Saturday, March 8, International Women’s Day
This is kind of spur of the moment, but for anyone who would like to use this as an opportunity to blog about women’s issues, I will attempt to index the posts here. Please use the comment section to provide a link or trackback to your blog. This is open to men and women both. All views may not necessarily be endorsed by me, but you are welcome to submit your related link.
So if you have a soapbox to climb on, a bra to burn, a drum to beat, something to get off your chest, a hero to honor, a fence to mend, a sock to darn, or a mountain to die on, get your post written and linked so that we can read it.
Related links:
(Kathy, Mak, and Julie – I hope you don’t mind being included on the list.)
igniting the ember: emerging women finding their voice
I Don’t Have the Balls to Be a Leader
Complementarianism Sucks: Telling Women to be Quiet in the name of Jesus
kingdom grace 
okay, I’ll go first.
I have a bra to burn :)
I’ve been married for a few years now, but spent the first decade of my christian life ,in church, as a single mother of three children.
We lived on aprox. $10,000 a year.
We hung onto Jesus as tight as we could to survive an extended season of struggle.
He was always, always faithful and our family is full of love because of Him.
Here’s the deal though…I didn’t tithe.
I gave what I could give, when I could give it.
When I needed help, and asked the church… it didn’t go well. ( I didn’t tithe …so I was tying Gods hands etc…)I knew of several single men who attended who didn’t seem to have as much trouble finding people to stand with them durring difficult times…
While this took place some time ago and all is well now, I still find myself looking back wondering where/How the in-equality came in.
Single (female) parents are few and far between in my CLB… I know of 3 that have lasted over the years. The others left after a few months or so.
Is this common? Or is my CLB just…well, especially nutty:)?
Here’s the deal though…I didn’t tithe.
I gave what I could give, when I could give it.
When I needed help, and asked the church… it didn’t go well. ( I didn’t tithe …so I was tying Gods hands etc…)I knew of several single men who attended who didn’t seem to have as much trouble finding people to stand with them durring difficult times…
OMG…
Don’t get me started on the whole tithe extortion scam that churches use as club against their congregants…
You poor thing. Been there. Tithed even when we had to put groceries on credit cards to feed the kids. Did God ever make a way with more money? Did the windows of heaven open up? Or did the regular expenses need to be paid? And no, we were not living any extravagant lifestyle then…
We had decided to be a one-income family. Me, the bread winner, & my wife a stay-at-home Mom. It can only work under a limited time or situation. Go into debt to pay a local church 10% of our gross income? What insanity!
I stopped tithing. Period. Give freewill offerings whenever I feel so inclined. Do so cheerfully & without compulsion. But I do not ever give to a building fund or to a general church fund. I give specifically to a deacon’s fund or to a fund for struggling single parents or homeless people or whatever. I do not attend any church that preaches a Malachi curse on those that withhold the church’s expected 10%…
Lord have mercy… :(
Link :)
Grace, please accept my thanks for doing this. I am currently in Africa where tomorrow will be a really huge day among the women here. All the employers buy new dresses for their female employees so they can celebrate together. There will be a large parade and women will enjoy the day together.
Sadly, though the women of Africa remain greatly under oppression, largely from men. Whether it is rape, prostitution, patriarchy, high incidence of AIDS/HIV (many African men who already have the disease engage in sexual relations with young women who they believe are virgins because they believe it will cure their AIDS or prevent it), high incidence of death in child birth or economic and social discrimination, the rest of the year here is not so bright for women on the African continent.
I would encourage folks, especially men, to pray for the women of Africa and all the world on Saturday.
7catz,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am sorry that the church you were in wasn’t a place of support for you during that time in your life. Overall, I don’t think that church has a very good record of embracing singles, single parents, or people in need. The tithing teaching you were under was wrong.
joseph,
Tithing is a legalistic teaching of giving to the organization that has replaced the teaching and attitude of spirit-led giving to help those among us and to serve the poor.
traveller,
Thank you for sharing that. I will pray and hope others will also. It is hard to relate to that degree of oppression and to imagine a solution.
I am having trouble with my post for this. Today is my shopping/hair day. Perhaps I will be better able to address the issues tomorrow with a little more blond in my hair.
If you write a related post today or tomorrow, feel free to link to it in the comments, and I will add your link to the body of the post tomorrow.
I’m going to post something fiesty on Saturday for this. Thanks for the info.
Cheers.
So, is the picture of you before your hair became blond? I am inpressed that you work in the kitchen with high heels on.
(I hope you understand that to be humor.)
:-)
grace:
Actually, I am impressed with what looks like a pair of martini glasses in the back row of all those dried dinner dishes… :)
Okay, here is a lapsed Catholics consideration: how do women identify with Mary, the mother of Jesus?
Is there any identification with her? Might as well throw in all myth & infallible teaching of the RCC to consider…
Seems she has been elevated out of the realm of real human identification. Is this correctable?
How is the religious framework erected around Mary deconstructed while preserving her uniqueness & her humanity?
Hi Grace …
I’m going to have something up in a few minutes … or an hour! It’s been percolating for a coupla days now ;)
Okay … make that a few hours!! Here’s the link Are Women Human?
Waaaaalllll that must’ve disappeared into the spamalator. Humph … I’ll try again.
Are Women Human?
Thanks Sonja, I’ve got you linked.
mine’s up
anytime, i am adding my links right now. thanks!
ps: i think this picture is so funny!
traveller and joseph,
Actually, the hair color is pretty close. I turned out less blond than I expected. However, I haven’t worn heels that high in years and I’m not sure I would be smiling that big while doing dishes unless those martini glasses were right side up and full. ;)
Joseph,
I’m not very familiar with catholic teaching, but it seems to me that Mary’s role as the human mother of Jesus is very unique and important, worthy of honor, but not worshipped as deity.
Thanks Mak and kathy!
I appreciate your voices.