Gender and Theology (2) Flashcards
Who was Mary Daly?
- Originally a RC Theologian who as a radical feminist argued women. must abandon Christianity for a Post-Christian spirituality
- Believed the Church was the ‘chief source of women’s abuse’ in her ‘Beyond God the Father’
What happened as a result of Daly’s book ‘The Church and the Second Sex’?
- She outlined the marginalisation of women in the Church in hopes they would reform the organisation
- Universities tried to terminate her position but students protested and she got a permanent teaching position
What key relationship did patriarchal culture destroy according to Mary Daly?
- Believes that patriarchal culture had destroyed women’s spiritual relationship with nature
How did Daly agree with Nietzsche on the topic of language?
- She agreed with Nietzsches view of rediscovering lost/archaic meanings of words as a means of uncovering the hidden relation with nature
- Daly uses this language to shift consciousness and give women tools to stand outside the current culture as outsiders
Why does Daly call herself a ‘traveller’ ?
- She argues that the image of women as ‘hags’ are to ‘exorcise’ the spirit of patriarchy
- Thus she calls herself a traveller who is seeking out new forms of living beyond the patriarchy
What was Dalys own dictionary?
- Websters first intergalactic wickerdary of the English Language
- New language and chants to free radical feminists from patriarchy and their communication with ‘be-ing’ which she deems the ongoing process of nature
What is the central problem for Mary Daly? QUOTE
“if God is male then the male is God”
- It is not sufficient to present God in female terms a God would still be male in essence
- Daly believes a Transvaluation of Christianity is required
How does Daly agree with Nietzsche on the topic of Transvaluation?
- Both believe that to deliver humans from their self-imposed cultural imprisonment we must undergo transvaluation of all our existing values
What are the two aspects of human nature? (Transvaluation)
The Apollonian Veil: The passive Self
The Dionysian: The energetic or creative self, only women can be this
The Apollonian Veil
- Created when humans falsely create ideas they believe are true
- This alienates them from their naturally creative and imaginative selves
- Only women have the ability to remove these false ideas
Becoming and be-ing
- Being human is a creative and ongoing process where there is no end as there is no objective creator
- Only women understand the creative process of ‘be-ing’ the spiritual process of living that replaces any idea of an objective God
How does Daly disagree with Nietzche’s transvaluation of God?
- He replaced God the Father with God the Man (ubermensch)
- The patriarchy is so deeply ingrained that he was blinded by the Apollonian veil he thought he was lifting
- He also attributed Apollonian values as ‘feminine’ showing how blinded he was
How does Daly believe transvaluation of phallic values should take place?
- A complete annihaliation and ‘castration’ of God, an abolition of God and his ideas
- Replacing God with the authentic human experience, the be-ing replaces God
What two forms characterise the patriarchal world?
- Foreground
- Background
Foreground
- The Apollonian Value patriarchal world that sucks the life force out of women and natuer
- Male leaders are ‘snools’ and female snools are ‘hench-women’ who gain power from snools