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{"id":1102,"date":"2009-05-11T21:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-11T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/05\/1102\/"},"modified":"2009-05-11T21:49:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-11T21:49:00","slug":"1102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/05\/1102.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

ALIEN SHE<\/strong>: I\u2019m loving Fragmentation and Redemption<\/em>, but the first essay does have one premise I\u2019d like to challenge a bit. Bynum writes, \u201cIf one looks with <\/em>women rather than at <\/em>women, women\u2019s lives are not liminal to women\u2013but neither, except in a very partial way, are male roles or male experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might be entirely true of the medieval women\u2019s narratives she\u2019s discussing. I certainly don\u2019t know enough to challenge her there! But she does seem to be implying that it\u2019s true per se<\/em>\u2013women aren\u2019t liminal to women because we are <\/em>women\u2013and that I think is false.<\/p>\n

One of the facts of women\u2019s lives in what you can call patriarchy (although I think that term\u2019s focus on fatherhood is misleading, both because women-as-mothers do an immense amount to shape and transmit culture and because you can have male domination of culture despite a severe diminution of fathers\u2019 status and presence\u2013anyway<\/em>, let\u2019s move on) is that women are alien to ourselves and \u201cother\u201d to ourselves.<\/p>\n

There are obvious disadvantages to this fact of emotions. There are perhaps less-obvious spiritual advantages. Self-alienation can be a strong source of insight, self-questioning, and Christian submission. (This possibility is really important w\/r\/t Bynum\u2019s essay, because she\u2019s arguing that medieval women\u2019s religious narratives generally rested on continuity of identity rather than radical conversion of identity: Because <\/em>they already identified with Christ-the-suffering or Christ-the-lowly, they could imitate Him without a radical transformation or \u201creversal\u201d of identity.)<\/p>\n

My own perspective on this stuff is really weird because of being lesbian\u2013I talked about gay alienation as a precursor to Catholic conversion here <\/a>and here<\/a>, and alluded to it here<\/a>. I don\u2019t know to what extent my personal focus on the benefits rather than the (real, obvious, and painful) drawbacks of self-alienation and viewing women as Other are related to my sexual orientation, and I\u2019d be interested in any comments you all have there. But on the more basic point about women\u2019s self-alienation (and therefore, although I know these aren\u2019t synonymous terms, self-liminality), I\u2019ve heard lots <\/em>of straight women support my position.<\/p>\n

Where this goes, I don\u2019t know. It does, at least, complicate Bynum\u2019s final call to \u201cstand with\u201d women when doing history; how do you \u201cstand with\u201d someone who doesn\u2019t entirely stand with herself? (Should <\/em>we seek to \u201cstand with\u201d ourselves?)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"