put toads in your bed Or pepper in your tea…” —“The Perfect Nanny” from Mary Poppins, written by Richard and Robert Sherman

Suggested Reading Henshall-Momsen Janet, Gender, Migration and Domestic Service. London, 1999. Hess Sabine and Lenz Ramona (eds.), Geschlecht und Globalisierung. Ein kulturwissenschaftlicher Streifzug durch transnationale Räume. Taunus, 2001. Domestic slavery: servitude, au-pairs and mail-ordered brides, Doc.10144. Council of Europe, 2004. http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc04/EDOC10144.htm Newcombe Emma, Temporary migration to the UK as an ‘Au-Pair’: Cultural exchange or reproductive labour?. Sussex Migration Working Paper No. 21. COMPAS, Oxford, 2004. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/migration/publications/working_papers/mwp21.pdf

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS It would not reasonable to claim that no exchange is happening in transmigration. Even “servants” are participants in an exchange! The concluding question I raise is an ethical one, raised in the constitution of daily life and the roles which have to make sense and be arranged fairly. The cultural and social pressures and opportunities make young women make their choices. The “suitcase economy” of trans-national migration creates a choice of multiple identities alongside a personalised idea of what a woman is and what the realm of her service is. The open and ambivalent au-pair project of transformative migration can bring up to date our knowledge about

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ˇ Orinta Zvikaite ˙ -Rötting was born in Kaunas, Lithuania. She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin (Irish School of Ecumenics) in the International Peace Studies programme (M. Phil.). Currently she is working for the Society of International Youth Work (Verein für Internationale Jugendarbeit) in Munich, Germany and maintains working in the area of peace pedagogy. She is a member of the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Youth Organisation “Ateitis” (Future) and is involved in the peace-work of the “Pax Christi” movement. Her email address is roettingmo@gmx.de .

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

R O Z S - N A G Y Szilvia

The Liturgical Revolution of the Feminist Movement The feminist movement is one of the spiritual revolutions which made the deepest marks in the XXth century’s theological life. Its theological side is inseparable from its social and political sides, i.e. its involvement in the fights and protests against the contemporary oppressive orders—especially against those which had an impact on women. The feminist movement taught new approaches and provided different gifts to ecumenical liturgical life through its special concerns for the transcendent and the immanent world, and for communication among all.

I. FEMALE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD Feminist consciousness came from the grief and anger that followed women’s astonishment when they recognized that their personal and individual problems were structural and social, originating from the patriarchal social and political system and institutionalised violence against women. The next step was when women, trying to find a source of comfort and empowerment in the Church, recognized that their religion contributed to their own suffering. These experiences led women to form their own base communities and place them on non-traditional feminist spiritual foundations with a commitment to liberation struggles. The female reality’s presence in the world was essential in order to find women’s real place and vocation in life. Feminist theology started to work on envisioning each woman finding herself in God, both as created and as living everyday in the closeness of God. The image of God was thus slowly clarified. Women on their journey to God discovered more and more feminine elements in God coming from both Biblical and experimental bases. The two main images which feminist liturgies introduced were God’s Motherhood and the figure of (Lady) Wisdom. God’s motherhood was discovered in God’s care and concern for God’s children, defence of life, love, and empathy for suffering. The figure of Wisdom was prominent in the inter-testamental age and literature; and through the feminist movement this scripturally sanctioned, prominent, and powerful feminine image of the Divine was rediscovered. This image freed liturgical thinking from imposing schematic characteristics onto women about the Christian meaning of their specificity. Wisdom is a rational principle that represents the divine order imposed on the primal chaos of the material universe. We can realise that this Wisdom image recognises the deepest feminine characteristics in contrast to the traditional church images, which show women as creatures unable to experience and communicate faith, mysteries and God’s image. The experimental basis for this revolutionary recognition of God came mainly from taking seriously the female body with its radical growth and change, especially during menstruation and pregnancy. The traditional image of the immutable and unchange-

able God was replaced by the vulnerable God Who is willing to change, to be transformed, and Who is growing and walking with women in their everyday life. Christ as a male Saviour raised difficult struggles and questions. Feminists tried to define the degree of Jesus’ maleness, and whether it has any role in salvation history. Through these efforts, new Christ images emerged. The two basic ones are Jesus Christ as Mother and as Woman. The deep love, compassion, and sensitiveness of Christ, which led people to recognize their own and the little ones’ dignity, find their very place in these two images. For Gabriele Dietrich, Jesus’ womanhood found its expression even on a bodily level, emphasizing the connection between women’s menstruation and Jesus’ shedding of blood on the cross. These new images of God gave real joy and strength to women by empowering them to take seriously their special values, talents and God-given gifts; their stories, own principles and spirituality. Overemphasizing the role of women had a strong therapeutic function that prepared the way to a more balanced and harmonious vision of humanity, as in ecofeminism. The feminist movement tried to free women’s spirituality from patriarchal characteristics, e.g. that women are more passive, emotional and nurturing. These images contributed in large part to the relegation of women onto an inferior level. In response, feminist theologians searched for new acknowledgements and characteristics in connection with the purposes of women’s emancipation and liberation.

II. FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY Feminist spirituality is determined by its global nature, where women from different backgrounds and levels of oppression are integrated. Its diversity is not just circumstantial, but purposefully valued by nourishing the emergence of contextual and personal stories. As Diann Neu stated, feminists know the deep oppression that results from exclusion; therefore, they treasure and include the Other. Feminism provided place and tools for articulation of women’s own will, role and desires. Women made their own gender and understanding to be the primary criterion of their life, work and spirituality. All this gave them strength to speak for themselves in every sphere of life and to see themselves as being the Church, ecclesiolæ in Ecclesia. Feminist spirituality created a great new atmosphere in meetings and liturgies by taking seriously all participants with their own personal stories and backgrounds. A strong emphasis is put on women’s experience: experiences of creation; the female body itself, giving birth, menstruation and menopause and experiences gained through crises; rape, divorce or domestic violence. The uniqueness of these experiences sought some place in religious life as well. But those who thought that the realisation of these experiences was impossible within the traditional framework of church life created a special feminist type of religion.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Feminist theology found it very important to talk about the female body, because that was seen to be the cause of women’s inferiority. Women were excluded from ministry because of their gender, and from certain spheres of liturgical life because of their menstruation. Feminist theology valued the female body and declared it holy for worshipping. Feminist theologians invented the use of arts and dances in order to experience the beauty, goodness and wholeness of women’s bodies and to make women’s participation visible in liturgical celebrations. The main topic of feminist arts is the female body, frequently shown as menstruating, pregnant, or in a process of birth-giving. It keeps the feminist emphasis on the qualities of bodylines, which can be identified as nurturance, intuition, compassion, comfortableness with sexuality, and a strong connection to nature. Feminist spirituality also stopped looking at the question of blood as shameful or inferior, and it led others to recognize its value. The blood of life is shed, being a sign of fertility and life-giving. The discovery of the value and beauty of the female body led feminist theology to put emphasis as well on discovering God as the God of life. The feminist movement is also characterised by its concern and existential recognition of ecological issues. It originated in the studies on ancient and current goddesses, who were representatives of the Earth or Nature. They also paid proper attention to the parallels and connections that can be found between women and nature, such as their cyclical history, life-centeredness, being lifegiving and life-sustaining. There is a combination of the struggle for nature’s healing and sanctification, and for the liberation of women, because the degradation of nature is considered as an extension of the degradation of women. In the ecological concern, the feminist movement and Orthodoxy join forces. They led the rest of Christianity to take into consideration the question of creation, the role and task of humanity in nature, because unless we are at home with Mother Nature, we are short-changing the Incarnation. Marjorie Procter-Smith says that the focus of feminist spirituality is much more on wholeness than on holiness. There is a difference between a Gnostic type of spirituality and a wholeness-type, between a negative and positive image of material goods. Both of them aim at holiness, which is a communion with God; but one finds it through the rejection of body, the other through the involvement of body into worship.

