Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast

Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in what's now the U.S.

October 28, 2020 Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin Season 2 Episode 205
Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast
Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in what's now the U.S.
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In which we offer you a collage of historical examples about non-men doing religion and insist that all the people who do religion have gender

Keywords: patriarchy, exegesis

Storytime: Bynum, from Gender and Religion

As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more!

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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

This is Keeping it 101, a killjoy's introduction to religion podcast. This season our work is made possible in part through a generous grant from the New England Humanities Consortium. And with additional support from the University of Vermont's Humanities Center. We're grateful to live, teach, and record on the ancestral and unseeded lands of the Abenaki, Wabenaki, and Aucocisco peoples.

Megan Goodwin:

What's up nerds? Hi, hello, I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, and gender. I'm the one that likes Star Wars. I like it a lot.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Hi, hello, I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a scholar of religion, Islam, race and racialization and history. I'm the one that likes that I'll never have to see a Star War ever again.

Megan Goodwin:

I told you not to watch the one where they let Greedo shoot first, I told you. Anyway,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Hey, nerds! After two episodes specifically parsing and giving examples on race and religion and how if you're not thinking race whilst thinking religion(and frankly, if you're not thinking religion whilst thinking race), you're doing it all wrong.

Megan Goodwin:

Incorrect.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And now, we're gonna say the same stuff, but about sex and gender. It's new things to grump about! That's our favorite.

Megan Goodwin:

It is. I love it so much. What's wrong with us? Anyway, that's right. We are tackling sex and gender over the next two episodes. But as our podcast title suggests, this is just a wee little intro into these topics. We're building, we hope, on stuff we've said before on the pod, but we're also focusing specifically on new stuff about intersections of sex, gender, and religion. Ilyse keeps insisting, despite my years of disagreement, that theory for the sake of theory is nonsense talk. So, we're going to split up the next two episodes with case studies like we did with race. Today, we're thinking mostly about the United States, or the territory that is now called the United States. And on the next episode, we're going to think about literally the rest of the world.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No big deal.

Megan Goodwin:

That's fine. I- I do this little slab that's been around, you know, for some time, and then you can just do the rest of the world and also its history. Thanks, thanks. Go team! If that's not America, what is?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I've been telling you imperialism is part of the curriculum.

Megan Goodwin:

Oh, but that makes me the imperialism. Oh, well.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Let's move on.

Megan Goodwin:

Okay.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Fastidious and precise, she's a killer: LESSON PLAN.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes. When we kicked off season two with a killjoy's list of definitions, I said that sex and gender were related. Gonna do a quick call back since we don't expect perfect attendance, and also, I don't know about the rest of you but COVID has me struggling with recall. So I said that 1) gender, we made it up. Gender is meaning we make on and about our bodies. And I said that means it's both a social construct and real. We learn how to do gender from the folks around us and how they think we should do gender. And even when we choose how to do our gender, we're never starting from a blank slate. But, also, doing gender has real consequences, not just socially, but individually. People literally die for doing gender wrong. And we should pause and mention too, that doing gender wrong has particularly severe consequences if you are also, uh, a member of a minoritised race, so the homicide rate for black trans women is horrifying. So this is a space where intersectionality is really important to pay attention to, not that that's not important all of the time. So 1) gender: we made it up, it is a social construct. But, social construct does not mean fake or unimportant. 2) I also argued that when we're talking about gender, we're never just talking about gender. We're also talking about sex and sexuality, and how people assume that they know what the parts of our body are for (that is, making more bodies) before we've even discovered, like, our own noses. People see pictures of babies on sonograms, look for protruding bits in specific areas and go"Ah, I know what they want to be when they grow up."

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Sure do.

Megan Goodwin:

So weird. Can you imagine if we were just like- started counting toes and you're like, "You have 12 toes so clearly you shall be a carpenter." That's not different. Anyway.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And, in addition to those things, Megan, if I remember correctly, you said that all of that; the definitions of gender, matter to religion because, well, people have gender and are...

Megan Goodwin:

Yes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...doing religion at the same time.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And religions have ideas about sex and gender that help (or har) people doing religion whil t also having bodies with gende

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, yes, I did say all of that. All of the people have all of the genders, and all of the people live in worlds that have been shaped by religion, whether or not they themselves are religious. So, today, I want to focus on how doing religion and gender and sex / sexuality at the same time plays out specifically in what's now the United States. Here is

the thesis. The thesis is:

gender and religion are co-constitutive. We learn how to do gender in part through religious frameworks, and, we learn how to do religion in ways that are specific to our gender/ genders. And, gender and religion influence and reinforce and shape and reshape each other, world without end, amen.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Amen.

Megan Goodwin:

Who went to Catholic school? It's me.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Keeping it 101, ON TODAY: the segment where we do some Professor work. All right, Megan, we just did two episodes where we hammered home how we can't separate out our bodies from our experiences. Are we really doing more?

Megan Goodwin:

Duh, of course, we are. Doing the most is our brand. So yeah, we're doing this, because sex and gender are different from race, and do different (but also related) work on us and on religion, even if these things are playing out at the same time. So I am gonna offer you what I have written out as a quick review of definitions. But-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Lies, lies, lies.

