Welcome to the Resistance

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to make important decisions. What do I believe in? Who do I want to be? What and who will I stand up for? There has been a lot going on in the world lately and a lot of it, sadly, is pretty awful. While people are learning pretty quickly that elections have very real and long-lasting consequences, what is critical to overcome the next 4-years of this fascist regime isn’t just that we are taking to the streets to make our voices heard but we are willing to disrupt society at every turn to make sure that people on the other side of the proverbial political coin know we will not go gently into that good night.

I’ve been questioning G-d a lot lately; wondering what has happened to that shining “City on a hill” that John Winthrop called for in his 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.” The idea that the United States of America is “G-d’s country” due to the American exceptionalism present but not only the rich bounty of land and resources many would soon land upon but also the potentiality that America represented in a world full of monarchs.

Many Presidents have often recited the very same idea to the American populous. From John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, America, although diverse and full of various communities from all walks of life, always presented a rich idea that we would be a beacon for prosperity, freedom, and dreamers. For myself (and many others I’m sure), that idea was called into question on November 8, 2016. We had come so far in the struggle for and the potential achievement of the “American Experiment” to fall before we got to the top and, as we have all felt since then, hit every jagged rock on our journey back down to the bottom. However, what we need to remember is that we’re not anywhere close to the bottom yet; all the symbolic bruises and scars we each have will only continue to grow as we keep tumbling down the rabbit hole.

Although the hits keep coming I refuse to let them get me down. I refuse to sit back and watch the country and communities I love be attacked by a tyrant and his cronies looking to cash in on people’s lives.

On January 21, 2017, I saw the resistance rise. For me, the Women’s March was more than just 750,000 people from all walks of life taking part in a communal action across the world, it was an accumulation of what is not only possible but also the hope and dream of what is still to come.

What a lot of people do not know is that while I too, was a part of the crowd, I was also behind the scenes working on the march here in Los Angeles. I was fortunate enough to be 1 of the 13 co-organizers of the march which consisted of a group of women I now call my heroes.  Although I do not think that I’ll ever be able to put into words what the march or being part of its organization means to me, the one thing I do know for sure, now, more than ever, is that we are always stronger together.

At the march, we went from “I” to “We.” We became part of something that we will never be able to understand. If that isn’t G-d, I do not know what else it would be. While November 8 had me questioning my faith, January 21 brought it back full force.

The night before the march, I was with three of my closest friends. We laughed, we cried, we shared in the love that we have for this country and most importantly, the love we have for each other. Falling asleep that night, the following quote kept me awake at night and I didn’t understand why until I got home after the march. The quote is:

The Devil whispered in my ear,
“You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.”
Today I whispered in the Devil’s ear,
“I am the storm.”

While I believe the quote is perfect as it is, the only thing that I’d change is that on January 21, “I” didn’t just whisper in the Devil’s ear, “We” did.

Welcome to the resistance, my friends. The march happened. We all went home changed and more awake than ever before. Now, the only remaining question I have for you is: what’s next?

John is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History at Claremont Graduate University and holds an MA in Women’s Studies in Religion; an MA in Applied Women’s Studies; and a BA in English and Women’s Studies.  His areas of focus are women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, LGBT history, American religious history, and 20th and 19th-century American women’s history.  John is currently the Community Events Technician for the City of West Hollywood where he works on community events related to women, gender, sexuality, and human rights issues.   

Why Men (and Women) Still Can't Have It All

I oftentimes finding inspiration for my latest blog at the last moment.  Today, it came via a phone call with Dr. Gina Messina-Dysert about topics.  Inspiration, much like a muse, hit me.  In honor of my blog's topic I have to admit that without Gina's help, I wouldn't have been able to write this post.  Did I use Gina?  Maybe.  Did we work together on a project that best served both of our interests? Yes.
We used each other and we continue to day in and day out.  In doing so, we have created some great posts.  Thanks Gina, for all the help and constant inspiration you always give me.  Also to my faithful and dutiful best friend Anjeanette for reading it in the late night as I frantically read it over afraid of what people might have to say.  We all use each other and when we admit to it, we create beautiful end products as a result.