III. LITURGICAL REVOLUTION The presence of God and the community, as women experience them in traditional worship services, could be articulated in traditional forms. These forms, however, often do not have the strength and possibilities to express women’s experiences. This problem might have been the main cause which generated the liturgical revolution led by women. The primary aim of this liturgical revival was to bring into realisation and to value women’s own faith expression forms, which was an essential part of worshipping God.

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Women had to proclaim themselves a visible sign of the Church. The feminist liturgical movements tried to express women’s self-awareness, thus completing the process of empowerment. They encouraged women’s active involvement in liturgical life. Feminist liturgical materials were collected and produced from all over the world. In creating, shaping and leading liturgies, women became not only active participants, but also subjects of liturgy. The feminist movement used various liturgical and literary forms, rediscovered and created alike. Maintaining the balance between tradition and freedom creates questions and a constant tension in liturgical revolutions. Looking at feminist liturgies, we can say that they treated the traditional liturgical forms in a free way, with little obedience but great imagination.

1. LANGUAGE The feminist liturgies had their most revolutionary result in the field of liturgical language. Liturgical language which uses female images and expressions for God was almost totally missing before. The language used in theological life was examined and changes were invented in grammar and expression forms to be inclusive. It developed in order to express women’s participation and role in the worshipping community, avoiding the use of one-sided patriarchal language. The new expressions cleansed religious language from categorising women with sexually-based criteria, which created divisions among women as well. This language is one of the greatest strengths of the renewal, because it envisions and keeps the various feminist movements together. It also enables the feminist movement to be ecumenical and even interreligious by claiming that the biggest obstacle to humanity is not in denominational or religious divisions, but in the gender exclusiveness of patriarchy.

2. TEXTS Language did not stop at the level of expressions, but it led to thinking through the meaning and value of literature. In the liturgical field this brought a revolutionary break with the absolute use of Biblical and patriarchal texts. Feminist liturgies involved Biblical stories about women into the lectionary, and the reflections dealt mainly with women’s issues. They rediscovered the Bible stories about the foremothers and filled them with message and gospel. Although these Biblical women had not received proper attention until then, they were now recognised as essential participants in God’s salvation history for God’s people and examples of faith for today. The feminist movement revised the liturgical recollection of women by women, leading to the emergence of two liturgical forms: first, story-telling, because it can provide a powerful expression of taking the individual seriously. And secondly, litany, because it calls to memory saints and past events, enabling the realisation of the universal Church. It gives also new meaning and importance to the quest for holiness. The feminist movement also involved literature in its totality into liturgical life. Women discovered

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the importance of using poetry, drama and fiction, both in form and language. Literature had its strength in its æsthetics and basis, which was the symbolism both in content and language. Their rediscovery was necessary because women’s experiences were deep and painful, getting stuck at the level of a silent cry. Articulation for recognition and healing could happen only through symbolism.

3. MOVEMENTS AND SYMBOLISM Paying attention to the body was an urgent need, both on theological and spiritual levels. The feminist liturgies involved wonderful and expressive rituals, rites, dances, and movements as effective tools of worshipping God through women’s bodies. Feminist liturgies rediscovered also the importance of symbols as parts of the common human heritage, and as tools of communication and experience. The concentrated use of these elements gave special intensely symbolic, bodily characteristics to feminist liturgies.

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

of common need. They lose their authenticity when the leader uses a second person pronoun (you) instead of an inclusive one (“May God bless us”). The most preferred form is when the community gathers in a circle for blessing and holds each other’s hands. It physically represents equality among the participants, connectedness, sharing, and it makes one more aware of the uniqueness of others. Experiencing the flowing energy from palm to palm, the power of blessing can be more strongly felt. The feminist movement has left a great mark on ecumenical liturgical life. It realised the primary necessity of an inner liberation from the internal and external slaveries that were experienced in the society and in the Church. It has sought to make fundamental changes not only on the practical, physical and identical, but also on the intellectual level. It became a global phenomenon that continues to leave its mark on all the various theological schools, as well as the ecumenical movement. Suggested Reading Carmody Denise L., Christian Feminist Theology. Oxford, 1995. Kyung Chung Hyun, Struggle To Be the Sun Again. Orbis Books, 1990. Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church. Nashville, 1990. With Passion and Compassion. Orbis Books. Maryknoll, 1988.

4. BLESSING Various, alternative blessing formulas emerged and were used. The feminist principle of blessing provided a new experience for the ecumenical movement. It broke with the idea that blessing comes only through the ordained minister. Feminists were convinced that blessings should be participatory both in word and gesture, because they are symbols

Rozs-Nagy Szilvia is Evangelical-Lutheran, an ecumenical theologian and university chaplain from Hungary and a board member of KÖD (Magyar SCM). Currently she writes her Ph.D. on ecumenical and interreligious liturgies. She was a member of the Executive Committee of the Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe (EYCE) from 2001 till 2003, and she is a member of the WSCF Central European Subregion (CESR) board. Her email address is szilvianagyhun@yahoo.com.

Pablo R O M O C E D A N O

Cleaning Up Our Memory Contemporary theologies, especially contextual ones, tell us about subjects that appear in history in a very specific way. We see the poor in Latin America in the late ’70s; feminist theologies and women as a revolution in history and as the face of God.

Those with whom we have lived, those with whom we live and those we have not seen—with them we launch the search for interreligious dialogue. The second half of the XXth century leaves us as a legacy those newly “discovered” actors, who now make part of the mosaic that unveils God’s face.

NEW THEOLOGICAL SUBJECTS Hand in hand in time and strength we recognize black theologies, from the blackness, and the black God that wants no one to be slave any more and wants to love with a new dance. In the ’80s we find theologians who include homosexuals (lesbians and gays) as a part of the great history of salvation and recover the gay tenderness and energy in God’s infinite love. Latin American indigenous peoples come in the end, with their indigenous theologies, making space from the “forgotten corner of Christianity.” These theologies recover the God Who prepares Heaven and Earth for everyone and Who breaks the language of the purely rational to open for us a “new face and a new heart.” At the very end of the millennium, from the Christian progressive side, theologians—women and men—asked themselves about “all the others, women and men” who had not been included: those who are not Christian, those who are looked at by God with love and who have not been taken into account by us.

GOD IS LOVE, HERE AND NOW Always, speaking of God has meant for the theologies of Jesus Christ and for other theologies, speaking about love. Identifying Love with God is a constant reflection in Christianity, and the most evident and clear of all theologians is Saint John: “God is Love.” This is why it is necessary to contextualize love here and today. We talk about God when we liberate, when we include, when we break slavery, when we accept the different, when we come together and when we live in peace with the other—the one who does not believe in the same way as I do. Contextualizing love is making God present in our lives, pushing us to an action of “transformative compassion.” The one who loves knows that the sides of love vary in a dynamic that unveils human vulnerability: a heart beating in diverse moments of life. God does not make Godself present in the same way for everyone always. God is personal. The hieratic of a God Who contemplates from the Pantocratic image without

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Pablo R O M O C E D A N O

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

making a wink or moving the finger from time to time is incomprehensible to us. Perhaps that is why contemporary theologians, closer to the heart than to Immanuel Kant’s pure reason, tell us that “God dies with us” when we fail in love. God is a personal and close God. This does not mean in itself that God can represent Godself as always unique, motionless and indivisible, avoiding the comfortable God Who does “what I want” or justifies my life as such without requiring changes or conversion (metanoia). It is so personal that it requires constant change: it is Love that updates its content day after day in order not to get old and rotten. My father was a chemist and I was always impressed by something he continually repeated: matter varies and behaves differently depending on where it is, and with what it interacts. As an example, carbon has many valences; this means that according to what it comes in contact with, it has a different number of electrons spinning around the nucleus. Love, I suppose, behaves the same way: it has many valances that vary according to the moment and the place. It remains carbon, but varies its valence; remains love but varies its intensity and expression. Remains God, but becomes Emmanuel—God with us. If such is matter, rough and grotesque, with what we interact, what more can God be? That is why God, Love, is love for us in a specific moment not only in the great history of humanity, but also in our own personal history, so small and insignificant. God is not God in the same way in each time in history, because God is a living being for us.