Megan Goodwin:

It's true, it's throne- I sit on a throne of lies. But definitions are important, so too bad. Okay, so when we're talking about sex and sexuality, we are talking about assumptions about what bodies are for and what we should want to do (or not) with, on, in, to, around, our own bodies and the bodies of others. The driving assumption in a lot of cultures is that our bodies are, in large part (if not exclusively), meant

to make more bodies. Number two:

assumptions about sexuality shape our understandings of gender. So assuming that what bodies are primarily or exclusively for is making more bodies, gives us an understanding of what our bodies mean, and what we should do with them. So the little equation that I gave you (however many episodes ago) was that gender = identity assigned at birth, which often gets talked about as biology. But biology makes it sound like it's objective, and we know that science is also culturally constructed and shaped by the- the folks and our knowledge around us. Also, the identity that you're assigned at birth doesn't necessarily reflect who you are. It's just that- so if you were, as I was, assigned female at birth, there are immediate assumptions from other folks about who and what you should do and want and be. So, first part of gender identity assigned at birth. And your relationship, whether it is, uh- it reflects your identity assigned to birth, if you are cisgender. Or if your actual identity doesn't match up with the gender identity you were assigned at birth, you are a trans person. So identity at birth + desire, what we want (or don't want) to do with our bodies and the bodies of others, for the purposes of making more bodies or, you know, just to like, brighten up our day.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yup.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. So identity+ desire + expression, how you signal to the folks around you your relationship to your body and to your desire (whether that's through, like, explicit hankie colors, ask your queer ancestors about that- that one kids. Or, like a Rachel Maddow-esque power-nerd frame-game). So, biology / identity + desire + expression(how you're putting your gender on your body and signaling to others) + culture (how folks around you treat you based on how they think you should be acting based on the body they assume that you have). So, once more with feeling: gender = identity assigned at birth + desire + expression + culture.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

That's a lot of stuff happening. I love...

Megan Goodwin:

Yes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...that equation.

Megan Goodwin:

Thank you!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

There's a lot of stuff happening in just one little six letter word.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's happening all the time, often in violent ways all around us and in ways that we can't ever entirely opt out of even if we can fuck it up. Okay, so when we're talking about gender and sexuality, we are always, always, always talking about power. Humans use difference to create, justify, and sustain hierarchies. So our understandings of gender and sexuality have shifted pretty dramatically over time (and also place) but also, we have pretty strong evidence that men have dominated and oppressed women, for most- in most times, and most places for as long as we have written records of things.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Stone cold bummer.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah, again, our brand. At the same time, gender discrimination and oppression isn't just about capital 'M' Men waking up in the morning and deciding that they're going to oppress them some women, like, inbetween coffee breaks. So I am married to a man. Ilyse, I believe you, also, are married to a man.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I am.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. And I don't think our beloved spouses wake up in the morning and be like,"You know what, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna oppress some women, and then maybe I'll have breakfast. And then I'll oppress women for like another three hours and then lunch!" That- that is not how gender discrimination and oppression works, dear nerds. We- all of us, to some extent, have internalized the value of masculinity, of things we associate with being manly. So, uh, this internalization of valuing masculinity manifests in like really obvious ways, like conservative women looking into a television camera and saying with a straight (and I do mean straight face) that after four years of this administration, women are still too emotional to be president, cuz that's happening. But gender discrimination and oppression can also be subtle, like, I don't know, assuming all women should want to have as many children as they can. And then, like, organizing your entire healthcare system in every level of government in ways that make it hard, if not impossible, for women to exercise full autonomy over their bodies. And when they point this out, you accuse them of being baby murdering monsters. Okay, maybe that is not actually that subtle, either. But you have to look slightly harder to find it. I have- I have a lot of feelings about that.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

And also most things.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Kill the joy! Kill the...

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

..joy.

Megan Goodwin:

I will murder it dead. Oh. So the short-ish takeaway, once again, is that oppression isn't about our feelings. It's not about your feelings. Saying that the US is a patriarchal state,

Detox:

It's our secret word of the day.

Megan Goodwin:

patriarchy is a word which here means the cultural valuation of things associated with masculinity over and above things associated with other genders. So if we say that the US is a patriarchal state, it doesn't mean that every single American man hates women and thinks they're stupid and inferior. It does mean that when you count how many people are elected to office or run companies, the men outnumber the non-men by a wide margin. Oppression doesn't have to be intentional to fucking suck. Oppression is measurable. It is about math. It is about who has access to resources and power and bodily autonomy.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah, to all of that, and good grief lady, you reviewed terms and did this many definitions. So let me see if I can actually make, like, a quick wrap up.

Megan Goodwin:

Alright fine.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So we can get to the good stuff.

Megan Goodwin:

Alright, alright.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Not that none of that was good! But let's get- let's get to the thesis here.

Megan Goodwin:

This is my truth and I am standing in it. But yes, review. Please, break it down for us.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah, you like definitions, and I like footnotes. We have a thing.

Megan Goodwin:

It's true.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Gender is a social construct that is made up of a bunch of factors, namely (and I think I've got this equation memorized)

Megan Goodwin:

I believe in you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Your identity assigned at birth + desire + expression + culture.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes. Excellent.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

We all have gender. Even if when we think gender, or when not our listeners- but unenlightened masses- think gender, we often think that means women.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes. I- I had someone share an anecdote recently that said that a colleague referred to women as people of gender.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, good fucking Lord. Okay. Yeah, whatever...

Megan Goodwin:

I can't, I can't

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

We'll leave that, I can't process that. And we're all shaped by gender, if I'm following you correctly, which is why we can all value so called "manly

things:

" things coded as masculine.

