Sightings 2/18/10

Public Roles, Private Persons
– Debra Erickson

A few weeks ago, Sightings ran a piece by Courtney Wilder on the clergy fashion advice blog Beauty Tips for Ministers. In highlighting the dilemmas faced by female clergy – the clashing of expectations that occurs in a profession in which the line between personal and professional is blurry and difficult to maintain, particularly for women – it exemplifies the themes that will be taken up by a conference being hosted by the Divinity School next week, “Public and Private: Feminism, Marriage, and Family in Political Thought and Contemporary Life.” The conference is inspired by the work of University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain, whose first book, Public Man, Private Woman is widely considered a modern classic in political theory.

In much of her early writing, Elshtain fought against the feminist dictum that “the personal is political.” This battle cry collapsed the classical distinction in political theory between the public sphere of political action (historically reserved to men), and the private sphere of home and family life, where women invisibly labored, unknown and unremembered. But in trying to break down the barriers that prevented women from acting in the public realm, radical feminists applied the logic of politics, constituted as a quest for dominance, to private life: Relationships that had been defined by love or familial fidelity were instead viewed exclusively as the seat and site of oppression, injustice, and misogyny; liberating women from those bonds became the explicit goal of a cadre of late-twentieth-century feminists. In other words, women had to become men: Authentic living was possibly only when unencumbered by the obligations of marriage or childrearing.

Reverend Weinstein’s blog is, in some way, heir to Elshtain’s groundbreaking work. Rather than demanding that women leave behind the things that mark them as women – feminine clothes, up-to-date hairstyles, makeup – in order to exercise public authority, the blog makes a space for women to act in public as women. The blog also highlights the ways in which Christianity has played, and continues to play, a role in the ongoing push and pull between the public and private realms. Elshtain points to Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther in particular as Christian thinkers who challenged the classical elevation of the public realm that had as its necessary corollary the exclusion of women from political life.

Elshtain writes, “Christianity challenged the primacy of politics. It did not relegate secular power to silence and shadows as secular power had formerly relegated the private, but the claims of the public-political world no longer went unchallenged. Caesar now had to confront the formidable figure of Christ.” Christianity bequeathed to the individual qua human being irreducible worth and dignity, and placed independent value on “the realm of necessity” inhabited by women. In so doing, it turned Aristotle “on his head.” The Greeks had excluded women from the highest expressions of human life, action, and thought; Christianity smashed the distinction between higher and lower forms of human existence, with effects that reverberated through to the present.

Not least among these effects is the often politically fraught movement of women into the public sphere. The existence of Beauty Tips for Ministers and the attention it has garnered are evidence of how the landscape has changed since the first edition of Public Man, Private Woman was published in 1981. Next week’s conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of major thinkers – including John Witte, Jr., Mary Ann Glendon, David Blankenhorn, Arlene Saxonhouse, William Galston, Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn, and Don Browning – to debate its title themes; discuss the impact of Jean Elsthain’s contributions; reflect on changes in the social, political, and academic contexts in which we labor; and consider what work is left to do.

More information can be found on the conference web site: http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/conferences/engagedmind/2010/index.shtml

References:

Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

Read Courtney Wilder’s Sightings, “The Sacred and the Sartorial,” at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2010/0114.shtml.

Debra Erickson is a PhD candidate in Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

———-
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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Now this is just huge, as PeaceBang is a monster fan of the podcast.

Thanks, SOF! Love ya! MWAH!

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(guitar riff) BOW dow dow dow
Can’t touch that!

The Sacred and the Sartorial

– Courtney Wilder

At first blush, the blog Beauty Tips for Ministers does not seem like a hotbed of feminist theology of the body. Written primarily, though not exclusively, for women, the blog includes posts on a wide range of topics related to clergy and their professional dress, including how to discern between attractive, trendy shoes and those that are too sexy for ministry, the difficulties of achieving professional-looking hair, what constitutes good makeup, and how clergy should dress for weddings. The advice is practical, the commentary is very funny, and the images are consistently good.

As one reads more posts, and reads them more deeply, a distinctive pastoral theology begins to emerge, a theology that embraces the physical presence of women in ministry. The author, whose nomme de blog is PeaceBang, is otherwise known as Reverend Victoria Weinstein, the Harvard-educated pastor of First Parish Unitarian Church in Norwell, Mass. She addresses her readers with a range of endearments, including “darlings,” “my revered pigeons,” “kittens,” and “my pets.” Blog posts include examples of especially good fashion choices on the part of clergy, images of garments which would be appropriate in clergy wardrobes, critiques of dowdy or inappropriate ministerial outfits, and answers to readers’ questions.

What keeps the blog from being either frivolous or harsh is Weinstein’s consistent recognition that female clergy occupy a professional and theological space that requires them to respond to a long and often critical tradition. In a post titled “Too ‘Hot’ For Ministry?” Weinstein offers advice for young, female members of the clergy who have been instructed to tone down their attire because someone, perhaps the senior pastor, considers them too attractive. She writes, “Document EVERY word you can remember from that first meeting and before you do a thing about shopping, call in another pair of eyes to assess your wardrobe and appearance. It may, in fact be that you DO need some sprucing up. It may also be that your supervisor is trying to shame you for being a hottie. Don’t fly off the handle; walk carefully and govern your angry thoughts. We serve a monumentally sex-phobic institution, my darlings — this should neither surprise nor enrage you. Be ye wise as a serpent and…you know the rest.” In the remainder of the post, Weinstein offers practical advice on how to navigate this especially thorny situation.