GOD IS FORGIVENESS, IN SPITE OF ALL Love that is hurt, if authentic, forgives. Liberation, if authentic, does not murder the exploiter; it converts her or him. Emancipation, if authentic, does not end with its “dialectic counterpart,” but overcomes it in a new relation. Inclusion, if authentic, does not deny its adversary, but it assumes it in its totality to transform it. Recognizing the other, if authentic, contemplates God and directs this contemplation back to Earth. Love that is forgiveness is difficult to explain, and actualizes itself both in personal and in human history. Revisiting the theologians who have worked after World War II, we see a lot of pain lived without resurrection: a kind of thorn of perplexity, anger and impotence: a feeling that God is dead. God’s death, the one they were talking about in those times, is precisely the interpretation that love died and did not bear fruits through love. In the Protestant and Roman Catholic contextual theologies of the following years, especially after the Second Vatican Council, forgiveness is a call for transformation, for conversion, and for a change of attitudes. Forgiveness is proposed not from

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the perplexity and anger of the mystery of evil, but from the need for structural change (which is a fruit of love); one that changes radically the situation of humiliation, poverty, exploitation, discrimination, racism and exclusion. Forgiveness transits through the revolutionary cause, the astonishment before the different, the transformation of patriarchal structures, the creation of commissions of truth, changes of systems, and radical acceptance of the different. Certainly these expressions are all modern, because they recreate the emancipatory modern ideal and lead by the same mystery to a promise of a forgiveness-love. For some, especially for those in the “satisfied and disillusioned centre of the world,” this promise is an ideological expression that is never realized: it is a fantasy. It is a simple romantic ideology from the past that has nothing to do with love or forgiveness. The disillusioned critique of the realities of the world seems to be taking place among members of the new Christian generation, who feel cheated when they see the concrete and tangible results of love left by Christianity in the XXth century.

GOD IS WITH US THROUGH HISTORY The second part of the argument does not lack reason: the promise has remained distant from reality. Nevertheless it is necessary to deconstruct, more than promised love and needed forgiveness, the evil that has succeeded in keeping that love still a promise. The disillusioned critique quickly loses the memory of a pain of many years and human processes of change. This is why it is important to point out that this disillusioned critique comes from the satisfied centre of the world, which has plenty of everything and which lacks memory. Love, despite conflict and alienation, social or personal, requires as an unavoidable step the purifying of our memory. One cannot love without forgiving. Cleaning up that painful history of discrimination, poverty, patriarchalism, machismo, exclusion and slavery, requires more than just saying that it does not exist or that nothing can be done. To love is not to conform to the small. It is necessary to be “in the shoes of the one who suffers” and not simply disqualify the present results. It is necessary to read history in a different way, healing the pain of the offences and naming each pain. This takes time. Women who work every day to transform patriarchal realities know this well. Poor people who have lost many wars, and who think of themselves from faraway countries, know this well. Indigenous peoples who patiently regain their history know this well. God with us is history with us. To forgive is to love in their valence of history. God is love. And love requires forgiving. To forgive is to purify our memory. Pablo Romo Cedano participated, with Bishop Don Samuel Ruiz, in the mediation team in the war between the Zapatistas movement and the federal government of Mexico (1994–1998). He was the director of the diocesan human rights centre in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas (1993–1997); and later director of the Dominicans for Justice and Peace Organization, based in Genève, Switzerland (1999–2002). Now he is part of SERAPAZ, a peace organization in México. His email address is pabloromo@hotmail.com. This article was translated by Horacio Mesones.

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Jamie M O R A N

The Dæmonic God I cannot now recall when I first started using the phrase “the wound inflicted on the deep heart by the dæmonic God,” but I have used it for years and years in my writings. I did not resort to it from reading other people who have also used this old Greek term, but it found its way to me only when God laid waste my own life; in the words of a priest friend, who has been through this very recently and is still in the thick of it, the dæmonic refers to our ‘undoing’ by God.

UNDOING God slays and destroys us, leaving nothing standing, so our existence can be dug up from the foundation and rebuilt from the rubble. We are ‘overturned’ so that, deep down, we can ‘turn over’ a new leaf: we are fundamentally changed in depth through this. The process of undoing is savage, fierce and terrible: in its throes we lose everything; not only bad or indeed evil things go, but also all the good things go, including especially the religious and spiritual things. We lose it all. We lose God, and we lose our life, and we lose our self. Once we really let it all go, this is a tremendous relief, and liberation. But in the throes of it we despair, and go into an abyss beyond any comfort; a place beyond despair: a place of dereliction and ruination and abject failure on all levels, and a place of mourning where tears, though never ending, become exhausted. Sometimes this is a place of screaming, in protest, or of crying out, in pain. Often, it is mute. It is beyond everything. All pious hopes, certainties, images, are burnt up in a furnace. We are stripped, left naked, and raw. There is nothing left; it is all gone. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” we read—and dismiss, until it happens to us. Only at the end of this long dark night and burning desert may there be a coming to acceptance: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord”; but this cannot be uttered from within the midst of this process, while it is still reducing us to nothing. In this process, the whole voice of piety, of obedience to God sickens us, and we want to spit it out. It is not even that we hate God. We simply find God radically and wholly incomprehensible. Given what has happened to us, and to those we love, and to that in the world we value, then no ‘god’ makes sense, and to continue being pious and obedient is to falsify and lie about our heart’s dwelling place, and our heart’s truth in that place. Thus I always spoke of the ‘black pain in the deep heart.’ I called it ‘existence’s wound,’ and ‘the koan for which there is no solution.’ In a short piece I wrote for my friend Four Arrows, I named it in Lakota as ‘hard wakan’: hard mysterious, hard sacred, hard power, hard road. Goethe said: “The dæmonic is a mysterious power, which everyone feels, but no philosopher can explain.”

DUENDE For me personally, the most significant echo of this struggle and suffering inflicted upon the heart, which deepens it and either strengthens and forges it in that depth, or unravels and utterly derails it there, is in Federico García Lorca’s writings on the ‘duende’ of flamenco which produces ‘deep song.’ He explicitly identifies the Greek word ‘dæmonic’

with the Gypsy/Arab word ‘duende’. This was a kindred work: I immediately recognised Lorca as on the same hunt as my life. Before Lorca, I encountered Socrates speaking of having a ‘creative spirit,’ whom he called his ‘dæmon’, dynamising and driving his life work’s inspired condition; to this dæmon he felt both indebted and duty-bound, which is why he preferred to be put to death by the authorities and still keep his dæmon, rather than abandoning his post and retaining his life—but a life no longer stabbed and inspired by the dæmon. The ‘dæmonic’ haunts Greek culture as much, or more, than the ‘erotic’. The ‘paradoxes’ of Heraclitus are all dæmonic (and centuries later, the Orthodox Nicholas of Cusa will repeat Heraclitus in saying the Spirit, which is holy, is a “coincidence of opposites”). Similarly the Dionysian mysteries, which Friedrich Nietzsche contrasted with the calm cosmic order of the Apolline, are another account of the dæmonic. Lorca, like the Greeks, distinguishes dæmonic from both ‘angelic’ and ‘demonic’. In art, Lorca argues for three kinds of inspiration: (a) the angel of light (nous); (b) the muse of beauty (soul); (3) but only duende, which scorches and rips the heart to shreds, produces the depth of passion, as in the cante hondo of flamenco. It is an agonised ecstasy, ‘on the rim.’ In Lorca’s gypsy poems, he refers to duende or dæmonic as the ‘knife in the street,’ and the ‘blue arrows’ shot in the night. His evocation of its impact, and our wrestling with it in the deeps of the heart, is profound. The dæmonic is a shattering and wounding event, but it is also a spiritual power, a presence that brings and indwells such events, and can indwell us if we will wrestle with and indeed be killed by this power. The duende is a process, and a work. The duende is a spirit who destroys, yet raises, our spirit: our spiritedness of passion. It is this spirit being referred to when the Bible says, “Jacob’s heart fainted, but his spirit recovered.” The heart is fated to be wounded by the dæmonic in this existence. Faintheartedness is the fate of a heart that flees and refuses this fate. In the shamanic way of the Lakota, the dæmonic is Wakinyan Tanka, the spiritual guardian of the West in the sacred circle. He is the spirit who sends the thunder, lightning, and storm; his is the place of danger, mystery, and the power of life and death. He is the patron of the road of the warrior, who not only ‘hungers and thirsts for righteousness’ and justice, but is asked to ‘protect the sacred origins’ of all existence. The power that fights is also the same power that heals. There are also uses of the word ‘dæmonic’ which falsify and distort its meaning. These are too legion to mention, but Carl Gustav Jung’s usage of this holy word is usually neo-Platonic or Gnostic, and thus has nothing to do with what is being declared concerning God, humanity and the world, only through the dæmonic ‘messenger’ and his revelation. For example, what Jung terms the ‘archetypal’ is not in any sense ‘dæmonic’. The dæmonic is beyond all thought, all images, all creedal belief. Certainly it is not of the soul any more than it is of

