Postgraduatedom in Numbers: Week One

After a year of waiting, 3 months of grappling with the Career Development Loan folk, and innumerable visits to the NLS, I began my Masters this week.

There have been 3 lectures.

One assignment sprung on us with very little notice.

45 hours of working at my job because I didn't know that either of the above were happening.

5 6am starts.

3 1am finishes.

1 expletive filled rant.

1 bout of sobbing.

Oh, and 2,323 words on an assignment on Dual Agency and the Evolution of Thought in the Work of Fatima Mernissi.

I'm pretty tired, but I'M BACK, baby.

Surely that's a Misprint? and Deals with the Funding Troll

This week I was invited to a panel discussion entitled God & Sex. Sounds interesting, and particularly relevant to my research. Alas, on further investigation this does not seem to be the case. Indeed, it would seem that God really doesn't have much to do with it at all:

Does the Church talk too much about sex? Are any of the Church’s traditional teachings on sex relevant today? Should Christians rethink their approach to sex? Or stay out of the discussion entirely?

This panel discussion on God and sex, held at the University of Edinburgh, features:

Richard Holloway, outspoken ‘after-religionist,’ former bishop of Edinburgh, and champion of LGBT causes
Dr. Sara Parvis, lecturer in Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, feminist, and devout Roman Catholic
Fr. Ian Paton, rector of Old St Paul’s

Chaired by the Rev. Harriet Harris, Chaplain to the University of Edinburgh.

Now I'm not saying that this isn't a very valid and necessary discussion to be having, far from it. The way the church treats sex and sexuality is pretty dire in my opinion. I also like the idea that Christians should rethink their approach to sex, it brings up all sorts of images of a Cosmopolitan-esque magazine imploring Christians to branch out from the missionary position, or even giving more 'holy' names to existing, erm, approaches. Anyhoo...

However, I get rather irate when 'God' and 'Christianity' are treated as synonymous. This may be a case of miscommunication, but there is certainly a very virulent vein of thought in which Christians either forget that other people have a claim on God as well, or in which they are so arrogant that of course their idea of God is the only true conception and they, and they only, have the right to use the term 'God'.

*Did you notice that I was keeping an eye out for how it would affect my research? That would be because I have finally come to an agreement with the funding troll - that he can follow me around for the next four years shouting in my ear that I owe him money - in order that I can do my Masters. Induction happened on Thursday and I start back proper tomorrow. Eek!

Erotic Capital: The Rationalisation of Rape

Catherine Hakim, an LSE sociologist has a new book out at the moment: Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. Nice.

Her basic thesis seems to be that men want sex. More sex than women are prepared to give, and so this provides a bit of a vacuum in which any self-serving women will exploit to her benefit. Apparently women have now noticed that they can use their 'sex-appeal' to get ahead, a fact which the 'patriarchy' has attempted to cover up: "Patriarchal ideologies have systematically trivialised women's erotic capital to discourage women from capitalising on it – at men's expense." You can read a rather fantastic interview with Ms Hakim here.

This theme, that women don't have to go all the way and fulfil men's desires, but only to look pretty and make the guys think they might has been picked up in this jaw-dropping Daily Mail article. Ms Brick is a delightful young women, who is quite happy to spend a large proportion of her time flirting away in order to get exactly what she wants (which it seems is make-up and clothes - a touch of a vicious cycle going on there). Happy days for her. Interesting that last year she wrote this article entitled How TV is run by sexist pigs, where she wrote of how it was only through hard work she got on in her career despite sexual harassment. Anyhoo, it's the Daily Mail so I won't hold her up as an example.

However, Hakim's thesis doesn't just make my blood boil because she is boiling women down to sexual fantasies for men. I think she is pedalling a very dangerous ideology.

I came to this realisation when re-reading Catharine MacKinnon's section on Rape in "Toward a Feminist Theory of the State". She draws on the popular image of women as teases who control their sexuality in terms of consent. Men initiate sex, women consent . The terms of the initiation, consequences of refusal, and the situation a woman is placed in when deciding whether to consent or not are generally ignored. "Fundamentally, desirability to men is supposed a woman's form of power because she can both arouse it and deny its fulfilment". (MacKinnon, 1989:175) However, this notion of women as 'teases' rationalises force. She's stringing him along, thinking she will give in to his desires, but at the last second leaves him standing. Well of course she wants it, hasn't she just been giving all the signals? Perhaps she's trying to get him to work for it. Never do we consider that she actually doesn't want to have sex with him. "Consent in this model becomes more a metaphysical quality of a woman's being than a choice she makes and communicates." (MacKinnon, 1989:175)

Hakim is perpetuating this image of women as teases, even encouraging women to take ownership of her erotic capital and use it for her won ends. Unfortunately she hasn't thought it through. This isn't the dawning of a new feminine overcoming of the patriarchy, but it is lending academic credentials to a dangerous piece of misinformation.

For that reason, Hakim is being damned to my own personal hell, as detailed in previous postshere, here and here.

Arrogance and Ignorance: Religion vs Sprituality?

Facebook has been abuzz this week with debates about this wee article. Such buzz has even spread to the blogosphere, in the ever erudite thoughts of Chris, but I felt the need to put my own thoughts out there for anyone interested.

This whole article is symptomatic of the insidious arrogance and ignorance that we see in the Church every day. Ms Daniels has created a false dichotomy of 'religion' vs 'spirituality' where she makes up her own implicit definitions. Spirituality is something one creates for themselves because they are scared of the hard slog of working out one's religion in community, which is in vogue for those wishing to set themselves apart from traditional religion. Religion is about experiencing God "in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition", and is about community. Notice that she talks about experiencing God through intermediaries, rather than directly. And can someone please, for the love of all that is holy (as agreed by a council of appropriately appointed people over the course of thousands of very trying church council meetings), tell me what someone "who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses" is like?! Sounds like someone who has had one too many acid trips to be honest...

Ms Daniels has taken one of the most basic tenets of theology - the presence of God in the natural world - and has actually argued against someone experiencing God that way. How lovely, can you imagine meeting her for pastoral care?

"Parishioner: I totally felt God's presence the other day! I was walking along the beach at sunset...

Minister: Oh reaaaaallllyyyy? And was there a cloud of witnesses? A passing prayer group? No, ah, that wasn't God then. That was your own selfish interpretation of what God is like. Stop being so bland and become part of the all-encompassing community, that is original."

Delightful.

Not to mention that she seems to be advocating a theology in which God would only answer the prayers of the church-going. That would be an interesting conversations too:

"Plane dweller: So God...

God: Yes?

PD: Yeah, it's a bit choppy up here. Or is it down here for you? I get confused.

God: I'm all around. Although if you thought you saw me on that mountaintop, that was actually a selfish LIE made up by yourself.

PD: Well actually...

God: Oh ME, you're not one of THOSE are you?

PD: Those?

God: Yeah, those. Those folks who think they can rock up when the going gets a bit tough and expect me to answer their prayers?

PD: Um...

God: Honestly, I'm a busy deity, and I've got over a billion followers across the planet, why would I waste my time on you? You have to undertake at least an alpha course and three months worth of Sunday meetings before I'll be bothered with you..."

I know if I were on an 'airplane' (whatever that is) experiencing turbulence, I'd absolutely rather sit next to the person willing to share their innermost thoughts about how they relate to the world than by an eye-rolling minister, disinterested in my opinions because they don't take the exact form of their own. That, and sitting next to the heretic is surely a dangerous seat to be in...