Women’s Studies professor Mariam Youssef remembers being in Coptic church where women were not able to chant, only men partook.
“I couldn’t attend classes either and this made me question the reason behind it. If I was good at it and I loved chanting why couldn’t I do it?”
The event on feminist theology, which took place on Tuesday, Feb. 23 began by having Women Studies Prof. Mariam Youssef describe her experience.
Feminist theology, is a kind of theology that seeks to do god talk, to think and talk about god, in ways that really prioritize women’s full dignity and humanity and wants to make sure that women are really being considered very strongly as we talk about god.
Some of the ways that feminist theologians do this is by using a lot of feminine imagery for the divine.
For example, instead of calling god father they may call god mother to connect to god on a female level.
They also go back to scriptures and sacred text to highlight female characters or tell stories in a female perspective.
Youseff, went on to explain why feminist theology is so important to her, “I am interested in theology at the doctoral level and also write about feminist theology at the doctoral level, but the reason why I care about feminist theology came from my own personal experience in my church community.”
For students to get a better idea and understand feminist theology, Youseff shared her experience in her own church. “In a Coptic church women were not able to chant only men were chanting I couldn’t attend classes either and this made me question the reason behind it. If I was good at it and I loved chanting why couldn’t I do it?”
Philosophy Prof. Andrew Rehfeld, also spoke on feminist theology and approached it on an academic stand point. He took the time and also gave information on the rise of ecofeminism
Ecofeminism began in the 1970s and is a philosophical and political movement that combines ecological concerns with feminist ones, regarding both as resulting from male domination of society.
Speakers received feedback from students, for example, Joseph Jang Philosophy major said, “I really enjoyed the presentation, the professors did a great job.
I’m familiar with some of the topics, but regardless I thought it was interesting that they added an academic stand point to feminism. Specially because you see social media and a lot of the feminist things that are out there are not correct or it might be an over excitement so sometimes the point is being lost.”
Professor Rehfeld stated, “Students were engaged, it is a topic that people can relate to even though the term, ecofeminism, it seemed really attached and it obviously relates to feminism as a whole and environmental as a whole and beliefs in god so even though if its detached academic sort of language just reformulating things that people obviously are already concerned about and that is the feedback I received from the students.”