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

the mind: it is of the heart. Most false notions of the dæmonic are false because they fail to realise the central point: that the dæmonic is the fate the heart is destined for. For the heart, it is curse and blessing, its providential pain, burden and duty: its vow and honour. In the following passage, Martin Buber evokes the dæmonic without ever naming it: “The world is not divine play, it is divine fate. That there are world, human, the divine person, Thou and I, has divine meaning. Creation— happens to us, burns into us, changes us; we tremble and swoon, we submit. Creation—we participate in it, we encounter the Creator, offer ourselves to Him, helpers and companions. Revelation does not flow from the unconscious; it is master of the unconscious. It takes possession of the existent human element and recasts it. Revelation is encounter’s pure form.” There is no Hebrew word that exactly translates the Greek ‘dæmonic’, or the Gypsy/Arab ‘duende’. The dæmonic God nevertheless completely overshadows the Old Testament. This God forces Jacob to fight for a blessing, then only grants this through a savage wound. This God sends huge dæmonic troubles and torments to the innocent Job. He sends to Saul, to drive him mad, his own ‘evil spirit’ (who is not the evil spirit Satan or Lucifer, but an aspect of God). One of (several possible) translations of ‘Isra-el’ is ‘one who fights with God,’ or ‘God Who fights.’ Fights for what? Fights for heart. Fights for truth of heart, only won from depth, a depth only opened by a wound. The God of the Jews is the existential God, the Risk Taker, Who must fight, suffer, and make an ultimate sacrifice, to redeem the risk he took with his creatures. He must not only join them in that risk, but let it bite and pierce Him. Only when we know how deep is the dæmonic wound in God, for our sake, do we ever ‘reconcile’ to the dæmonic God’s wounding of us, and indeed, not only accept its terrible loss for the sake of a greater gain, but praise this God as the ultimate lover, the ultimate existential hero. No Greek experience really engaged, and committed to, this dæmonic God as totally as the Jews did. Yet he is the ‘Unknown God’ to Whom the ancient Greeks left their memorial. This is the true Father. God’s name is not simply ‘I Am,’ nor ‘One Who Is.’ God’s more secret name, only revealed to those in hell and in death who yet know God is the only God of the deep, suffering heart, is this: ‘One Who inflicts a wound in humanity, and will not remove it from us, but joins us in it and is wounded by it.’ This dæmonic God Who is our only Father has the more intimate, passionate name: “One Who wounds, and is wounded for our sake.’ Only those in the abyss of passion, in the lost place of deadness and hell, can break down far enough to break through to this secret name of God. Only these really ‘know the Father.’ To these God reveals all the secrets of the deep heart, in God, and in humanity. What was the risk for? What was ventured, lost, and regained only in its lostness? The heart. The truth of heart that could only be reached through a wound. The truth of heart that had to be fought for. The truth too strange, and deep for us, but the truth about us the Father insists on: that we should have a heart like the Father. A heart great and deep. The heart that holds all things, suffers all things, carries all things, for the sake of making good on a risk and keeping a promise.

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The dæmonic God is the God of sacrifice. Judaism’s central truth is that God created the world in deep passion; thus Christianity’s central truth should be that the world can only be saved from utter deadening and hellishness, and redeemed in its possibility, by deep passion.

THE TEST The dæmonic creates in us rage, despair, fear, heartbreak, inexplicable black pain, and an incomprehension so far reaching, it cannot even be expressed in words. We are being tested so something can be proved. The test and the proof are existential. It is of the heart: only passion can enter and sustain, keep going to the end of, and finally come through, this test. In Hasidic terms, we are being ‘checked.’ We are being checked out deep within, and checking something out deep in the world. To kick against the dæmonic process, to object to it morally and rationally, does not help get us through it to the other side. It is a waste of breath. The person who stays with it is changed by that. Courage, strength, compassion, wisdom—are its legacy in us. Heroism is its own reward. Such a person can suffer for the world, carry the world, include the world, in her or his heart. Henceforth she or he fights for the world, and will not leave the fight, unless dead. This person is the Christ-like suffering servant, ready to give away one’s life for the world. Only by dæmonic wounding is passion deepened to the point where its fate and the fate of the world are tied together. Love will suffer for what it loves, when it is radically enworlded: staked to the ground; and no more wanting to flee, or to rise above on the wings of a dove, but willing to stay in it and willing to see it through.

SUMMARY In summation, it can be asserted that the dæmonic has multiple functions in human existence; these are only some: 1. It rebukes and chastises us: correcting us, calling us back from folly and error, showing us our road is bad, and requiring us to change that road by changing our bad heart. 2. It purges and purifies us: burns us to ashes, in a furnace. 3. It tests and proves us, and existence, as to our and its truth, and real worth; it can only do this by risking value to nullity, risking meaning to absurdity, risking purpose to futility. It checks us, and forces us to check out what really are life and death, heaven and hell: every edge, gap, koan and cross, upon which existence is poised, in its metaphysical fragility and ungroundedness. The hero is forged, but must also forge something true out of his own being forged. What is ‘true’ of heart is a ‘mettle’ that is being burnt, tried out, and in the end confirmed—or disconfirmed. In a novel by André Gide, one his characters says, “I want to ring true”; such ringing true is no abstract idea of truth, but the authenticating of truth in concrete living: only this grants a person authoritativeness. What is deep emerges, and what gets us through depth is tried and discovered. Thus, only the truth is left standing at the end of the existential testing. Everything else is consumed, proved unreal or unauthentic. What is true, deep, real, of heart, is checked and revealed. Like the ‘infernal printing method’ invented by William Blake, the acid of the dæmonic burns away falsity, to reveal the ‘fine wiry line’ of truth in our entire existence in this world. 4. It strips us, and strips the world, leaving us and the world naked, raw and exposed. Our basic heart truth and the world’s basic heart truth are dramatically revealed—by