                                                                         -John

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Growing up, my favorite movie was The Associate staring Whoppi Goldberg as a woman at a Wall Street firm attempting to climb her way up the corporate ladder through hard work and dedication.  Her character Laurel Ayres does all the work and comes up with the ideas that clients eventually invest in, her partner Frank takes all the credit and eventually surpasses her at work by getting the promotion she had been vying for.  In a prodigious scene that I still vividly remember from my childhood, Laurel quits her job and starts an investment firm on her own; betting every cent and piece of property she has on the eventual success of her new business adventure.

In an attempt to break through the proverbial glass ceiling and play with the big boys of Wall Street, Laurel eventually discovers that although she can be (and is) the genius behind many of the great ideas that would save companies millions, she still needs to have her ideas expelled by a man she creates in order to win over clients, which eventually leads her to become successful.  However, while Laurel is reaping in the benefits of having Mr. Cutty, her made up business partner, by her side, she eventually learns that no matter what she does she will always be secondary to her male business partner.

Although the movie ends with a good feminist one-two punch to the proverbial patriarchal face, it taught me an important lesson about the politics and sacrifices each gender consciously or subconsciously make while trying to succeed in life’s adventures.  Why were perfectly good ideas by a female second fiddle?  Why were men the only ones capable of coming up with ideas?  And more importantly, why did women and men use each other in the same manner in order to succeed and further themselves in the world?

I’m sure many of the readers of Feminism and Religion have read the painstakingly long and brutally honest piece titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” by Anne-Marie Slaughter and others might have read Gina Messina-Dysert’s blog in response to it.  While we all took to the blogosphere to find and discuss our answers to the age old feminist question that many have been afraid to publically ask like Anne-Marie Slaughter and few have actually dared to answer in great detail, I’m here to tell you that both men and women still can’t have it all regardless of how many eye rolls you just had after reading this last sentence.

Yes, men use women and yes, when you look at the political, social, sexual, and religious landscapes of the world, white, Angelo-Saxon men blot out the terrain like an ever-growing forest in a land of capitalistic enterprise hell-bent on earthly and gendered domination.  However, what we fail to realize is that women also use men in many of the same gainful enterprises.  While I live in the world of academic, I also live in the real world.  I go out to clubs with friends, I listen to the stories from both men and women from highly respected careers discuss their crazy Saturday night, and hear from each of them about how they skillfully and successfully manipulated the opposite gender (or those of the same gender for my LGBTQ brothers and sisters) out of the club and back to their apartment or into some other compromising position that placed one at a disadvantage and the other in a seat of power.  

While my friends bragged about the escapades over coffee at brunch or in a text message, I often felt that many people are afraid to admit to their misusing because they are worried about how it will make them look rather than admitting it is something that we all have and still continue to do.   The point and problem about using each other is, that it serves as a catalyst to many of the world’s problems and successes.  Academics, many like Anne-Marie Slaughter and others would like to sit back and write about the inequalities in gendered politics and the advantages and disadvantages to women and men without truly engaging in the matter that they too once did the exact same thing that they are now writing about.

Can women have it all?  Possibly.  Can men ever have it all? Maybe.  Regardless of however we put it, the are ills to every good deed in the world and we need to get back to understanding how and why we use each other in order to fully understand that behind every good man might be a good woman but also behind every good women there might also be a good man.

We all use each other to get ahead in the world and there is nothing wrong with that.  It is the matter in which how we use each other that we need to question and deconstruct in order to fully realize and understand Slaughter’s final point about understanding our own power and in the process making the world better for all women and in the process men as well if we truly are attempting to create a world based on gender equality rather than inequality.

Much like the ending of The Associate, we all create and use people in our lives to succeed and fail in our endeavors.  Although Mr. Cutty was a fictional character, he eventually became the physical manifestation of everything the Laurel Ayres attempted to escape at her old job and recreate in her new, female owned and operated one.  She eventually had to literally become the actual manifestation of Mr. Cutty at an all-male New York City club to reveal that behind every good man may be a good woman but behind good women may still be the predestined and already defined actions of men that feminists have been trying to fight against for years.  Men and women may be able to have it all but they won’t get anywhere near achieving the goals of Slaughter’s article without acknowledging how we got there in the first place.

“Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System

Having the ability to share my thoughts and my ideas with the Feminism and Religion Project is a continual honor.  I hope you enjoy this latest piece. 

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I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall.  However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it.  I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it.  He is now long gone, the vagina is now out and proud. 

