Steering Committee Spring Meeting

“Feminism is for Everybody.” So says bell hooks in the title of a recent book, and so says the Womaen’s Caucus Steering Committee.

The Steering Committee met from March 22-24 in LaVerne, California for their bi-annual meeting to guide the work of the Womaen’s Caucus in the Church of the Brethren. During their business meetings and lunch breaks, they tackled such wide ranging issues as global poverty, the ministries of women, environmentalism, the fit of feminist values with Church of the Brethren teachings and traditions, sexual morality, how to discuss values in our churches and communities, and how to get the word out about the hospitality center they are co-hosting in Cleveland this summer. Your Caucus Steering Committee spent their time worshiping with the congregation there, supping over yummy lasagna, and strategizing for the months and years to come, while based in the lovely home of Pastor Myrna Wheeler. A good time was had by all who could attend, though we missed a few committee members who couldn’t make it.

Our plans are shaping up for Annual Conference, and you can look forward to some exciting times at our luncheon, our insight session, and at the Hospitality Center we are cosponsoring with VOS and BMC. Please check out the page on Upcoming Events for more details as our descent on Cleveland nears.

Not Only Peace Churches Are Speaking Out Against War

It is time to end this war on Iraq – and to end all war. The Secretary General of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, agrees, and released this statement on this 4th anniversary of the start of the US invasion of Iraq.

It’s almost spring, it’s the middle of Lent – what better time is there to try something new (peace) and to truly repent of our sinful, violent ways (war)? The days are getting longer, and we have much better ways to be spending our hours than in fighting senseless wars. As poet William Stafford wrote so wisely, “Every war has two losers.”

Please, George W. Bush, please, US federal government, please, world, stop this war now.

The Real Immorality of the US Military?

by Audrey deCoursey

The Dunker Journal, the blog of the Brethren Revival Fellowship (BRF), runs this snippet of a quote from a longer article (again using the questionable media analysis of taking tiny fragments of an article out of the context of the article):

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
A HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL HAS it right.
“I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.”
Indeed.
UPDATE: Our Mennonite friend, Mark Roth, says, “Give him a Medal of Honor.”

(Just so you know, that’s the whole post; we didn’t take that quote out of its context on the blog.)

Now, I read that, and immediately thought, ‘Finally, Brethren are entering into the discussion about the immorality of the US military in its horrific acts of torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, if not elsewhere.’

But, sadly, that is not the immorality the DJ is concerned about. The immorality this Marine Gen. Peter Pace is talking about is . . . homosexuality. That is, the homosexual orientation of the tens of thousands of servicemen and women who keep our national military what it is today (for good or ill – if you support the US military, you ought to support the actual people who make that military what it is).

In the face of such atrocities and deceptions as have been committed in this war, in the Abu Ghraib prison, on the streets of Iraq, and in the halls of the White House, is condemning the homosexuality of soldiers really the most productive use of the BRF’s or any US American’s energies?

Unconditional Surrender? Unconditional Militaristic Patriarchy, you mean!

by Audrey deCoursey

So, a new statue went up in downtown San Diego. The image is taken from the iconic photograph captured just after the end of World War II, in New York City, of two white Americans rejoicing in the end to foreign conflict. A returned sailor is sweeping a female nurse into a passionate embrace and smooch.

And they have called it “Unconditional Surrender.”

Oh, dear.

I am sure you, clever readers, are already running through all the reasons this is a slightly problematic name, but I will deign to add to your list with my own reasons.

The title is a play on the phrase that the US and Allies used to call for surrender from the Axis powers in World War II. Applied here, the so-titled statue sets up a dangerous equation:
a. woman = Axis powers;
b. man = Allied powers;
c. the two are in conflict;
d. the man/Allies win over the woman/Axis.
This establishes a rather unpleasant, unrealistic view of both romance and World War II…

1. This so-titled statue applies a war metaphor to romance. It takes ‘Love is a Battlefield’ to a whole new level. It implies that to love (or at least getting hot-and-heavy; the future of their relationship is unclear from the statue alone) happens as the end to a conflict between battling sides. Partners are enemies, and only when one wins out over the other can love enter in. Romance and love are not about teamwork or cooperation or compromise, but about one side winning a conflict, ‘unconditionally.’

2. The female is the one to surrender, unconditionally. She is the one physically lower, being tipped off balance precariously, while he stands erect and strong, in control of himself and her. By applying the phrase taken from World War II here, in this setting of two Americans facing each other, the genders (not nationalities) are what divide people, and here the man is the triumphant victor (the Allies) while the woman is the surrendering loser (the Axis countries).

3. Not that it’s a bad thing to be feminized, but the Axis peoples are feminized by this equation.

4. Not only is conflict between the two partners normal, because it presumably results in love, but to force one’s way through the resistance of the other is normal, too – it’s just a part of the game of love. She might put up a fight, but really she wants to surrender; that’s how ‘love’ works, for one person (who is male) forcing it onto another. Romance and love are not about consent, but about the stronger one winning everything they want.

5. By the way, the Germans and Japanese and Italians also really wanted to surrender. They wanted the Allies to break them unconditionally, even though they fought against it, just like the nurse ‘wanted’ to ‘surrender’ to the sailor’s embrace.

6. For us who are pacifists, it adds to the nationalistic glorification of war. A huge, public testament to celebrate war.

7. For us who are concerned about queer rights, it glorifies the heterosexist view of romantic love as only between a woman and a man. A huge, public testament to celebrate one view of love.

Was there nothing else worth making a 25-foot, 6,000-pound statue about?