Megan Goodwin:

Mmhmm.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Even if we rail against the patriarchy because things like behaviors, ideas, etc., have themselves been gendered.

Megan Goodwin:

Yep.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And none of us can escape systems of gender, even when (and perhaps especially when) we play with categories of gender. We care about all of this, I think- I think, because religion is what people do, and part of how people do what they do is through gender, sex, and sex-sexuality.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, yes. As always MoFu, you are right and smart. Now that we've reviewed our terms (all of them), I am going to offer you- it's not even a shock and awe, it's more like a highlight reel- on religion, gender, and sexuality in what is now the United States. This is a representative, if by no means exhaustive overview, of people with gender and sexuality doing religion in the US, I am going to focus on non-men in this pastiche because honestly, most of history is about men and that is very boring.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Also, let's be real. They've had their turn. Non-men, you're up. Let's go.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, yes. Excellent. So let us start this madcap dash through US history with the witches (or lack thereof) in Salem. Like y'all had to know that this was coming, obviously, like this is- this is me. So here's what

happened. Picture it:

colonial Massachusetts, 1692. A handful of relatively affluent girls, I'm sorry, relatively affluent WHITE girls, get caught messing around in the woods. They accused an enslaved West Indian woman of getting them to consort with the devil. And a whole lot of folks get accused of witchcraft and go to jail. Some are executed, more confess and lose their property, and the hardest dude of all, Giles Corey, allows himself to be literally pressed to death rather than confess and impoverish his family.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Dude...

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, they're piling giant rocks on him and he is... the- the story goes, just asking them for more weight. I think about that, roughly once a week. So here's why this matters. Puritans thought the literal devil accessed your soul through your body. Women's bodies, they insisted, were weaker. Despite knowing that those bodies make fucking babies which is metal as fuck. Weaker body equals easier access to the soul, equals women just, like, naturally are more inclined toward making pacts with the devil, like you do.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Sure.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, so I teach a whole class on this and I will share the syllabus with you. But here are the two big takeaways. A) there's some pretty compelling evidence that folks accused of witchcraft were less likely to be anti-christian religious rebels, and more likely to be, like, women who were fucking up lines of inheritance. So, the monster once again is capitalism. B) everybody was hearing the same sermons about humans being weak, but women were (our primary sources tell us) more likely to internalize that script and thus so much more likely to confess having made pacts with the devil, even if they couldn't, like, necessarily remember having made pacts with the devil because that's just how women are, according to Puritans. Okay. I- I have added like a fun fact section to each of the little patches on my quilt. So did you know Ilyse, and also beloved nerd listeners, Puritans actually get a bad rap in a lot of ways? I mean, like, I obviously don't love this women are weaker and more likely to make pacts with the devil, that part- not my favorite. But, Puritans are actually the closest we ever get to a white gender egalitarian society on this continent in recorded history. Plus, they had 98% literacy, which is directly tied to their religious beliefs because Martin Luther says you have to be able to read the Bible for yourself. And, still we get witches. But like, gender egalitarian society plus 98% literacy still giving us witches tells you something, I think, about the patriarchy.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. The patriarchy sucks.

Megan Goodwin:

It sucks. It sucks.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Alright. I love you, and your sweet 17th century witchery.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Let's keep going. I know we have many more patches of this quilt to add.

Megan Goodwin:

It's a beautiful quilt. But I had to start with witches, obviously. Okay, so flash forward. 1851, Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth gives her"Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the women's rights convention. What happened? So a lot of folks are familiar with this speech. And they are familiar with like a down-homey patois version, which has Truth, uh, arguing for

women's rights like this:

"Then that little man in black there he says that women can't have as much rights as men, because Christ wasn't a woman. Well, where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all on her lone, all these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again, and now they's asking to, the men better let them." So in this version, Truth is reading the scripture to say that Christ came from God and a woman, and that the first woman Chavva / Eve, turned all creation topsy turvy. So women both have a special relationship to God, and are way stronger than commonly thought. But remember how we told you how race and gender and religion are all mixed up together?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I do. I do remember that.

Megan Goodwin:

I thought you might. Okay. So here's the thing that a lot of people don't know- Sojourner Truth's first language was actually Dutch and her English was very formal. So, ugh, white supremacy. When white suffragettes published her speech, they made her into a caricature of an enslaved black woman. The version of the speech, Sojourner Truth actually delivered is way, way more formal and polished. What she

actually said was:

"how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?" (God, I love that) "But the women are coming up blessed by God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard." So like way closer to Shakespeare than Butterfly McQueen? Just saying.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, we're gonna get you a link to the Sojourner Truth project, which compares the two versions of speech side by side. But the short version here is not only is Truth far more educated than her fellow suffragettes are making her out to be, her actual speech addresses the intersections of her oppression. She talks both about her gender oppression as a woman and her racial oppression as a formerly enslaved person.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah, uh, nerds I have to admit, you know, I did not know the speech. I was not familiar with it, and Megan- we're gonna link to the actual speeches but- Megan in our- in our script notes here put- put the version published by the white women. And it is yeah, you have called it a down-home patois...

Megan Goodwin:

Well, it's straight up racist like it- yeah...