I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology.  One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message.  I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina.  I found myself caught up in its beauty.  Its gaze had mesmerized me.  The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes.  While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary.  At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.

My ex boyfriend was ashamed of the photo.  I let him shame me into putting it in the back of my closet and cast it away like it was nothing.  Like the experience, call it religious or not, had never happened.  When we ended our relationship, I found myself inconsolable and pacing up and down my stairs in a never-ending cycle of sadness and downheartedness.   As I was pilfering through our items, I came about the picture.  I saw it and for a split second, I was no longer sad.  I placed it in a position on the wall that used to hold a picture of my ex and I and proudly stood back and felt a sense of calm take over me.  Slowly but surely, I began to box up the rest of the stuff I had hidden away from my friend during the mass exodus of memories and replaced them with images that helped me begin to heel. 

That’s the power of the vagina: its births new life into the world, even when one does not think life is possible.  It is not just an organ but a vessel that proudly and respectfully births and re-births us all back into a world that has shunned and cast us away.  Vaginas are powerful not in the classic sense but in the uniting and ecstatic transformative bliss that they bring into the world. 

While they are a sense of beauty to some, they also serve as a symbol that needs to be controlled by others.   While some shove vaginas into the back of closets, covered in a plastic bag, others like to legislate against them.  Unlike traditional phallic sources of power, vaginas are an inward expression of beauty and power that take place within a woman’s body unlike external sources of power and size that men like to claim their penis’ represent. 

Nice girls don’t say the word vagina.  Rep. Lisa Brown (D-West Bloomfield, Michigan) learned this lesson the hard way after announcing on the floor that she “was flattered that [all the men were] so interested in [her] vagina, but no means no.”  She was subsequently barred from speaking the day and the controversial abortion bill, which makes it practically impossible for women to obtain abortion services in Michigan, cleared the House with a seamless majority of male support.

While men like to say that they respect women, I find it hard (specifically as of late) to believe anything a Republican (or a Democrat in some cases) says.  They would rather have women sit in a corner and wait silently with a dunce cap on their heads as men dictate what they should do with their bodies and how they should behave.  As of late, conservative men like to think of women and vaginas as two separate entities without realizing that without one you cannot have the other.  These men are afraid of women and more importantly their vaginas not because they signify difference but due to the sheer power they represent.  The ability to create, harbor, and in some cases, if the woman chooses to do so, take away life, is a gift and it is a gift, that as of late, is scaring men half to death. 

Wherever we look, there are vaginas.  From the birthing room to the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives, vaginas are everywhere and they serve an important part in shaping and empowering our everyday lives.  Regardless of whether or not these conservative men, not only from Michigan but also from all over the United States, agree is a matter worth fighting for and in some cases worth dying for. While Rep. Mike Callton (R-Nashville, Michigan) or Ari Adler, Press Secretary for House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall, Michigan) were outraged over Rep. Brown’s statements, they did not take the time to realize that they were only adding fuel to an already blazing fire within each and every woman who is sick and tired of having both her vagina as much as herself talked for and by men who believe they “know best.”

Well, to all those men, I, along with every other vagina wielding women and allies say, we’ll see you next Tuesday.  Vaginas are everywhere and well men, you’re just going to have to get used to it. 

"If You Allow Gay Marriage..."

I have been taking an interesting class this semester called Gendering Mormonism. It is both liberating and frustrating but the ability to blog about issues we are talking about on Feminism and Religion have made this class both revolutionary in the study of gender as well as its unique connections to Mormonism. Make sure to check out the blog here and on www.feminismandreligion.com.

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… you have to allow polygamy, bestiality, and everything else!” The title for my post this week is a quote from an individual I used to associate with. This individual, haling from a conservative evangelical background, tried to explain to several others and myself the reasons why gay marriage would eventually lead to the repeal of anti-polygamy and bestiality laws across the United States.

The problems that I have with this particular argument are conflating gay marriage with religious freedom. Activists and scholars can draw comparisons to anti-polygamy cases such as the 1878 U.S. Supreme Court case Reynolds v United States and the 1882 Edmunds Act and 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act that disfranchised and led to the imprisonment of Mormon polygamists. But in the end, gay marriage is not about religious freedom but rather human rights.

