Prehending the Mama

This is a review of a rather obscure publications, titled "Feminism and Process Thought: The Harvard Divinity School-Claremont Center for Process Studies Symposium Papers (Symposium Ser Vol 6)". It represents an attempt to fuse feminism with process theology, a form of liberal Christian theology based on Alfred North Whitehead´s philosophy. 

I admit that I didn't like this book. The connection between process philosophy and feminism feels extremely forced. There simply isn't any need to ground feminism in a relatively obscure form of liberal Christian theology (or evolutionary panentheism). Feminism is at bottom a political movement. Well, at least it should be. This collection of articles rather gives the impression that "feminism" is some kind of individual-spiritual quest of privileged middle-class females. Several of the scholars contributing to this volume didn't seem to realize that women's oppression even existed until quite late in their academic careers...which in some cases seem to have taken place before the rise of the modern women's movement in the United States. Gee, sisters, how pampered can you possibly get?

The introduction seems to spin feminism in a radical feminist or perhaps eco-feminist direction. There is a strong, underlying tendency towards essentialism in the contributions, with their constant talk about "relatedness" (being implicitly female) and opposition to "dualism" (which is presumably male). Somehow, this implicit essentialism manages to co-exist with postmodernism, "everything is subjective".

Several of the contributions sound demented, as when John C. Cobb talks about non-penetrative sex among teens as a way of breaking with male stereotypes, or when Penelope Washburn constantly talks about her orgasmic ecstasies, which she then likens to child-birth (!). Her navel-gazing and placenta-obsessed view of feminism sounds essentialist, and she has obvious problems fitting in women who want other outlets for self-fulfilment than child-birth. The last contribution, on abortion, sounds existentialist. Abortion is a tragedy, but tragedy is an inevitable part of existence, and somehow the process god will make something positive out of our tragedies...

Amen to that, Mama.

Not really recommended.