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I'm like- I'm like looking for a word that's not like... fuck this. It is- it is. It's linguistic blackface.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes. Yes. That's- Yes. That's exactly it.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

That's what I'm struggling for. It is linguistic blackface. And I want, dear nerds, I want you to actually look at this text. Like I'm feeling like my professo voice needs to be big here because, yeah, it's linguisti blackface. Like when I saw thi in the script, I truly was like

Megan Goodwin:

Under no circumstance, under no circumstance.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. Under no circumstance is this being read. And- and then that of course, I've read the rest of it and saw oh, we're doing a comparison. And also Megan would never do linguistic or vocal blackface.

Megan Goodwin:

Hard. No.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

But I want I was, I'm- I'm almost a little bit stunned in trying to react- our script note says says"Ilyse reacts" and I'm reacting. And my reaction truly is not like, oh, I'm shocked. Sojourner Truth is brilliant. Of course, she's fucking brilliant.

Megan Goodwin:

Obviously.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I'm actually shocked that- and I'm not shocked- but I think seeing the speeches lined up next to each other, you get such a deep, and powerful, um, image. It's not just the meaning of the text that's changed. It's the image of the text, what violence it does to put her formal, erudite speech into- into a made up linguistic black face.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So- So yeah, so there's work of race and religion happening here. And frankly, like, her religious conviction, and this sounds amazingly more feminist than the lady she was speaking to.

Megan Goodwin:

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Yeah. So, layers of meaning here, but what I'm gonna highlight is that this is a woman born into enslavement, speaking to some of the biggest political players of her time. And she's not only claiming her right to interpret scripture,

Detox:

It's our secret word of the day.

Megan Goodwin:

or perform exegesis (got another key word there for you). So she's interpreting scripture which like already, as a black person, as a black woman, as a black woman born into slavery, claiming that she gets to interpret the Bible is just like a baller move that I- I am shook by it every time. But also, she is insisting that women, including black women, are blessed by God, and that a previously enslaved person, a previously enslaved woman, has the divine right to demand the vote. Just, woof.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

It's fire.

Megan Goodwin:

It's just, ugh. Okay, fun facts. Did you know(perhaps you did), that white women got the right to vote in large part by arguing- often with the support of Protestant preachers- that they were morally superior both to white men, and to black people, and especially to black women. So we will also get you a link to a short list, uh, of the much beloved, much missed Toast entitled: "Suffragettes Who Sucked," where it points out like people like Susan B. Anthony saying some really baller things about why women should be able to vote and then some really disgusting things about her own white supremacy. So I'm sitting this space of like, I'm not super psyched about the statue going up in Central Park, where Susan B Anthony, racist, is sitting at the same table with Sojourner Truth, abolitionist, suffragette and just- goals, like that ever would have actually happened. But I digress.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So like this audio highlight reel is the best and the worst. What what's coming next? I'm almost I'm almost nervous

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah you should be, you should be. Next up the Mormons and polygyny, we are now 1878. And the Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS] hearing Reynolds v. the United States. Supreme Court tells the member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is only about 50 years old at this point, that they can believe whatever they like, but Mormon dudes can't marry more than one woman at a time, no matter how much biblical patriarchs did at first and also a very lot. This matters because- I'm sorry, did I step on you?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, I was giggling at- I was just giggling at the Bible, I think.

Megan Goodwin:

Fair, fair, fair. You should. And it's, it's the best and also the worst. Um, so this matters because if you listen to last season, and especially to Episode 102, you know that the US Constitution- and especially the First Amendment- guarantees free exercise. The first amendment literally says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." So Free Exercise sounds like it means that you should be able to do your religion, like, freely, right?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. SCOTUS says wrong MOTHERTUCKERS! You're welcome. This moment matters because it's the first time we actually get a definition of free exercise, that the First Amendment says you can believe whatever you like but you have to do like the US law tells you. Supreme Court rules that that's actually what that clause means. And if you do not do as the US law tells you to do, the government will, as they did in this case, take all your shit and send the army after you. "So Megan," I hear you asking, "Why the fuck are we talking about free exercise in a gender and sexuality highlight reel?" And I am so very glad that you asked me that, nerds. This decision is important for a lot of reasons, but for our purposes it sets a precedent for the Supreme Court, which is ostensibly a secular institution, regulating sexuality according to white mainstream Christian sexual morality. And White mainstream Christian sexual morality says stuff like, "you can't marry more than one woman at a time, Mormon dudes." Did you know that the Supreme Court is still using white mainstream Christian morality to interpret US law?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, I did know that. I definitely knew that.

Megan Goodwin:

I know. I know that you did. But this assuming that sexual morality = Christian doctrine (white mainstream Christian doctrine), is how we get decisions that say the Affordable Health Care Act doesn't apply to 'closely held companies,' whatever that means, that 'sincerely believe' whatever that means, people who can get pregnant should have to pay more for their health care, then people who can't get pregnant. I am looking at you fucking Hobby Lobby in 2014 and also Little Sisters of the Poor 2020 because nothing says free exercise like a bunch of nuns arguing it's too hard to fill out paperwork to say that they object to paying for contraception. And I'm going to stop now and assign you readings later or I will explode into a ball of rage.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, please don't explode. I need you to finish the podcast.