I often feel that there is this need both within and outside religious communities to promulgate the idea that LGBTQ individuals want to get married within the sanctified walls of “the church” just as much as heterosexual couples do. Although I do not want to disqualify those who desire to see LGBTQ equality within their faith based communities, buying into a heternormative ideal of what traditional marriageshould look like needs to result in LGBTQ individuals asking why marriage should be performed in sacred spaces in the first place The normative traditions that have often defined marriage have also served as shackles keeping LGBTQ couples in the mindset that to achieve fully marriage equality with their heterosexual counterparts is to fully immerse themselves within the same traditions and practices.

During the fight for LGBTQ marriage equality there has been a rise in the fetishism of polygamy and its inherent natural link to gay marriage because they both work off the defining characteristics that the individuals within these relationships are “in love,” and that people should be able to do what they want when it comes to who or how many people they want to marry. Television shows such as Big Love and Sister Wives have distorted the fact that gay marriage and polygamy are in fact two separate issues. They have turned the discourse around polygamy away from the issues of women’s rights and roles within families consisting of more than one wife into an idea and concept that is hip to be a sister wife rather than be in a plain, old, boring marriage consisting of only one man and one wife. Big Love and Sister Wives attempt to promote the equal relationships that wives share with their husbands in polygamist relationships by furthering the argument that people “in love” should be able to do whatever and marry whomever they want. Shows like Big Love and Sister Wives, while complicating the traditional monogamous view of marriage, actually recapitulate the idea that marriage, even in its “transgressive” mode, is still a relationship of consenting heterosexual adults.

Polygamy should not be compared to gay marriage because it stems from both a heteropatriarchal and heteronormative narrative where one man can take as many wives as he sees fit. The technical argument for polygamy remains strictly about one man taking many wives and does not promote the idea of a woman taking as many husbands or even a man taking as many husbands as he or she sees fit based off of their doctrinal beliefs. Legal gay marriage is about LGBTQ individuals having the right and ability to live together with their singular partner. Conflating the issue of legal marriage equality with the issue of polygamy opens up a floodgate of new problems. Although polygamists do still exist in the world, tokenizing them on television as a hip alternatives to the idea of one man and one woman only stresses the fact that although we may see a man with two to three wives on television, we still have yet to see any type of show that places married LGBTQ individuals in the same light. Popular shows like Modern Family do have a token gay couple as part of their cast but these characters still remain closeted in terms of actually being able to portray sexuality outside of the confines of heteronormativity. Polygamous marriage has become an acceptable form of viewing on TV, while gay characters and their lifestyles are still forced to show their affection offstage and ultimately out of mind.

Homosexuals and others who a normative culture defines as deviant are scapegoated. We need to start examining the underlying questions of counter-cultural relationships that view one man marrying many women to be hip because we begin to see that although a polygamist idea of marriage may be sexy from a popular culture standpoint, the thought of legally recognized gay marriage always gets the short end of the stick.

Didn't Want to Say I Told You So

People in politics know how grave the Citizens United case will affect the election in 2012 but now with Mitt Romney's mysterious "contribution" from a group that no longer exists really stresses the gravity of the political world we are now all living in.

I didn't want to say I told you so, but I wonder who the money really is coming from? (INSERT SARCASM HERE) I am sure this is the first "mysterious contributions" of many to come for Mr. Romney and his political and personal causes.

To read more about this scandal, go to: http://tinyurl.com/3hm44cn

The House vs. The Senate

I got frustrated this morning watching the daily news. I like to switch back between MSNBC and Fox (don't ask me why). Upon seeing both sides I have come to the conclusion that there really is a big difference between the House and the Senate.

It just seems to me that the House, these days, is extremely unintelligent. Freshman representatives do not know the "order of things" or simply do not understand how Congress actually works. I cannot recall how many times I heard a Republican (Tea-Party) Representative state that the Senate has not sent them any bills about the "Debt Ceiling."

Well, maybe it is because there is a proper order. The House, to the Senate, and then to the President's desk.

I know that things have maybe been altered at times in the past but right now, the "debt ceiling" (and I put it in quotes because I believe it is a made up crisis) needs to go through the proper channels.

House representatives change so easily, and the Senate seems to keep people for quite some time (i.e. John McCain). Is there a reason for this? Should we go to just the Senate for our answers?

I know there are a lot of class issues at hand here and educational competency but in a time when no one can agree on anything and the only people that seem to grasp what politics is really about are in the Senate, I have to ask the question: What is the point of the House anymore?