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clashes, crises and crashings. The dæmonic sweeps away the soap opera dramas of the petty heart, but reveals the deeper drama, in which each of us personally and all of us together are caught up. The dæmonic brings the tower down, to reveal the pit beneath. This is dramatic and dynamic: it not only exposes, but exposes in order to change, to move things on. It overturns to cause things to turn over: to go through it and reach the other side. The dæmonic chases us in our places of hiding, dragging us out into an unwanted light. When we are not true to the dæmonic’s truth, we cower in fear, shame and guilt. 5. The dæmonic wounds us to reveal the primordial and deeper wound pervasive in everyone. Only the killer of the false can be the healer of the true. 6. The dæmonic is mystical as well as existential: it ‘grounds’ us in the depth of the heart, where only what is true can ‘stand’ in the unfathomable abyss in the heart. 7. The dæmonic entrusts the world to us, believes in us, helps us in the impossible: the dæmonic ventures something through us, takes a real risk with us, and thus with the world. It encourages and dignifies us in this venture, in this risk. Spiritual power comes only to those who stand in the truth: whereas those who substitute ‘force’ for ‘truth’ never receive any spiritual power, inspiration, blessing for their action. The dæmonic fights for justice, yet also bears the sister and the brother, is merciful, is compassionate, forgives, and suffers and carries what others have fled and put down. It gathers and includes all on the heart ground common to all. Nothing upholds me, alone; I am only upheld by what upholds all, when I uphold all. In Lakota, this is called ‘putting the welfare of the people in my heart.’ 8. The dæmonic redeems the wound it inflicts, by being wounded by it. In the end, not only humanity, but God, ‘comes through.’ This is the victory the dæmonic wins. It is done in time, over time, for all time. It is done in the world, for the world. It is the true story of the beginning, middle and end of all things. This story is terrible, dramatic, tragic, and finally wondrous. It is a story of the most extreme, moving passion and the most touching, aching pathos. Neither the light of nous, nor the imaginary colour, multiplicity or balance of the soul, can comprehend the harsh ground, the dusty road, the tears, sweat, and blood of the agonised ecstasy of the deep passion of the heart. Passion is our spirit: passion is the fire Christ said He came to kindle, and wished it was already kindled. It will be. The fire is coming. This is the daemonic’s doing, and it is glorious. The daemonic will wipe away every tear. Only by its fierceness will the tenderness of God be finally revealed. The God we passionately love and hate, hope in and despair of, want and flee, is both tiger and lamb. So are we. The daemonic passion of deep heart is bold and vulnerable. So it is for God, so it is for us. It just is what is. The daemonic is what is, in all its terror and beauty, in all its mystery and danger, its dynamism and irrationality. Let what is be what is. Jamie Moran was born in the United States of America, of Red Indian and Celtic descent, but he married and now works in England. At 22, he converted from Tibetan Buddhism to Russian Orthodox Christianity; he works as a therapist and senior lecturer on counselling and psychology at a university in London. He is writing a novel on the conflict between settlers and indigenous peoples in the American West of the XIXth century, and he is a sub-chief in the Cante Tenze (Brave Hearts) Warrior Society of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. His email address is J.Moran@roehampton.ac.uk. This text is about the sacred masculine mystery, the masculine side of God; that is why the author uses “He” when referring to God.

Ruth Rouse (1872–1956)

“Mission and Ecumenism Are Inseparable” Ruth Rouse helped forge WSCF and preserve its memory. She was active in the SCM in its early years, its first woman secretary and its historian thereafter. She was a passionate believer in the ecumenical movement that she discovered through SCM because she saw it as a force to bring people together and make the world a better place: “Students could organise freely, and with common sense and divine recklessness combined, they dared ecumenical experiments undreamed of by the official churches … men and women strongly evangelical in the best sense of that word, but ready to work with other types of Christian… They found themselves in the midst of an ecumenical fellowship in actual operation. … It was through some such experience of Christian unity that leaders of many churches … were prepared to play their part in the modern ecumenical movement” (Rouse 1967, pp. 343–244).

FIRST WRITINGS One of Ruth’s earliest works was Christian Experience and Psychological Processes, written before the Great War, in which she attempted to defend the reality of Christian experience. Despite the real existence of “suggestion, autosuggestion, and the psychology of the crowd,” she argued that God himself is at work in the human soul. By the time of writng Ruth was halfway through her time as travelling secretary, and turning her energies to action rather than reflection. After World War I, Ruth published Rebuilding Europe, the story of the European Student Relief Fund, which began within WSCF and developed into a worldwide independent fund. Ruth first had the vision that this work was needed, planned it and carried it out, distributing over 11 million Swiss francs of aid by students for students in the immediate post-war years. As John R. Mott stated in his forward to her account, the student relief enabled a new generation to “counteract the startling development of divisive forces in the field of industrial, international, and inter-racial relations.”

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Ruth Rouse (1872–1956)

A VISION OF STUDENT ACTIVISM This gave Ruth hope for the future—her vision of student life in Europe in ten years’ time. “We have seen the students of the intelligentsia reading Goethe in the coal mine. We shall see the coal miner in the university teaching his fellow students of the intelligentsia how to read his life and understand his thought” (Rouse 1925, p. 204). She knew that the students who had been involved in relief work would go on to be ecumenical and political leaders of the next generation. “Students of the world united can put though a big thing; this we have seen. May they not accomplish far greater things if, in the same spirit as they have already shown, they turn to yet more difficult and critical tasks? ... “Today the race problem is the crucial question of the world. It will be so in greater measure in 1935. Three great race questions may at any moment plunge the world into war: the race frictions around the Pacific Basin, the problem of Black and White, and the age-long strife between Jew and Gentile. Yet in the cause of student relief we have seen, albeit under great difficulties, Jew and Gentile working together, black and white contributing to each others’ welfare” (idem. pp. 207–208).

THE GREAT COMMISION On the eve of the Second World War, Ruth wrote her Commonwealth of Man, calling for the need to build a “world-wide fellowship” of mutual understanding, which she believed was possible through the advancement of a shared Christian faith.

“When Jesus Christ commissioned His followers, He started them on a course leading towards a world community. He sent them to be His witnesses ‘in Jerusalem and in all Judæa and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of all the earth.’ There they are to be found to-day: Eskimos in the Arctic Circle and Greenland, Indians furthest south in Tierra del Fuego, Pygmies in the tropical forests of Central Africa, ex-cannibals in the islands of the south Pacific. “The Christian Community, despite its lamentable divisions, carries the marks of a real community. Its members bear the same name, revere and follow the same Master, read each in their own tongue the same Book, and pray the same ‘Our Father’ prayer. In their many differing forms of worship they employ the same symbols: the Cross, the Water, the Bread, the Wine, and by the use of that bread and that wine in the common meal they recognise that they belong to one Family” (Rouse 1939, pp. 16–17).

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE She had seen it and made this family happen in WSCF and the YWCA, where, for example, Chinese and Japanese Christians could encounter each other in a way that seemed impossible. “In this world of fevered nationalism and white-hot radicalism, Christians, through their common understanding of Jesus Christ, can learn to understand one another, can forgive and find fellowship” (idem. p. 22). Christians could thus offer hope for all peoples: “The Christian community is not only advancing throughout the world, and manifesting a power to reconcile, but it is conscious of having a message for the world and of a corporate duty to give that message. War is the most crying of the social evils which afflict mankind” (idem. p. 38). Yet she admits that “the Church is not one ... the crucial weakness of Christendom, its shame, its crying reason for penitence and amendment” (idem. p. 44). Its hope for the future lies in the ecumenical movement and in Christian mission throughout the world.

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In her later years, when Ruth composed her history of WSCF and of the ecumenical movement, she did not rely on her own memory but undertook painstaking research, delving into the archives in Yale and Geneva. She wrote these stories down to encourage others to mission and ecumenism. “We are living stones, builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Are we not now prepared to add to our creed the clause—‘I believe in a God of purpose,’ and in reverence for His plan to seek the path before prepared for us to walk in?” (Rouse 1935, p. 41). Since Ruth was active in WSCF, mission is a perhaps a more difficult concept, but we in WSCF today still share her “Bible-and-newspaper” concern for God in the world, and her belief that when people meet, pray and act for justice together, fellowship and understanding can be fostered, making God’s Kingdom come. —written by Dr. Kate Wilson Suggested Reading Rouse Ruth, ed., A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517–1948. London, 1954. She also wrote the section on voluntary movements. Rouse Ruth, The World’s Student Christian Federation: A History of the First Thirty Years. London, 1948. Rouse Ruth, The Commonwealth of Man. London, 1939. Rouse Ruth, God Has a Purpose: An Outline of the History of Missions and of Missionary Method. London, 1935. Rouse Ruth, Rebuilding Europe: The Student Chapter in Post-War Reconstruction. London, 1925. Rouse Ruth, Christ and the Student World: A Review of the World’s Student Christian Federation, 1920–21. London, 1922. Rouse Ruth and Miller H Crichton, Christian Experience and Psychological Processes—With Special Reference to the Phenomenon of

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Mini-Biography

Autosuggestion. London, 1917.