Megan Goodwin:

Okay, all right. I'm trying- I'm trying flames- flames on the side of my face. Let me just finish this vignette by saying that the Supreme Court in the 21st century flat out said that the beliefs of the owners of a corporation are more important than the beliefs of their employees. So if you're an atheist who can get pregnant and you work for Hobby Lobby, they still don't have to let you have access to subsidized reproductive health care, because 'sincerely held beliefs,' whatever that means. Oh, and PS, that lack of access to reproductive health care has a disproportionately harsh effect on non-men, queers, and people of color. So once again, with feeling, religion is not done with you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, it never will be, apparently.

Megan Goodwin:

It never will. Alright, so obviously, you have probably sensed that I have a lot more to give here. We could talk about Ann Lee who founded the Shakers realizing late in life that she was a reincarnation of Christ. The Oneida community deciding that the key to health and salvation was edging and non-monogamy. You can look that one up, I'm not defining it for you. Uh, the intersection of queer liberation movements and religion making more space for queer Muslims, Jews and Christians, Goddess-worship making a big comeback in the mid 20th century. Black and Latinx and black Latinx Americans reclaiming or building new connections to Africana religions and female orishas (I must once again direct your attention to Beyonce). Uh, Bree Newsome pulling down that confederate flag in Charleston after the massacre at Mother Emanuel, while declaring "You come at me in the name of hatred, and oppression, and violence. I come at you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!" Which is a moment I still cannot think about without full-on weeping. But again truly I / we could do an entire podcast on cool shit non-men have done with religion. So I shall stop now. IRMF, do you want to add a square to= to ou quilt of rad-American non-me doing religion

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I feel like that's a huge act to follow and I'm not a very good sewer. But, which is unfortunate...

Megan Goodwin:

But your ancestors! That's what I was going to say!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Cuz I think where I'm gonna start is a little bit about Jewish ladies in New York and their role in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the ILGWU,

Megan Goodwin:

I love it.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

an organization near and dear to my heart since they are my literal people, all of the people that

Megan Goodwin:

It's about family. came here, uh, in the time where that was really operative before World War II were in my family. Not all of them, I don't have

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Uh, yeah... [immitating Vin Diesel] that many ancestors. But like, all of my ancestors were in that"it's all about family." So anyway, this group, this labor union. union shifted the tide in New York City in waves and with help and with big allies. And a lot of the group drew its experience from Eastern Europe Jewish socialism, and Jewish political ideologies. So, I guess here I want to name, uh, Clara Lemlich who famously started a strike by screaming basically "enough with the platitudes, I want action" after a series of speakers sponsored by the New York City mayor's office, um, waxed poetic about the truly atrocious, uh, labor working conditions in- in sweatshops in New York. But she screamed "enough with the platitudes, I want action" in Yiddish. As the history goes, the crowd roared, and it was a strike immediately, because the crowd was also Yiddish speakers. So anyway, I think the significance here is that the relationship between religion, organization, labor politics and gender is really crucial right? Like it's an-

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...immigrant modality that comes from a place where, frankly, socialism and communism is more or less invented as a political ideology amongst people for whom that political ideology meant freedom for religio-racialized reasons, and that gender was really important. The majority of the women that the- the union is not the Garment Workers Union, it's the International Ladies Garment Worker Union.

Megan Goodwin:

Yesss!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Right? And while there are other not- people in the Union who aren't Jewish, most of their news- (not most I want to say most historians out there are going to kill me) but like, one of the major publications of that Union was a Yiddish newspaper (and I'll say this out loud) to which my own great grandfather was a regular columnist, and he was heavily involved in the leadership of the LADIES Garment Workers Union. Because, as this union gained power, and especially after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City. Um, so this Clara Lemlich speech is in 1909, and the Shirtwaist fire happens after- after that, but anyway, after this Garment Workers Union becomes powerful, all of a sudden you start to see the men take on leadership positions. So it's my- my great grandfather, who was a presser- um not AN oppressor- I mean, he might have been an oppressor, I didn't know the dude. But he was a "presser" which is, um, essentially like an ironer in the garment, whatever, district. So gender is at play, is what I want to say. But Jewish modalities and Jewish political ideologies really fundamentally shaped the labor movement in New York in the early 20th century.

Megan Goodwin:

That's interesting.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. Okay, I guess to give you one more quilted piece though, again, despite being the descendant of sweatshop workers, I don't know how so. I guess we'll bring out uh, an American religious leader and fellow scholar Dr. Amina Wadud whose scholarship on the Qur'an is absolutely top notch.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

She's a black Muslim feminist whose scholarship truly energized and energizes whole generations of scholars and activists in Islamic Studies, in religious studies, and around the world. We will link to her Patreon where she's teaching today- still today. Anyway, in 2005, Amina Wadud, as she puts it, after years of study and, mind, she is a literal expert on the Qur'an, agreed alongside a group of progressive Muslims to lead a mixed gender prayer. We do not have time to talk about why this is a problem or why it was a question but suffice it to say, dear nerds, that for many Muslims, this doesn't fit entirely well, it may not fit properly within Islamic law and practice. However, for others, Wadud included, the gloss of the Qur'an, and the Hadith and Sunna- which are the traditions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad- so the constellation where we get Islamic law from(kind of) but that gloss that suggested women shouldn't lead mixed gender prayers was actually a gloss of patriarchal cultures in which Muslims lived, but as Wadud puts it, not Islam itself. She leads this prayer. It makes international news and it is a mess for a good minute, the university that she was teaching at the time, like, could not secure her safety so her classes were canceled and she was teaching in like a secure room. I mean,

Megan Goodwin:

That's hardcore.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Scary.

