My activity of choice lately (mostly because I can’t do both it and eat at the same time) has been to make squares that will eventually become a blanket of some kind for afghans for Afghans. Because of this, I’ve been pondering some of the articles I’ve read about the crocheting/knitting boom and they caused this rant to formulate in my head.

A year or two ago, I read something about how knitting (and crocheting) has become the “new feminist thing”. At the time, it really irritated me because my crocheting is a stress release and occasionally an inexpensive way to deal with what to give people for birthdays, HannuKwanzaMas, weddings, baby showers, and all that. For some odd reason, there seems to be this drive to reclaim anything women do as “feminist” and re-author the myths that women are subservient for doing these things.

One of the reasons I’ve stopped blogging about faith and politics lately is that I can’t escape being told that I’m either too feminist or not feminist enough when I air my views. My denomination’s hierarchy and voicebox are both very much to the left of where I am and one thing I’m grateful for not having to think about any more is the feminist conception of God and how that relates to me. I am made in the image of God — just because I happen to conceive of a Fatherly-type God does not mean that I have any problem with my femininity or that I am a hypocrite because I don’t envision God having ovaries. My God is not on the same existential plane as me which means that God can have both male and female attributes and still be able to create things beautifully. (This is in response to an argument I read in some evil feminist book I was forced to read for seminary where the author talked about how God had to be female because the world was conceived and only a woman could conceive the world as men are too destructive to create things of beauty. Said book is in the “when the heat fails” box in case Jon and I ever need to burn someting to stay warm.)

This is also the reason I’ve not really pushed to head back to academia. Any seminary that would let me do my thing would be a place that would be too far left of my theology. I do want to eventually get my Masters in something (I’m leaning toward Counselling at the moment) but at the same time, I really want to get out of an environment where feminist rhetoric is pushed at me — I see men and women as equal and in a lot of ways, having the feminist anger shoved down my throat is promoting the role of women over men. I’m part of a church that ordains women — I’m chill with that as it’s as far as I think things need to go. I do not need to ponder the gender-specific term for a female pastor nor do I seek to promote women in the church over men who are just as capable — I’d rather see the best candidate have the office in both the larger Church body and the parish than have it given to a woman so that the gender balance is equal.

I call myself a feminist because I believe that surprising notion (at least to some people) that as a woman, I am a human being who is worthy of love and respect. However, my need to promote my femininity stops there. I do not need to read Scripture with a feminist hermeneutic and I do not need to be told that doing my stress release is an attempt to reclaim something in a feminist fashion.