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Can Women Writers Further the Cause INTERVIEW WITH THE SLOVAK FEMINIST WRITER

“I define feminist consciousness as the recognition of the fact by women that they belong to an inferior group, that as a group they suffer under disqualifying conditions, that their inferior status is not nature-bound, but socially constructed, that they must join their hands with other women in order to eliminate the disqualifying conditions and finally that they need to elaborate and present a countervision of a social order in which both women and men would be assigned autonomy and self-determination.” —Gerda Lerner, Die Entstehung des feministischen Bewußtseins

Unlike in many western European and Nordic, but also neighbouring, countries, feminist theory and gender studies in Slovakia did not emerge within social sciences but rather within literature and philosophy. How does this fact make Slovak feminism different? Feminism in Western Europe and in North America did not emerge primarily from the social sciences, but rather from the great social movements. The 1990s were not a time of social movements and social changes; they were above all a time of regime changes. The change of regime in Central and

Jana Juránová ˇ Eastern Europe made possible also the formation and constitution of feminist groups in the region. Most of them aimed their primary efforts at the necessary changes in consciousness, although their strategies differed. In the Czech Republic gender studies were profiled mainly in the 1990s and focused on educational activities and setting up a library, but comprised other activities as well. In Poland many women’s NGOs arose because of the pressure of the anti-abortion law. In Slovakia we felt the absence of a larger sphere of feminist thinking, literature, culture, politics, etc. So we started to publish the feminist cultural journal Aspekt in 1993 and its foundation can be regarded as the formal beginning of continuous gender studies in Slovakia. Most of us were active in literature at that time, either as critics or authors, so naturally our first interest was literature. Those of us who are involved in the project even now very early grasped the fact that social sciences, and even more generally, social problems, are often to be regarded as the most urgent issues. So we started to do what we felt as the most important thing to do. For this reason we started initiatives dealing with such topics as violence against women, sexual minorities, human rights of women, gender sensitive pedagogy, etc. The American scholar Norma L. Rudinsky writes in her book Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in the Slovak National Revival that “writing seems to have been a nearly automatic part of nationalist activity and nationalist women were almost required to try to become writers.” It seems, however, that the women writers as a rule stayed away from politics. Wasn’t this a handicap for the promotion of the rights of women? The part of Slovak history that Norma L. Rudinsky writes about—the XIXth century—saw its primary target in the development of national consciousness. At that time women were rare agents in political and social movements, because it was seen as contrary to “women’s roles” to be active in these fields. Later on women like

Terézia Vansová, L’udmila Podjavorinská and Elena Maróthyˇ Soltésová became actively engaged. We must note, however, that these women could study only till the age of 14, as opposed to the full-scale education of men in those times. Moreover, they had to be powerful enough to go against the idea that women ought to stay at home and passively await their fate. Some of them, e.g. Hana Gregorová or L’udmila Podjavorinská, demanded the right to be politically active, but male politicians actively prevented them from doing so. L’udmila Podjavorinská wrote an open letter to the Slovak National Council after the World War I asking “our men” to accept the right of women to political engagement. But her voice wasn´t listened to. Slovakia had in those years many national and social problems that required urgent treatment and so ultimately the voice of the women’s movement proved to be insufficiently strong and self-confident to break through. In those years women activists were constantly told that there are more burning issues than the issues of the women’s movement. We were told the same in 1993 after Aspekt had been founded. But we did not listen to these arguments and it proved to be a very good idea. Needless to say, we were in a very different situation—having modern democratic freedom on our side. Women in the XIXth century were not free enough to be sufficiently self-confident. But we realise that we owe a lot to these women. One of the most prominent Slovak women writers, Bozˇena Slancˇíková Timrava (1867–1951), was a solitary saint. She lived and wrote in the countryside. In what way did she contribute to the actual empowerment of women? Timrava was a literary genius. The first shocking thing for many was that she was a really good writer and she was a woman. Her prose is free from gender stereotypes. She demasqued a lot of the myths connected with weddings, marriage, etc. She is one of the very few authors of her time who can be read with enjoyment even now.

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Human Rights? Veronika Wöhrer states in her study, The Tradition of Literature within Slovak Women’s Organisations and Gender Studies, that the work of the women engaged in the Zˇivena Association (founded 1869), as well as around the journal Dennica, was largely influenced by Christian ideals, as many of the women activists worked in co-operation with priests and pastors. Can basic Christian ideals be an inspiration for feminism even today? In the XIXth and early XXth century, most intellectuals in Slovakia were inspired by Christian ideas; it was not something specifically connected with the women intellectuals of that age. Some of them were daughters, some of them wives of Lutheran pastors. Christian ideas bound them in their formulations and were a kind of autocensure they imposed on themselves. Nowadays too we see genuine Christian ideals as inspirational in many ways. Jesus opened the act of baptism also to women— which is considered perfectly normal now, but it was revolutionary at his time in the Hebrew context. The roots of Christianity are much more democratic and even feminist than the Christian tradition as it was formed on the basis of St. Paul’s theology and as it is presented to the public by the current officials of the Catholic Church in Slovakia. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute but one of Jesus’ apostles, as can be seen from the new reading of the ancient sources, which are regarded as very interesting and very friendly even from a feminist perspective. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Elfriede Jelinek commented: “When I get this prize as woman, I get it also because I am a woman. Therefore my joy cannot be limitless. If the prize had been awarded to Peter Handke, who deserves it much more than myself, he would have got it just because he is Peter Handke.”

The literature written by women is still stigmatized, even in the case of a prizewinner like Jelinek. Women are still pegged as “the other” in a symbolic sense. Jelinek said it aloud and this was a very valuable political gesture on her part. These things must be said openly, because they exist— sometimes they are more obvious, sometimes less, sometimes they are not even recognized. Aspekt runs the only library in Slovakia dedicated to women’s and gender issues. What is your experience with this part of your project? The library is only one part of our now quite wide educational and publication-based feminist project. In the library there are books on many topics, most of them in English, German, now many of them also in Slovak, and some of them in Czech. Visitors are mostly students and women from NGOs, but not only them. The books are much needed, and the person in charge of the library can also serve as a consultant in certain areas if needed. The whole project has existed for 12 years by now. The journal, which was the first part of the project, finished in 2004. It fulfilled its role of the first brush with feminism in Slovakia. From 1996 onwards we have been publishing books; there are around 65 titles now, among them fiction, non-fiction and books for children. The role of the journal has been taken over by the webzine called AspektIn (www.aspekt.sk). We have organized a number of activities, book presentations, lectures and seminars. The most recent project is the project devoted to gender-sensitive pedagogy, which now begins in the framework of the project Equal. Which recently published books dealing with the issue of women’s rights would you recommend to our readers? I can recommend all the books from our production. You can see the titles on the www.aspekt.sk website. There is the recently published book by the

Slovak emigrant Irena Brezˇná, written in German and translated by Jana Cviková, as well as the book by the Swiss author Aglaja Veterany. We are preparing the publication of several Slovak authors: Jaroslava Blazˇková, Etela Farkasˇová, and Jana Bodnárová. Already in 1932 there was a book published in Germany mentioning the 50 greatest women personalities of Europe of that age and Elena MaróthySˇ oltésová was included. The short stories of the contemporary writer Etela Farkasˇová were published in German, Czech, Hungarian and Japanese translation. Can we thus speak of a certain “export” of Slovak feminism and its popularisation abroad? I like the word communication better than the word export in this context. I think the Slovak case is not so unique. As a matter of fact, there are many more authors from Slovakia translated into foreign languages. Several anthologies of Slovak women authors were published in German; some of us are part of other anthologies. Women editors choosing women authors from Slovakia or from other postcommunist countries have a special purpose in their mind when doing so—as is always the case with anthologies. What was the decisive motivation that enabled you to discover your personal vocation of a gender activist? I do not consider myself an activist of any kind. In the 1990s I felt a significant deficit in this field and that was why I started a feminist project. I am lucky not to be alone with this perception of things, and I was happy to find out that there was a group of inspiring women with whom I could communicate in a fruitful way right from the begining and so it is until now.