Megan Goodwin:

That's hardcore.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

American Muslims debated her actions, some responses were sort of like, "Wait your turn women, it's hard, but don't divide the community. We're under enough stress as it is" because it's 2005!

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Okay?

Megan Goodwin:

Well, and doesn't doesn't that call back a little bit to our understanding of, like, an "Islamic world" imagining itself as one big community?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

It sure does.

Megan Goodwin:

Hmm.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

It sure does. And I guess the significance here besides the"Muslim world" piece is that an individual action, albeit by a high profile and visible scholar-activist and with the backing of a community, shook up, like, a whole Muslim American community, which then had ripples throughout the whole world, again, because of this idea that all the Muslims are all the same all of the time.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

But I also wanted to say that I think the significance here was related to who Amina Wadud is, she's a PhD-holding expert of religion, who is also a black Muslim, who- who talks about, um- (in a documentary about her that I will link to in the show notes),

Megan Goodwin:

Yes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

she talks about coming to Islam as part of a civil rights awakening. So yeah, again, we're at this race, gender, and religion, right in the nexus of it.

Megan Goodwin:

Yep.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I don't think my quilt squares were as- as fascinating as yours, but I hope I contributed. What do you think? How'd I do?

Megan Goodwin:

I think- I think you did great. I love the way that you have beautified and enriched our quilt and also the point of a quilt is not one individual square being better or worse, the whole project is what's important. And I like collaborating with you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Me too.

Megan Goodwin:

Go team!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! It's PRIMARY SOURCES.

Megan Goodwin:

[singing] Primary Sources!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

As humans with bodies, we too experience sex, gender, and religion, nerds!

Megan Goodwin:

Like every day.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So Megan, what do you want to share today...

Megan Goodwin:

Okay-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...in our primary sources?

Megan Goodwin:

In the spirit of rad American non-men doing religion, I am going to borrow the title of my primary source from another rad American woman, Zitkala Sa, who argued that her native way of being in the world was equally as valid as Christianity and she wrote an essay about it called "Why I Am a Pagan," in the early 20th century. And even though she and I use "Pagan" in very different ways, I'm going to talk to you real quick about why I, Megan Prince Goodwin, PhD, am a Pagan. It's a weird and fraught thing for an academic to admit they're a religious person at all, honestly. And it is doubly weird and fraught if your religion happens to be of the, um, non-traditional variety. But, when I say I'm a witch, I am not kidding. Paganism and witchcraft and- or whatever you want to call it- looks at my fat, queer, and visibly disabled lady self and says that self is divine, that who I am and how I am and what I want are not only okay, but sacred. They are magic, they are connected in important ways to every other living thing on this planet. And so is every other person in every other kind of body who wants to live any other kind of way or do any other kind of thing that doesn't hurt themselves or others, and that fucking rules. And there's a lot more to it than that. But that also about covers it. So Ilyse you're up.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I love that.

Megan Goodwin:

Thanks, me too!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I guess I will also contribute to the ways in which I'm a non-man doing religion. But I would like to talk about the spaces of gender that for me are somehow both, I guess, pretty stereotypical and inherently resistant. So, I'm going to talk about being a yenta.

Megan Goodwin:

Which is your true gender. If my gender is protagonist, your gender is definitely yenta.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I know, I know. So gossip is bad whole ass religions talk about how gossip is bad. And yet, my truest identity is yenta. Yenta is literally in Yiddish, a busybody or a gossip. It is a gendered word, women are yentas. And frankly, it's not a cute word. Right? Describing someone as a yenta usually means you're calling them a gossip, which has the same valence in English as it does in Yiddish. But I learned, at a young age, that there are gossips, and there are yentas. A gossip wants to tell you all about everyone's dirty laundry. They're spreading shit in the neighborhood or they're a pot stirrer. Oh my- I can hear my accent now, because I am talking about being a yenta!

Megan Goodwin:

I live, I live.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh my god, get it together, um-

Megan Goodwin:

Stir it!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So a gossip is a pot stirrer, but a yenta is a woman who uses the fact that women talk- and men don't- as a form of power.

Megan Goodwin:

Yesss!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

How do you know what men to avoid? What's safe? Who's trustworthy?"Who's going to get you the good deal on herring?" yentas. Yentas in my little universe don't directly talk smack. They talk in ways to make sure your people are okay. So I learned this in kitchens where the women would inevitably clean up after dinner that everybody ate. And I would be forced to join because the men got to drink tea and eat rugalach and talk politics and you know what I preferred, but eventually I would get removed from that space, um, and put into the kitchen- which should also show you the ways in which we value masculinity (call back to earlier in the episode)- but anyway, in those kitchens are how I learned how women, Jewish women, talked. How they got each other better lawyers to deal with, like, bad divorces. How they got their kids access to that special specialist, uh- or doctor. How they built, and used, and navigated networks. Yentas are the people who made sure women I knew got out of abusive marriages, and yentas saw their- that as their role as women. If the men don't want to do the dishes, that's fine, but then that's where the organizing happens. So okay, is this religious? Is this just the patriarchy? Is this complimentary gender pattern and gender roles? I don't- I don't know. But I have long loved that my own religion and its related culture and ethnicity, had this concept built in. So it's mine, and I'm a yenta hear me roar.

Megan Goodwin:

I'm crying!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No don't cry!!!

Megan Goodwin:

I'm sorry! I had a feel about it and crying is good pedagogy. Oh, I love that.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Well, thanks! Okay.

