Two Theology Professors Talk History, Feminism, and Supporting One Another
By: Meera Dahiya & Laura Hennawi, the fem word contributors
We were talking about our feminist theologies courses at Loyola University Maryland and Georgetown University when one of us made a joke about how it seems like our professors know almost all of the feminist theologians that we read and talk about in class. A lightbulb clicked, and we decided to ask our professors about the other, not expecting that they went to graduate school together and were neighbors as well!
Feminist theology is the discourse and practice of Christian tradition from a feminist lens, zooming out from a masculine and patriarchal interpretation of Christian thought and into one that amplifies and emphasizes women’s experiences. It shifts from the traditional, male-centered study of theology and acknowledges how patriarchy’s racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and classism shape women’s experiences in religion.
Dr. Nicole Reibe studies historical theology, which is the study of how Christianity was taught and interpreted over time. She teaches theology at Loyola University Maryland and contributes to Loyola’s Gender and Sexuality program. Dr. Annie Selak is a feminist theologian specializing in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. She teaches at Georgetown University and is the Associate Director of the Women’s Center.
Meera Dahiya: What made you both interested in feminist theology, and what was your first interaction with this field?
Dr. Annie Selak: I don't have a definite first interaction memory of it. I think in undergrad, I was a poli-sci and religious studies major, so I think I got a sense of feminist theology, but I don't think I would've been able to define what that was. I did my Master's in Divinity at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and that's where I became more familiar with — this is a field and there's discourse within the field. There's some feminist theologians who I really love. There are some feminist theologians who I think get it totally wrong. And so that's where I got a sense of the diversity of the field. Whereas I think prior, I thought, "anytime a woman speaks it's feminist theology," and that is not my opinion now, nor do I think that's an accurate opinion.
Dr. Nicole Reibe: So I am one of those people who, I actually don't write feminist theology, even though I am a lady. When I speak, I am not actually speaking in the discourse of feminist theology because I'm a historical theologian who loves feminist theology and actually just saw a giant hole in our course offerings. And I was like, "okay, [if] no one else is doing it, then I am doing this?" Which is why Annie might be like, "why is Nicole teaching this?"
Dr. Selak: I was like, "maybe Nicole changed." Okay — let's hear it. Welcome!
Dr. Reibe: I am a feminist who is a theologian, but I am not a feminist theologian, if that makes sense. Annie, would you say that?
Dr. Selak: Yeah.
Dr. Reibe: I am an eavesdropper to this discourse. I am not a participant in this discourse or an active contributor in that sense. So how I got into this theology — how I was first exposed to it [was] at seminary. I'm Presbyterian, which I think in this particular issue makes a huge difference because I grew up with a female pastor at church. I never had some of the understanding of limits of who can lead and who can't. I didn't have a sacrament that I could not participate in. I didn't have these holy orders where some of us get seven sacraments and some of us only get six. I didn't have any of that. The ideas of feminism were just super normal to me just being from the Pacific Northwest [and]being in a religious tradition that very much upheld women and has been ordaining women since the 1940s. We were cool with a lot of things. And so when I got to seminary, I read "Sexism and God Talk" by Rosemary Radford Ruether, which is a very 1970s first kind of initial wave of feminist theology, like that initial second wave. And I remember reading it and just being like, "this is stupid. I don't get any of this. I don't get what the problems are." I did not understand anything. And it was in a systematic theology class that did not contextualize any of it because we were reading Calvin, James Cone, Gutiérrez, and this; and I did not understand what the problems were. So, I spent the rest of seminary not giving a shit. There were no courses in feminist theology. I came to feminist theology was when I went to a Catholic school — again, I never had a course in this. I very much realized, oh, I am treated radically different because I'm a woman here. I am not given opportunities. No one was like, "oh, you have boobs — we're not gonna invite you to contribute." But it was like, who talked to who? Who's allowed to be in your classes? Who do we read? I just saw the systematic shutting out of women's voices in historical theology. And I think that radicalized me. I did not actually change my specialty because I couldn't, but I started doing a lot of side reading. Let's say it that way. As soon as I left BC, I started writing on historical women, doing more women's history or women's religious history, which again is not actually feminist theology, but it is around it more. I was pretty radicalized, at BC, but also I had to do it in a quiet way so I could survive.
Laura Hennawi: As women in two different concentrations of theology, how is that experience different? Dr. Selak, you are in a feminist theology kind of field, there are more women in that field. Dr. Reibe, you are in historical theology — it's male-dominated. Is there a difference? If so, how did that impact the environment in which you work?
Dr. Annie Selak
“I remember a professor told me in my first year of studies that I needed to make a choice, whether I wanted to be a feminist theologian or a real theologian.”
Dr. Selak: I think the fields are very different, but I want to be clear that I don't think systematic theology is getting it right. So I think Nicole and I share, what would be common from our experiences, was our male colleagues. Other male students would go out to drinks with faculty and develop those informal relationships. And that wasn't something I felt like I had access to as a woman. But I remember a professor told me in my first year of studies that I needed to make a choice, whether I wanted to be a feminist theologian or a real theologian. This was something that was said without hesitation. But then I also remember male colleagues who would use a feminist theologian in their work and that same faculty member would stop the seminar and say, let's all applaud this male student for being such a good ally. So even though I think systematics has a lot more development of feminist theology and has more women in the field, I don't think that feminist theology is all the way mainstreamed. There are certain jobs that I know I could never apply to because I publish in feminist theology or have that on my resume and CV. So I think it's still, there are certain aspects of the field where it's very marginalized as well. Now history I think is more particular, so I'll let you speak to that, Nicole.
