Unweaving: A Response to Carol P. Christ

Abstract

My contribution to the roundtable exploration of “What ‘Feminist Studies in Religion’ Means” used the metaphor of weaving to make some points about current feminist practices. Using Roman stories about Penelope, the Homeric heroine who, to forestall her planned remarriage, weaves cloth by day and unweaves by night, I showed how the symbols of weaving and spinning that appear often in feminist writing on religion are enmeshed in masculinist traditions. The feminine qualities attached to weaving and spinning do not represent any inherent or essential penchant that women, as opposed to men, have for these tasks. Rather, these symbols have been—in several religious cultures as well as in “Western civilization”—useful tools for assigning gender, setting ideal standards of femininity, and confining the possibilities for women’s lives. But my conclusion was not that feminists must discard these symbols. Rather, I hoped to undermine the idea of feminine essence, or fundamental continuities between women, that often accompanies their use. When I am asked to think about the possibilities of feminism and feminist study in the future, several things become powerfully and poignantly clear: that we fight the temptation to claim an essence for women; that we not assume a universal connection between women; that we eschew desires for purity; that we recognize complexities where they occur; and that we resist building feminism on nostalgia.