Megan Goodwin:

I'm good.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Well don't- don't be meshuge that was PRIMARY SOURCES.

Megan Goodwin:

[singing] Primary sources!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Control the narrative, control everything! It's STORY TIME.

Krusty the Klown:

Hey, kids, it story time.

Megan Goodwin:

Again, still really sounds like Orwell to me.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Should I do a different one?

Megan Goodwin:

No, no, no. It's appropriate. Like you've seen everything. So, yeah. Today's storytime comes from Caroline Walker Bynum's introduction to the game-changing volume, Gender

and Religion:

On the Complexity of Symbols. Gender and Religion was published in 1986, which is important for at least two reasons. One, "religious people have gender" probably doesn't sound groundbreaking to you, dear nerds, because you are smart. But, gender being an important part of the study of religion is still truly breaking news to a lot of folks who, like, study religion right- right this very now.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, yes. I'm well aware.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I have a listserv to talk about.

Megan Goodwin:

Ah, yeah, you do.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I'm kidding.

Megan Goodwin:

And when this book was published, the Yale Divinity School Library had only had a woman's restroom for about a decade. Truly, that is a true story. That is how much women were not a part of the study of religion as recently as 1986.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Can you say that one more time?

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. Women who were admitted to the Yale Divinity School (which is a very good Divinity School) did not have access to a restroom in the library for the school to which they had been admitted as scholars until after 1970. And they had to stage a potty sit-in to get it. We- we have receipts, so stay tuned for clips, nerds.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Amazing.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

A potty sit-in is, like, dope AF. Anyway, keep going, I'm sorry.

Megan Goodwin:

And like one dude came in while they were in there and, like, defiantly washed his hands. Couldn't pee.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Brave move!

Megan Goodwin:

Hoo, the courage, the courage! Anyway, so one, women really have not been considered part of the study of religion for very long at all. Carol Crystal talks about turning in papers about religion and gender, again at Yale Divinity School, and being told that that subject was not very interesting or important. Two, the fact that it's published in 1986 matters because Bynum uses binary language- she splits gender into only two categories when she's theorizing gender. And to our 2020 ears, this is gonna sound like trans and non-binary exclusive language because obviously it is. But, to offer some queer historical context trans people were only just beginning to use trans to describe themselves in the 1980s. Language, especially language about gender and sexuality, is fluid and contested. We here at Keeping It 101 know that trans women are women, and fuck a JK Rowling. But, to get back to the text at hand, Bynum writes: "It is no longer possible to study religious practice or religious symbols without taking gender - that is, the cultural experience of being male or female - " (or we would insert otherwise gendered) "into account. In exploring the relationship between gender and religion, the authors of this volume insist upon two fundamental insights."(We're not going to worry about the second one, but) "First, they insist upon the feminist insight that all human beings are 'gendered' - that is, that there is no such thing as a generic homo religiosus."(sounds like a Harry Potter spell) "No scholar studying religion, no participant in ritual, is ever neuter. Religious experience is the experience of men and women, and in no known society is this experience the same" (2). So what are you hearing here, Ilyse?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Well, I tripped up a little bit on homo religiosus in like Eliade ways, which is dumb and nerdy. So I'm gonna put that one aside. The second thing I hear is that, I guess I just want to be gobsmacked for a minute. It is upsetting that in 1986 we needed to say, no "scholar" studying religion (so the person doing the study) and no "participant" in ritual is neutral, or, as she- as she writes "neuter," which is, like, a striking word.

Megan Goodwin:

Mhm. Mhm.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...Yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, I-.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Like that sentence hurts. And I think that sentence hurts

Megan Goodwin:

I- it does! Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And all non-men are like fancy cost because it's just one of those- such an obvious place where men think that they are the generic neutral, standard issue. added models. Derivatives, if you will.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah. Like not to get too far abroad, but most new medications are only tested on men because women are- there are too many outlying variables, despite there literally being more women than men.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, no, I'm well aware. I'm highly medicated.

Megan Goodwin:

I know, you know, I thought may-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I know!

Megan Goodwin:

Maybe some other folks...

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I'm just-

Megan Goodwin:

...might not know.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

That's fair.

Megan Goodwin:

It hurts because it's doing violence to us! Like, the fact-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, like, to our literal bodies.

Megan Goodwin:

To our literal bodies, and also to the, like, to the Academy. We are damaging the Academy- (we're just gonna yell now) but we are damaging the Academy if we are not taking the full embodied experience, both of the people that we study and the people that we are, into account. Like, that is-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

It's not just wrong. Like, it is- it is fucked up.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. Can we throw it all the way back to our very, very first episode,

Megan Goodwin:

Do it!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

E101

Megan Goodwin:

Yas!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

When I talked about- where I talked about my mom, and I said, if you ignore the ways in which my mom eats bacon cheeseburgers outside the house, but didn't eat them inside the house, and you decide that that's not Judaism, then the thing that you are deciding is that my mom doesn't count.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Well, like, this is doubly that, nerds. This is the moment of- my mom wouldn't count because her...

Megan Goodwin:

Yup.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

...rituals would be different and...

Megan Goodwin:

Yup.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

therefore non-normative.

Megan Goodwin:

Yep!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Freakish, freakish.

Megan Goodwin:

Not okay. Not okay. None of this is okay.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, no.