The purpose of the blog becomes clear when Weinstein reflects on the connection between professional appearance and what it means for congregants to have their pastor present in the room. She writes, “I guess what I am trying to say is that in some way, our ministerial bodies are not just personal but are also communal. This may be neither rational nor fair, chickens, but that’s just how it is. When one of our beloveds is dying, it’s not just anybody who shows up who can represent the church. It’s when your particular body shows up that the Church is there at bedside. You know it, I know it and God knows it. When you become a ‘Rev.,’ your body isn’t just your body anymore. Maybe not fair or rational, but I think that’s how it works.” Beauty Tips for Ministers is not only about how the pastor ought to look, but about why it matters.

Thus what separates Weinstein’s approach from secular guides to professional dress are first, her ability to exercise pastoral care in guiding her readers, and second, her clear conviction that having (and dressing) a female body does not interfere with a pastor’s vocation. Indeed, Weinstein argues that for female clergy dressing one’s body ought to reflect both affirmation of one’s gender and acknowledgement of the leadership role of clergy within the community. She identifies the tendency of some female clergy to efface their gender and/or sexuality in their professional attire and argues that this approach does no one any favors; instead, she advocates for a model of religious womanhood that is frankly feminine, and simultaneously highly professional and even sartorially conservative. In so doing, Weinstein presents a deeply feminist view of religious vocation: She holds that not only are women suitable to be clergy, but that women can most powerfully embody their vocational calling when also attending to the care of their own bodies.

Visit Beauty Tips for Ministers at www.beautytipsforministers.com.

Courtney Wilder, Ph.D., teaches in the Religion and Philosophy Department of Midland Lutheran College, an ELCA institution in Fremont, Nebraska. She is a past Junior Fellow at the Martin Marty Center.

From Martin Marty’s Sightings blog, University of Chicago.

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Yay for art!!

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I’d like to dedicate this moment to Dorothy Parker, to Bernice Peck, to the marketing managers at Sephora, to every minister who ever ascended the pulpit in a muu-muu or a scrambled-egg stained tie, and to my webmaster, Scott Wells. Also to all of those humorless frownie-faces whose whining over the years have always inspired me to new heights of irreverence.

And thanks to P.L. Frederick for alerting me to the Alltop thing.

Now get back to your Easter sermons, you sacred slackers. PeaceBang is on sabbatical, so she can say that.
Really though, she secretly envies you. Because if there’s anything that makes her make muppet noises of frustration, it’s not being able to be with her own congregation on Easter.

Kissy, kissy!

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If it’s a nice night, maybe we can have drinks or coffee afterward at Sel De La Terre at the Natick Mall.

See you there!

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What will we be talking about? Here is a weensie list of some of the things I intend to cover:

1. Taxes
2. The economy
3. The war in Iraq

…oops! I got confused for a moment! But you can betcha that, just like Sarah Palin, no matter what topics come up I will STICK TO MY TALKING POINTS.
And you know what they are, don’t you, PeaceBangers?

I. You can project an image consciously or you will most certainly project one unconsciously: what kind of image do you want to project?

II. Grooming matters. Details matter. Taking care with your appearance and making sure that you look like someone who lives in 2008 matters. These are not frivolous issues. Just as any leader in any public profession attends carefully to their appearance, so should we.

III. If your mouth is saying love, justice, holy, etc. and your body is saying schlep, unkempt, drab, dated (eg, “Woodstock refugee”) scraggly, neglected or just downright sick, people will read that unspoken message just as strongly as they hear your words.

Some of the questions I will be bringing to UTS

> How do you take care of yourself?
> What role does joy/humor/fun play in your life and in your ministry with your religious community?
> What visual images go along with your leadership style?
> What fears or anxieties do you have about becoming a religious leader in your context and at this point in history?
> What are your basic questions about dress, decorum, vestments, protocol, that I may be able to address?

See you there! I’ll have my camera so expect lots of fun photos soon!

Cripes, what am I gonna wear!!??

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Unitarian Universalist minister and blogger Victoria Weinstein will be visiting the UTS campus on Monday, October 20 and Tuesday, October 21. If you are interested in joining our conversations over lunch on Monday or the longer presentation (also over lunch) on Tuesday, please leave a comment and we will send you details and register you. Free-will offering to help pay Rev. Weinstein’s travel expenses.

Victoria Weinstein is the Minister at First Parish Unitarian Church in Norwell, MA. She is Adjunct Professor of Worship and Liturgy at Andover-Newton Theological School and the author of the popular blog, PeaceBang’s Beauty Tips For Ministers (www.beautytipsforministers.com), an irreverent but relevant public ministry that has received national media attention and has clergy and lay readers all over the world.

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Thanks. It means a lot for me to be able to share that with the Beloved Community.

Also, I have a joy. I was on NPR yesterday . Thanks for caring.”

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