Even a cursory review of the past 25 years reveals a vast change in almost every facet of life. Those of us whose stories span more than 35 or 40 years often identify "before" and "after" segments of our lives: "before the '60s/after the '60s," "before Vietnam/after Vietnam," "before the assassinations of 1968/after the assassinations of 1968." Sometimes we can pinpoint exactly when change ... transformation ... conversion occurred in our lives. And why.
From the moment I began to dig beneath the surface of the news -- about the war in Vietnam, the United Farm Workers' struggle, Allende's ouster in Chile -- I knew my worldview was drastically shifting. From the first inklings of understanding about liberation movements and a theology that enabled them, I knew that my way of life as a middle-class, white North American was being challenged at the deepest level.
Feminist thought in those "re-formative" years crept up on me and slowly dismantled -- then reshaped -- the fabric of my being with insights almost too profound to explain. As a woman striving to embrace the pain of others, especially those most impoverished and marginalized, I was reluctant to own my personal experience of injustice. Yet, the use of inclusive language, an equal opportunity to respond to vocation in church or society, and an end to all forms of exclusion by gender, all of which seemed necessary in a just society, were often glaringly absent in the Catholic world of which I was a part.
Many of the values celebrated by feminists -- mutuality, integration, participation, empowerment -- fit easily into the "who" I was becoming or hoping to become. Other feminist aspirations seemed uncomfortably out of synch with a world already skewed in favor of the "haves." (Should we as women, for example, be defining our liberation in terms of successful careers in a profoundly unjust economic system?) But the most profound challenge to my worldview came through the feminist critique of foundational concepts in the Judeo-Christian tradition, a critique that rattled my soul and encouraged the deepest sort of reflection on what I believe about God and creation ... and new creation.
IN RESPINNING my own 20-year-long tale of emerging feminist consciousness, I found Adrian Dominican Sister Maria Riley's book, Transforming Feminism, unmatched in insight and clarity. Her invitation to explore one's own experience and her remarkable analysis of feminist trends reveal Riley's own grasp of enabling processes and her own understanding of feminist history. "Feminism as we understand it today," she writes, "is a rich and complex blend of ideas, histories, and ideological perspectives," each of which emerges from its roots in personal experience to make a unique contribution to our understanding of the place of gender in social structures.
"Liberal feminism," for example, analyzes the place of women from a legal or political perspective with both the intention of dismantling historical structures of patriarchal law that deny women full rights as autonomous adults and the hope of gaining equal access to all political, economic, social, and cultural structures of society. Liberal feminism's "ideal" of the independent, autonomous individual, however, is, according to Maria Riley, constantly challenged by "the value of and responsibility for relationships in women's lives."
"Cultural feminism," on the other hand, promotes the diffusion of women's culture and values throughout society. It emphasizes the power of women, but Riley faults it for its belief in the "romantic, highly questionable thesis of women's moral superiority to men."
A third feminist ideology described by the author is "radical feminism," which, based on the premise that the personal is political, insists that the root cause of all injustice and oppression is found in the culture of patriarchy. This view celebrates and develops women's culture, describing it as nurturing, close to nature, compassionate, intuitive, open, flexible, and non-dualistic, but it sometimes ignores other oppressions endured by women, including racism and economic injustice.
"Socialist feminism," however, does raise economic and class questions. It attempts to "show that all forms of domination -- sexism, racism, classism, and imperialism -- are inextricably connected," and affirms that true liberation of the human community demands an end to all these forms of domination.
Beyond its analysis of feminist ideology, Transforming Feminism raises critical questions about the role of feminism in the promotion of a just world order. Of utmost importance to the substance and character of feminist thought, for example, is its rootedness in the experience of women rather than in abstract analysis or thought. For this reason, the shape and definition of feminism is open to profound challenge from women outside the dominant white Western culture. "What does it mean to be in solidarity with the women of the world?" asks Maria Riley. For U.S. women, she continues, "global challenge of global solidarity with women touches not only the subordination of women by men, but also the political and economic subordination of Third World countries by the U.S. There is no easy road to global sisterhood."
At the same time, Transforming Feminism delineates effectively the challenges of feminism to 100 years of Catholic social thought, which, "caught on the horns of the dilemma of its dual anthropology," insists that women have full and equal human rights and responsibilities (politically, economically, socially, culturally, and ecclesially), but restricts women's potential for realizing these rights and responsibilities. A feminist revision of Catholic social thought could vastly strengthen the credibility of this rich, if little-known, Catholic tradition for justice and could enhance its ability to guide the social ethos of the people of God in a global reality beset by the pervasive and painful reality of women oppressed.
Marie Dennis Grosso was associate for Latin America for the Maryknoll Society Justice and Peace Office, national chair of Pax Christi USA, and a member of Assisi Community in Washington, DC when this review appeared.
Transforming Feminism. By Maria Riley, O.P. Sheed and Ward, 1989. $8.95 (paper).
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!