voting with your genitals: part 3

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us.  Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.

No nation is the special elect of God, and our identity transcends nationality, so we should know better than to idolize earthly rulers – but faith has relevance in the public square, so we have political obligations. If we must have leaders, let’s choose those who will be servants of the people, not authoritarian rulers.  God ccame among us poor, seeking no political office, employing no military might, ultimately executed shamefully. Jesus stands as a sign of contradiction to the myth of the warrior-king.

The demand for a strong leader arises from masculinity politics. And the competition to be strongest man ends up a competition to see who is most willing to commit war crimes.

My criticism here is not of men, but of a dominant archetype of warlike masculinity that has been projected onto men just as an passive femininity has been onto women. In Borderline: Reflections on War, Sex, and the Church, Stan Goff writes: “War is implicated in masculinity. Masculinity is implicated in war. Masculinity is implicated in the contempt for and domination of women. Together, these are implicated in the. greatest sins of the church.” This book, by the way, I consider essential reading for Christians, for feminist, and especially for Christian feminists, as it explores the problematic nature of our masculine archetypes, and how these archetypes corrupt Christianity. Goff deconstructs, especially, our infatuation with the warlike masculinity of King David – one of my favorite Bible characters, and prime fodder for an epic HBO series, considering all the killing and melodrama and seducing of his colorful reign. It would be absolutely X-rated. 

If our faith really informs our politics, we should think about choosing leaders who are humble, thoughtful, just, kind, prudent. “Moderate” is a bad word for some conservatives, but “moderation” is traditionally associated with virtue. We should also consider how we envision strength. Is it really about blowing up, and destroying? I mentioned earlier that my view of strength is agrarian and not corporate or military. Agrarian strength is about being willing to endure, about being able to handle living things with care, and often very much about patience.

One final note: maybe I will be voting with my genitals this election. I will be voting as an embodied being, a female body with female organs, a body that has borne children. I want other female bodies not to be used for sex or as a mere means of reproduction. I do want greater female representation in public offices, but will not reduce any woman to her sexuality. I want pregnant female bodies to be respected, not punished. I don’t want abortion to be offered as the only solution to poverty and desperation in a capitalist society. I want to see my children, born of my body, growing up healthy and free with access to good land, good medicine, good education, safe communities. I am horrified to imagine the suffering of a mother whose child is killed and nobody cares, or who has no access to clean water for her family. I am horrified of the idea of my children facing war, and of all the children in the world mutilated and killed in wars, and I empathize with the thousands of mothers worldwide fleeing war’s horrors,  facing incredible dangers simply to get their children to safety. So consider me guilty!