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Interview

Jana Juránˇová was born in Senica, Slovakia, in 1957. She studied English and Russian at the Comenius University in Bratislava. She worked as dramaturgist in the Theatre for Children and Youth in Trnava and as a reporter for Radio Free Europe. In 1993 she became the co-founder of the feminist educational project Aspekt, in which she has been involved since then. She translated into Slovak authors like Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Judith L. Herman, etc. She is the author of fiction, dramas and children’s books. Her email address is juranova@aspekt.sk.

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Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Hanna T E R V A N O T K O

Sinful or Sacred? Women in the Genealogy of the Gospel According to Matthew Genealogies typical for the literature of Biblical times can be found in diverse passages throughout the Old and New Testaments. The purpose of conserving these documents could be that the writer of the Biblical books is intending to be “historical”—in other words, to write a document which presents what has really happened in history.

GENEALOGY OF THE MESSIAH Conserving the records of various families to prove a relationship also can be seen as an attempt to be historical. One of the most famous of these is at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, which contains a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus. Most probably the eventual plan of the writer, ‘Matthew’, was to prove Jesus to be the descendant of David, which would make him qualified to be the Messiah. According to Jewish tradition the saviour, the Messiah, would be a descendant of the royal family. For ‘Matthew’ it seems to be important to prove Jesus’ family relation both to David and also to Abraham. These links verify that Jesus belongs to Israel and justify his remarkable role in the country’s history. Generally the genealogies in the Bible trace the lineage via male line by mentioning only the men’s names. The man was considered to be the head of the family and he ‘gave’ the name for the whole family. People actually could be called by the name of a male member of their family (e.g. Jacob and John, sons of Sebedeus, Matthew 4,21; Mary, mother of Jacob, Mark 16,1). Hence the genealogy in the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew is unusual, as it clearly names four women who belong to Joseph’s family tree. No other biblical genealogy uses the same practice. The women mentioned are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. At first glance these women seem quite unlikely representatives for the family. Why are women with a bit of scandalous reputation mentioned? What is their purpose in this context? What can they tell us?

TAMAR: SWEET REVENGE Tamar is a daughter-in-law of Judah who appears in the book of Genesis, chapter 38. After her husband dies she becomes the wife of the husband’s brother, according to the laws of that time. Then her second husband dies too. Now Judah should make her marry a third son. But he refuses to do so, forcing Tamar to live in her father’s house as a widow instead of being a member of his family. One day Tamar dresses up like a prostitute and, hiding her real identity from her father-in-law, she sleeps with him and gets pregnant. When the community finds out about her pregnancy, not knowing who the father of the unborn child is, they want to kill her as punishment for her adultery. Only in the last moment before she is to be burned does Judah hear that the child she carries is his own. Genesis 38 gives us important information on the status of women in ancient Israel. Once a woman got married, she had to stay with the husband’s family. It was the responsibility of the family to make her marry another member in the instance of the death of her first husband. If this was not possible, she could return to her own house, but this would

mean living as a widow in exile from the husband’s family. Women who had no male relatives had few possibilities to maintain themselves economically, and various studies of ancient prostitution show that widows were the women who were in the greatest danger to become ‘public women,’ unless they were wealthy. For example, the women who belonged to the group of Jesus’ disciples were most likely widows with good economic status. Luke states that these women supported the disciples with their own money (Luke 8:3). Tamar isn’t a rich woman, though. What is notable here, in my opinion, is the independence and determination she demonstrates. While women appear to play the role of the audience many times in Bible stories, Tamar takes an active role in changing her own future, even at the risk of being killed. She shows real self-determination by deciding to make her father-in-law bear his duties. The Bible doesn’t moralize Tamar’s behavior; nor does it consider sleeping with one’s father-in-law incest. Sexual relations with members of the same family appear also in other Bible stories, and in Tamar’s case the incest is an intelligent tool to prove that Judah has not treated her in an appropriate or just way. She makes him nearly ridiculous when he understands that he made her pregnant and then gave the community permission to burn her for committing adultery.

RAHAB: PROSTITUTE HEROINE The story of Rahab the prostitute appears in Joshua 2. From today’s perspective the story raises many questions related to the institution of prostitution and what kind of position prostitutes had in society. The reader is not told why this woman is prostitute—is she a widow? Anyway, her ‘profession’ is clearly underlined. It seems that prostitutes in Old Testament literature have a special function. They are women who are very shameful in society, but at the same time they have qualities that can be considered admirable. They can be described as ‘brave,’ ‘faithful,’ and ‘loving.’ These qualities are even more evident since, because of their position, the reader doesn’t have high expectations of their actions. Rahab is a good example of this kind of prostitute. She could be considered a prototype for the image of heroine whore, later widely quoted in art—especially in cinema and in theater. This is the prostitute who is always very smart and good-hearted and who makes selling sex look acceptable and nearly appealing. In art these ‘pretty women’ are never under the domination of anyone else, but they have rather ‘chosen’ the lifestyle on their own. Also in this context Rahab the prostitute is clever. She recognizes the Israelite men and declares them to be God’s chosen people. In the context of Joshua and the famous battle of Jericho, Rahab’s presence has a special purpose. The spying men, planning the conquest, stay at her place. The Biblical passage doesn’t report that sex takes place in her dwellings, but that the men sleep on the roof of the house. The purpose of Rahab here is to underline the cleverness of the hiding men. Who could expect the soldiers to stay overnight in a whore’s house?

Human Rights: A Gender Perspective.

Even if the women were expected to hold high moral standards, prostitution itself doesn’t cause a moral dilemma in the Biblical context. Prostitution seems to exist as part of the culture and probably most men visited prostitutes. The practice was not considered particularly harmful if it didn’t harm individual men’s rights. Therefore young men are warned in different books to not to touch other men’s wives. “Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her” (Leviticus 18:20). An interesting remark related to this talk about prostitution is that the Hebrew word, which is used for ‘whores’, is in other passages used to describe religious adultery—e.g. Israel or Judah worshiping other gods than Yahweh. This is typical especially in prophetic books such as Ezekiel and Isaiah. And in that context, prostitution is obviously considered as something quite negative.

RUTH: FAITHFUL DAUGHTER-IN-LAW The book of Ruth is one of the few books in the Bible titled after a woman. In the centre of the story aren’t the patriarchs or the prophets, but a simple foreign female and her personal struggle. This book has something in common with the genealogy, which is the motivation of the writer. It seems clear that one reason why this book finds itself in the Biblical canon is the genealogy at the end, which proves Ruth to be the grandmother of King David. However, Ruth has a more significant task than being just the birth-giver. After Ruth gives birth, local women approach her motherin-law, Naomi, saying: “…because he is born from your daughter-in-law Ruth who loves you and is worth more than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15). If this is considered more than just an exaggeration of the extremely good relations that the two women had, it is a strong statement. The son, as a future head of the family, was considered to be a security for the future of his mother. Could a foreign woman be more worth than economic safety? Could she be considered one of the natives? This would be very unusual as, despite all the respect towards other peoples, Israelites were commanded to marry amongst themselves and not to mix with others. In Deuteronomy it is written that no Ammonite or Moabite could enter the Assembly of God, or their offspring down to tenth generation (Deut. 23:4). Another perspective on the book of Ruth is one that liberation theology offers. The genealogy written at the end of the story opens an extraordinary view on how an individual can have a purpose in God’s universal plan. Ruth, an unknown poor woman with a pagan background, is to be the grandmother of King David. Power can be hidden in the weakest creature, and no one can be judged by her or his cover. The book of Ruth also focuses more on the individual than on the future of the nation. God isn’t just the God of peoples, war and peace, but also the Creator of the individual who has a place in front of God.

