Feminism and Womanism
“I should stress that YDS does not reflect a ‘radical’ women's mindset. Women students here are in many different places in their thinking about politicking for power in the church. There is general awareness of our unequal role in church leadership positions, but little agreement on how to change it. There is a greater sensitivity to the conversational put-downs and outright sexist remarks from men on this campus. In their response to these statements, I detect more readiness by the women to challenge the comments and the attitudes that produce them. The consciousness at YDS in ’72 is not anti-men. It is pro-women. And it’s getting stronger.”
Reflections, May 1972. Yale University Divinity School Memorabilia Collection (RG 53), Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library.
Joan Bates Forsberg, a 1953 graduate of YDS, became Registrar and Advisor to Students in 1971. She was soon promoted to Assistant Dean and then to Associate Dean for Student Life. In those roles, she founded the Women’s Center and acted as an advocate for all women at the Divinity School.
"We begin with ourselves. Each of us must answer the question: What will we do with the fullness and incompleteness of who we are as we stare down the interior material life of the cultural production of evil? Rather than content ourselves with the belief that the fantastic hegemonic imagination, the motive force behind the cultural production of evil, is a force that sits outside of us, we must answer remembering that we are in a world that we have helped make. The fantastic hegemonic imagination is deep within us and none of us can escape its influence by simply wishing to do so or thinking that our ontological perch exempts us from its spuming oppressive hierarchies. These hierarchies of age, class, gender, sexual orientation, race, and on and on are held in place by violence, fear, ignorance, acquiescence. The endgame is to win and win it all— status, influence, place, creation."
Townes, Emilie M., and D. Hopkins. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
The Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African-American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School, as well as the first African-American and first woman to serve as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. In 2013, she became Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, and the Dean and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society.
“It seems truer to say that I may pause some day to revel in my identity as a cherished daughter, womanperson born out of the womb of reality.
It seems delightful to ponder the liberation of proclaiming my birth out of woman in the image of woman- for that is what I AM.”
“Here is a new meaning for the words "God go with you." Revel in the thought, women- the testimony of our own spirits tells us that She never left, never departs, always goes with us, on our womanjourney, spiritual journey, the graceful living of our lives.”
Marie Lindhorst. Reflections, April 1982. Yale University Divinity School Memorabilia Collection (RG 53), Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library.
Marie Lindhorst graduated from the M.Div. program at YDS in 1981. She is currently an Advising Program Coordinator at Penn State University.
“Christian mission has been part of the colonial project of destroying people’s culture and self-esteem […] [Mercy Oduyoye] is also convinced that the work of God to save women is far more holistic than are the narrow teachings of church missions or of patriarchal African traditions. In this she is joined by Musimbi Kanyoro who says that mission is not about conversion but about helping people find what is liberating, and this liberation comes from God. This understanding of God as liberator is very much connected to the metaphor of God’s trinitarian mission as an expression of love and welcome for all people from every nation and religion, and of all creation. God shows no partiality, and rejects all attempts to use domination to rule over others in God’s name (Acts 10:34; Gen. 11:1-9). From a Christian feminist perspective, a sending God is a mending and welcoming God who invites us to be part of the work of restoring the creation that God intends to make new (Isa. 43:18-21; Rev. 21:5). "
Letty Russell. God, gold, glory and gender: a postcolonial view of mission. International Review of Mission 93: 368 (January 2004): 39-49.
Letty Russell was a feminist theologian and professor. She was a member of the first class of women admitted to Harvard Divinity School, and one of the first women ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. After earning a doctorate in theology at Union Theological Seminary, she joined the faculty at Yale Divinity School, where she taught for 28 years. She authored, co-authored or edited over 17 books.