Dr. Reibe: In historical theology, it decontextualizes the thought from the body on a very fundamental level — it's the history of ideas and the way it's approached is really inattentive to context, which I think is bizarre, but that's what it is, or that's what it currently is. It just doesn't leave a lot of room for feminist thought. And I remember when I was writing my dissertation, when I had a feminist take on something and the pages came back to me with Xs on them and the words "not here." That was my experience with trying to bring any sort of feminism to it. Even now, if you want to do a feminist view of history, you go to a history department. I noticed that who I am actually reading now is much more people who do the history of religion and not the history of theology, if that makes sense. Because feminist methods were really embraced in history departments, particularly for medieval history, whereas they were roundly rejected amongst historical theology faculty members. I have found [that] I just have to read outside my field in a lot of ways. I have to be really thoughtful when I'm publishing things, like I'm not actually going to submit it to historical theology journals — I might to church history journals or to feminist publications, or I've been working a lot on disability in the last couple years, so disability publications. The places that were thought of as being great places to publish when I was in grad school I know are just off limits to me. They're just not going to care about the things I care about.
Meera: It's crazy that you guys went to graduate school together — it's quite a coincidence. It seems like a lot of people involved in feminist theology and in this type of work know each other. We did a project in our class, it was an interview project, and half the people on the list Professor Selak knew, which I thought was crazy. It seems like there's quite strong connections within the field. How does that impact the work that you do and the environment in which you work in?
Dr. Selak: Well, I think part of the reason for it is that many of us are marginalized in our fields. So just as a strategy for survival — we need to support one another. We need to reach out to one another, but I also think there's something fundamental to feminism that's like, we're better together. I think there's something in feminism that if we're truly to take the call of feminism seriously, it requires building new communities and not seeing each other as competition. And there's something fundamental about how we want to enact justice in the world by being in community together. I think it makes me be more generous in my reading that instead of reading something, if someone's publishing on a topic that I write closely on, it's not like, oh, they got there first, but it invites me to like read it with a very generous lens to think, "how can I amplify this thought?” How can I support this thought?" Or even sometimes I very much disagree with what people are saying. But I trust that they arrived at this conclusion through a lot of thought and effort. And so I think it invites me to see that more.
Dr. Reibe: Just to build off [of that], it invites me to read the whole book instead of stopping when I get frustrated. I feel like I trust women in a different way than male authors where I trust that this is actually from a very good place. I think that's my hermeneutic of trust rather than suspicion. So when I am feeling something that I deeply am uncomfortable with, I am more likely to keep on reading because I trust that this journey will be worth it. Whereas there's some male authors where I just set it down and return it to Amazon. I'm not paying for this book. I'm not keeping this thing.
Dr. Selak: I'll add that the one exception to this for me though, is, I think right now there's somewhat of a division brewing in feminist theology around TERFs*. That's something that I've been very clear in our class of that's not something we're even going to entertain. That is extremely discriminatory. That's a very clear line in the sand to me.
*trans-exclusionary radical feminist
Laura: What is a misconception people have of feminism and feminist theology that is popular in the field of theology itself? Why do you think it's important to teach feminist theology in that kind of vein?
Dr. Nicole Reibe
“I simply think feminist theology is oftentimes just telling the truth. It's not trying to overturn the tradition, it's, 'no, this is what it actually says.' I think it's just truth-telling.”
Dr. Reibe: I guess the first thing is that feminism's only for women and it's like, no, it's for the flourishing of all people. That then makes people think that feminist theology is somehow only for women. And I think the other thing is that it's not a hot take. It's not like a new thing. I feel like oftentimes feminist theology is: actually read the Bible, really read what it says or really look at history, really think about the implications. I don't think it's actually doing something radical. I simply think feminist theology is oftentimes just telling the truth. It's not trying to overturn the tradition, it's, "no, this is what it actually says." I think it's just truth-telling.
Dr. Selak: I love that so much. I think that it's inviting us to look at the entire tradition, not just the mainstream tradition as well. The other thing I would say is that feminist theology is very diverse. I actually prefer calling it feminist theologies versus theology. There's not just one way of doing feminist theology, and there's a diversity in the field. I think there needs to be a reckoning with the racism and white supremacy of the field. I think that's underway. But there is a diversity of feminist theologies, and I think that's a really wonderful thing. Part of the reason why it needs to be taught is that if I think of feminist theology as: we take seriously that all people have dignity, what are theological questions? Where might that start us in a different place to question and where might that lead to different answers? That's theological anthropology in a nutshell. That's a different way of doing ethics. That's a really important way of doing ethics. It's a really important way of talking about the Church or how we think of God. But if we just take that simple affirmation of dignity seriously and then take our call to justice seriously, that's something that all theology should be doing and feminist theology, I think, centers as a priority.
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