BATHSHEBA: FORBIDDEN FRUIT “Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.” The practice for the Israelites by 500 B.C. was monogamy. Marriage was a contract between only one man and one woman; as mentioned before, prostitution was something external to that. But the story of Bathsheba is a story of adultery. It is lust that makes the highly lauded king David act like a coward. With a passion he wants to sleep with Uriah’s wife and, after hearing she is pregnant, he wants to get rid of her husband to marry her and to live like a family.

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This happens, but unlike the other stories, here the Bible doesn’t stay neutral. As stated before, adultery is a sin and David’s act is wrong in front of God. The prophet Nathan comes to visit the king and tells him the following story: The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him” (2 Samuel 12:1–4). Despite David’s position as chosen king, God doesn’t approve of his behavior. The law against breaking or interfering in other people’s marriages is repeated here, and it includes the king himself. Only after David truly regrets his actions he can be forgiven. Nevertheless the son, who is the unfortunate fruit of the forbidden relationship, had to die anyway. The punishment was severe, but it could have been even heavier if the person breaking the marriage had been someone else. Men were largely free to have sexual relations, whereas for women something similar could never happen.

SOME CONCLUSIONS The Bible reader is often challenged by the fact that the holy book is a book written by men and that therefore it conserves, most usually, the history of men. It can seem quite a task to look behind the façade of the texts, to find the historical women. What kind of people were they? What was their role in salvation history? Do women have any role at all? And finally a female reader can ask herself: Who are my Biblical role models? After studying these passages, one can certainly admit that yes, women do have a role. They don’t, however, give a very simple answer for the question of what the purpose of these specific women is in this context. According to some conservative voices, these were all sinful women, all women who committed adultery. I would like to explore some other suggestions. Some interpretations claim that an outstanding fact is that all these women were foreign, but yet they had a purpose in God’s plan. The Old Testament suggests in several passages that God is the God of Israel and foreigners are excluded from salvation. Both stories, the one of Ruth and the one of David and Bathsheba, tend to suggest that actually this rule isn’t totally exclusive, or as strict as it is earlier claimed, but that individual foreigners could actually have a place in God’s universal plan. Rahab was also most probably a foreigner since Jericho was a state of its own by that time and the Israelites aimed to conquer the land. I think one reason why these specific women are underlined in the genealogy is that they were not originally the wives of the Israelite men, for whom they bore descendants. Actually all of them belonged to someone else—‘belong’, because that really was the idea of ‘owning’ a wife, quite different from our modern ideas of an equal partnership. The wife was the property of her husband or another male family member. Their stories therefore aren’t very typical ones, but they interfered in the family tree through some strange and maybe unexpected turn in people’s lives.

LITURGY Reading the Bible and studying different passages can be eye-opening. Our idea and impression of the book is, I dare say, more conservative than what the book itself is. To bring the most extreme examples of the family into the genealogy, even if they are women, and even if they were wives of other men, shows surprising tolerance and includes everyone. Some scholars also suggest that this is the way Matthew shows how people marginalized because of their gender, reputation or race, are included in the Gospel. In fact they not only appear in the genealogy, but they are part of the divine plan aimed at salvation. Therefore Matthew’s

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gospel seems also to have other tendencies, further than trying to conserve the ‘history.’ It really involves all people, despite their race, gender or status, in Jesus’ family. What can we, today’s followers of the Christ, learn from this? Suggested Reading de Beauvoir Simone, The Second Sex. London, 1972. The Gospel according to Matthew. Foucault Michel, The History of Sexuality I-III. New York, 1986. Bird Phyllis, Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities. Women and Gender in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, 1997. Archer Léonie, Her Price Is Beyond Rubies. Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine. Sheffield, 1990. Hanna Tervanotko is a Lutheran pastor from Finland. She has studied theology, Semitic languages and European Studies in Finland and philosophy in Italy. Her main interests are Biblical exegesis, inter-testamental literature and feminist theology. Since 2004 she has been working as the regional secretary of WSCF Europe in Budapest. Her email is regionaloffice@wscf-europe.org.

Angharad Parry J O N E S

liturgy

Facing God — Facing One Another

This liturgy is adapted from the closing worship of the WSCF conference in Vilnius in April 2005. The theme of the conference was Respecting Human Dignity and Integrity - Theological and Gender Perspectives on Human Rights, with a focus on trafficking. This theme is reflected in the liturgy, recognising each other as dignified beings created in God’s image and reflecting on the suffering of Trafficked women and children and praying for them.

LEADER 1 We gather in the name of God, the Creator, the Liberator and the Sustainer.

ALL Amen. LEADER 2 As we come before God in worship we bring all that we are and all the concerns of our hearts. In this time we come before our loving God with the victims of trafficking on our minds, realising that their mistreatment is a violation of God’s image. Remembering that all women and men are created equally in the image of God, let us affirm the image of God in each other.

CHANT Veni Creator Spiritus (Sung 3 times through; then hummed as each person in turn repeats the following, addressing it to the assembled group) ALL God created humankind. They were created, male and female, in the image of God

LEADER 1 Creator God, you created us in your image Created us equal, dignified beings You weep at your people in pain And despair at the violation of your people 1st READING 2 Samuel 13:1–20

LEADER 1 Creator God, you created us in your image Created us equal, dignified beings Created us as your representatives Created us with responsibilities 2nd READING Matthew 25: 41–45 SONG Suggestion: “Enemy of Apathy” LEADER 2 Let us pray: As they face this day, O God, Find those who are lost, separated from those they love, crossing unknown borders, a long way from

home, not knowing where to turn.

ALL Find them, God who always seeks for the lost, and cover them safely as a hen covers her chickens.

LEADER 1 As they face this day, O God, Be with the victims of trafficking, in the hunger and the despair, in the crowds and in the emptiness, in the violence and the rape. ALL Be their hope and their strength in crying out and breaking free and open the ears of the world to hear their cries. LEADER 2 As they face this day, O God, Give them hope of a future, where they are respected, where their gifts and graces are celebrated and where they have no need to live in fear. ALL Give us the courage to speak out for the victims of trafficking, to use our gifts and graces to bring an end to their oppression. LEADER 1 As we face this day, O God, Help us to see all your people as being in your image and as our sisters and brothers and let us then cry out with Dinah’s brothers: “Why should our sister be treated like a prostitute?” We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ who counted victims of prostitution among his friends and respected them.(1) ALL Amen SONG Suggestion: “Here I Am” (I the Lord of Sea and Sky) LEADER 2 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. LEADER 1 Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast that which is good; render to no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honour everyone and love and serve the Lord. (2) (1) Adapted from Share Together by Christian Conference Asia, Hong Kong, Uniting Church in Australia, in Duncan Geoffrey (ed.), Wisdom is Calling. Norwich, 1999, pp. 219–220. (2) From Common Worship Further Blessings, number 13. http://cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/hc/presed/furtherblessings.html Angharad Parry Jones was born in Cymru (Wales, UK) in 1979. She graduated in 2002 with a BA in Theology and Religious Studies from Liverpool Hope University College where she is currently completing a Masters degree in Theology and Religious Studies and works in student support. Her email is blod@cheerful.com.

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Angharad Parry J O N E S

liturgy

Facing God — Facing One Another

LEADER 1 We gather in the name of God, the Creator, the Liberator and the Sustainer.

LEADER 1 Creator God, you created us in your image Created us equal, dignified beings You weep at your people in pain And despair at the violation of your people 1st READING 2 Samuel 13:1–20

home, not knowing where to turn.

ALL Find them, God who always seeks for the lost, and cover them safely as a hen covers her chickens.