Megan Goodwin:

Nothing about this is okay. Uh, I'm just going to close by saying that all of the people doing religion have gender. And even people who aren't religious, still live in cultures whose understanding of gender has been shaped by religion. So in the US, how you think about gender has direct provable ties to white mainstream Christianity. Sorry about it.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

You're not that sorry.

Megan Goodwin:

I'm not that sorry. Learn a thing. That's why we're here. I mean, I am sorry about it because it's gross, but, uh, not sorry that I told you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Don't pack up your stuff yet, nerds. You've got HOMEWORK!

Simpsons:

Homework? What homework?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Alright, nerds, by now you know that talking too fast is our thing and this time we were really yelly. So if the reverb caused you to miss anything, don't forget about the show notes where we're gonna stash links, citations, things you may have missed, and we always do our best to make sure that there's no paywalls or if there is because we need to cite accurately, that we find you other not-paywall things that can kind of supplement, augment or duct tape together the right thing. Plus, that's where we put the transcripts. So Goodwin, you're up. What do you want to assign today?

Megan Goodwin:

This could be another full podcast, but I'll try-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Keep it together!

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so I'm going to focus, I'm going to get you my witches syllabus cuz I feel like y'all might enjoy that. I am going to insist that you look at Carolyn Walker Bynum. She is iconic, so check out Gender and Religion also we will get you some public facing sources on that. I'm gonna give you a lot of what we might think of as canonical sources, they're certainly formal scholarly sources, but I will also get you interviews for all these folks. So you also need to know about Ann Braude's essay "Women's History IS American Religious History," which again doesn't sound like a thing you should have to say out loud and yet here we are. I love me some Anthony Petro, he wrote an amazing book called After the Wrath of God about, uh, religious conversations and activism during the AIDS epidemic. You should check out Monique Moultrie's Passionate and Pious, Lynne Gerber's Seeking the Straight and Narrow, Kent Brintnall Ecce Homo, which is about the male body and pain as a salvific figure, and it's about gays, so it's like the behold the man but also like, behold the gay... It's- I- I- love- I love a punny title. Uh, I want you to look at Amy DeRogatis' Saving Sex, which is about sex positive evangelicals, which we don't often hear about. Heather White's got a great book called Reclaiming Liberation about LGBTQ Protestant activism. And Mark Jordan doesn't actually need me to recommend him. And you probably don't need me to recommend Mark Jordan to you, but I love him so much. I'mma do it anyway, you should check out Recruiting Young Love and also everything he has ever written, ever. Just because. I also delivered a keynote speech at the North American Association for the Study of Religion in 2018 that talked about why we need to think about gender and sexuality in the study of religion. Uh, And that is definitely public facing and I will happily share it with all of you. It is very snarky indeed.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

It's great. Yeah. Great. Alright, my turn.

Megan Goodwin:

Yay!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

We both love Sylvia Chan-Malik's

Being Muslim:

a Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam.

Megan Goodwin:

So good.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And I'll get you both the book link and then some interviews that are open access about it. It's- okay, it's not about the US, it's likely not even about religion, but I'm sorry, I'm assigning Sara Ahmed, because I am the professor of- I'm the Instructor of Record here. I'm assigning especially Living a Feminist Life because it's mandatory. You just- I have the mic and I'm telling you to read it.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages is something I come back to again and again, it's about, um, US foreign policy and homo-nationalism, and it's super smart. Uh, Ashon T Crawley's The Lonely Letters, which is about almost everything we've been talking about: race, gender, ethnicity, queer identities, sexuality. It was gripping. It's a really striking piece.

Megan Goodwin:

Oh, I don't know this one! I have homework. I don't know all the things.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. Yeah, you do! You'd love it. I can't believe you don't k ow this book. And I guess- I guess I want to assign Higher Ground, which is a film based on a memoir about religiously sanctioned sexism. It's- I think it's about- I think it's like 2012, so it's a little bit older. And I think you have to rent it because it isn't freely streaming in my quick google search, and a massive set of trigger warnings for abuse. But, it does the work of how religion and gender are all tied up all the time forever. And, uh, yeah, it was a gripping piece when I watched it.

Megan Goodwin:

Rad. Well, that was a lot but you made it. You made it, nerds. We made it. It's done. Please clap wildly wherever you are for our transcription Captain Katherine Brennan, whose work makes this pod accessible. And as usual, come yell at us (or with us) on Twitter.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

You can find Meghan on twitter@mpgphd, and Ilyse, that's me,@profirmf or the show@keepingit_101, find the website at keepingit101.com, and with that peace out, nerds.

Megan Goodwin:

Do your homework! It's on the syllabus.

@bequietjoe on Tiktok:

"We're all obviously like 'yeah, we're going to the woods.' We go to the woods, there's music, there's dancing, there's a large cauldron, we are having the BEST night of our lives. And then we see Goody Proctor with a dark mysterious figure signing her name in a black book. So then Ruth was like, 'I think that's the devil.' And I was like, 'You can't say that Ruth, like, you don't want to start any rumors. Like, that's really offensive.' And then Tituba was like, 'No, that's the devil.' I am the last to cast judgment, but maybe if you're messing with THE DEVIL, tell your husband, or tell your neighbors! It would be so devastating if something tragic happened here."

LESSON PLAN
THE 101
KEYWORD: Patriarchy
KEYWORD: Exegesis
PRIMARY SOURCES
STORY TIME
HOMEWORK
BONUS