02.02.06
Naomi Wolf and God
Oh puke. This is the last straw. She believes in God. But he’s a man for [god's] sake! See reality check for more..I will try not let this undermine my love for The Beauty Myth. And of course, Misconceptions was useful in that row with a boss about maternity pay…But still..she’s not helping, is she?
Pete said,
February 3, 2006 at 11:21 am
Sorry, not clear: are you saying that God is a man, or is Naomi Wolf saying that?
Surely being immortal and omnipotent would make having a sex quite unnecessary.
Sarah said,
February 3, 2006 at 11:54 am
apologies.
Naomi does not say God is a man and I acknowledge that in theory God is neutral. But she does say that she believes in God. And as God is always He, the Father etc, he has thus been assigned gender. The ultimate patriarch if you will. Feminists should believe in Earth and Mother Nature and all that. (there are lots of belief systems where the higher spirit is Mother and its all about reproducing and giving birth). God making Adam and all that bullshit? Please. No respectable feminist has any business endorsing that.
Pete said,
February 3, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Since all deities only exist in people’s imaginations, and the Judeo-Christian God is almost universally imagined as a patriarcal figure, you are right about God being a man.
I dont know much about Feminism, but I thought it was supposed to liberate women? Telling women what they are and are not allowed to believe in doesn’t sound very liberating.
Anna said,
February 7, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Since when does believing in God mean believing in biblical literalism? Since when does the fact that some of the big religions use masculine pronouns when refering to God mean that God is “always” a he? What bizarre arguments. God may have been assigned gender by some theologians and believers, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who isn’t an atheist automatically accepts that definition. I mean, I’m an agnostic – and a feminist – but I am well aware that many people believe in a non-patriarchal God. I was brought up by lefty Catholic parents and when I was a kid my (feminist) mother always stressed the fact that God is neither male nor female – that was about twenty years ago, so this idea isn’t exactly new. You might want to talk to some feminist theologians – and yes, there are plenty of them, including Catholic ones – before making such embarrassingly inaccurate statements. And Naomi Wolf hasn’t endorsed “God making Adam” and other biblical-literalist nonsense – I have no idea where you’re getting that preposterous idea from. If she’d said she was a fundamentalist Christian, I would understand and indeed share your concern. But to simply believe in the existence of God doesn’t make her a feminist traitor or a fool. How on earth do you know how she defines God? For all you know, it could be some hippy earth mother crap.