Mitt Romney Should Not Be President... For a Lot of Reasons

I have to thank my friend Kirsten for showing me the link to CNN Religion blog where Tricia Erickson's new book, Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? and Dr. Richard Bushman's great, but expected response to it.

First off, let me state that I have great respect for Dr. Bushman but frankly, he is to apologetic for me. Mormonism has become a big interest of mine in the past year and although I have never taken a class with Dr. Bushman (because of personal and academic reasons) I must say that I already knew what he was going to state.

His comments: "Mormonism has become this in the recent years.." or "Mormonism is gaining more respect than just being seen as 'that weird religion with rituals and such.." but more importantly, his comment:

"Both Dekker and Erikson are one-time Mormons who became disillusioned, and instead of walking away felt an obligation to discredit their former faith" -Dr. Richard Bushman

was what I expected.

It always comes down to the issue of if you have faith or not; whether you are a faithful Mormon or not. Frankly, it's all bullshit.

It is not about faith and it is not about whether Mitt Romney is a faithful and symbolic Mormon in the 21st century. The real issue is in the second part of Erickson's title: "The Mormon Church and the Office of the President of the United States of America."

Mitt Romney shouldn't be President for a NUMBER of reasons and one of them is YES, he is a Mormon but also another one is because he is a conservative with no hint of a progressive side.

Big money for the rich, big money for the Church that he serves are all a big flashing "NO!"

Mitt Romney being President is scary, plain and simple. He is George W. Bush II, but worse. Instead of having Dick Cheney and his corporate cronies to answer to, Mitt has the Mormon Church and the GOP.

Now this is where my liberal, left-winged brain comes out and the barrier between my brain and mouth does not stop me from saying certain things. Mitt Romney should be President because he is a part of a Religion that has taken pleasure and set principles around ostracizing specific groups. From African Americans to homosexuals, the Mormon Church is not a friend to "othered" communities. (And I don't want to hear ANYTHING about how "they are changing," I don't believe it.)


When it comes to any type of progressive issue if Romney was President, the Republicans will have a say and then the Mormon Church will as well. There is just no way around it. Frankly, to any one with a liberal or progressive brain, it is a scary to think of Romney EVER being President of the United States.

Have we forgotten what the United States would have looked like if Joseph Smith had been elected President when he ran in 1844?

I hate sounding like this, like a big bigot who is "hating" upon another religion. We have freedom of religion and speech in this country for a reason but sometimes, it's that freedom that scares me the most. It scares me the most when a religion now has the power, that they once didn't have, to drastically change the lives of minority communities around the world.

I know we can say this about MOST religions, so lets call this a rant AGAINST Mormonism and Romney for the time being. I don't have the energy to write about the cruelty of religion and frankly scholars are already doing this.

I have to say that I am very afraid for what will happen if he is elected President of the United States. I do not think he can serve his "two masters" and I think the country, just like when George Bush II was President, will suffer greatly.

More importantly, while the country will suffer, "othered" communities will face a double-edged sword that never seems to go away.

Now, one can say: "Well John, you shouldn't be President because you're gay!"

I agree that we get into a slippery slope when we start classifying why certain people should or should not be President. However, we have to classify the people that would say certain things like what I have said or what I just mentioned above.

Would a progressive or democrat say that a gay individual shouldn't be President? Would a Republican say that Mitt Romney shouldn't be President?"

When thinking about these issues I find myself thinking about the latter question and coming to the conclusion that "Yes, a Republican would say Mitt Romney shouldn't be President" for many of the same reasons I have stated here. However, while I have a problem with his politics and religion, a Republican from Texas or any other Red State, would be citing his religious beliefs before his political ones.

Religion is a slippery slope. Once we start going down the path of criticizing someone's religion we find ourselves falling into a tumble and unable to stop the downward fall. However, the trouble with my rant is that not just a "liberal" is stating this about Romney, it is his own political base as well.

And that, my friends, to me is a big, symbolic, "No, No!" In a time when a two party system cannot agree on anything except Mitt Romney's religious beliefs and the trouble it would bring to the office of the President, is quite scary but all to real.

In a post Citizens United world, what type of campaign contributions will we see to Romney's Presidential campaign to propel him into the White House? More importantly, where will Romney succeed where Smith and Young failed?

Part of me hopes I never have to find out.