Mary Daly has died. Age 81.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

She wrote very interesting stuff. I have "Gyn/Ecology" and "Webster's Third New Intergalactic Dictionary".


http://ncronline.org/news/women/mary-daly-radical-feminist-theologian-dead-81

[ismnotwasm]

1. I need to read Gyn/Ecology

And "Beyond God the Father". I'm apparently one of those people who is incapable of being religious, I don't 'get' it. Well, I get it a little, but not much. Mary Daly was an incredible, controversial woman.

Religious feminists always fascinate me as well as theologians like Mary Daly or Elaine Pagels, who give a different point of view. I can't imagine a bigger challenge that to try to save one's faith from patriarchy, when that faith has it's roots in patriarchy. It takes incredible courage and faith beyond what I usually see people capable of. I found this excerpt from "Beyond God the Father" I like that beginning phrase, "the unfolding of God"



The unfolding of God, then, is an event in which women participate as we participate in our own revolution. The process involves the creation of new space, in which women are free to become who we are, in which there are real and significant alternatives to the prefabricated identities provided within the enclosed spaces of patriarchal institutions. As opposed to the foreclosed identity allotted to us within those spaces, there is a diffused identity — an open road to discovery of the self and of each other. The new space is located always "on the boundary." Its center is on the boundary of patriarchal institutions, such as churches, universities, national and international politics, families. Its center is the lives of women, whose experience of becoming changes the very meaning of center for us by putting it on the boundary of all that has been

considered central. In universities and seminaries, for example, the phenomenon of women's studies is becoming widespread, and for many women involved this is the very heart of thought and action. It is perceived as the core of intellectual and personal vitality, often as the only part of the "curriculum" which is not dead. By contrast, many male administrators and faculty view "women's studies" as peripheral, even trivial, perhaps hardly more serious than the "ladies' page" of the daily newspaper. Most "good" administrators do sense that there is something of vitality there, of course, and therefore tolerate or even encourage women's studies — but it remains "on the boundary." So too, the coming together of women on the boundary of "the church" is the center of spiritual community, unrecognized by institutional religion.

The new space, then, has a kind of invisibility to those who have not entered it. It is therefore inviolable. At the same time it communicates power which, paradoxically, is experienced both as power of presence and power of absence. It is not political power in the usual sense but rather a flow of healing energy which is participation in the power of being. For women who are becoming conscious, that participation is made possible initially by casting off the role of "the Other" which is the nothingness imposed by a sexist world. The burst of anger and creativity made possible in the presence of one's sisters is an experience of becoming whole, of overcoming the division within the self that makes nothingness block the dynamism of being. Instead of settling for being a warped half of a person, which is equivalent to a self-destructive nonperson, the emerging woman is casting off role definitions and moving toward androgynous being. This is not a mere "becoming equal to men in a man's world" — which would mean settling for footing within the patriarchal space. It is, rather, something like God speaking forth God-self in the new identity of women. While life in the new space may be "dangerous" in that it means living without the securities offered by the patriarchal system for docility to its rules, it offers a deeper security that can absorb the risks that such living demands. This safety is participation in being, as opposed to inauthenticity, alienation, nonidentity — in a word, nonbeing.


I love that--"The burst of anger and creativity made possible in the presence of one's sisters"

[femrap]

2. I can't believe I didn't hear of this....

but then why should I be surprised since I live in this willfully ignorant patriarchy.

I saw Mary Daly at the U of KY in 1999 or maybe 2000. She was a true wonder. The auditorium was packed.

She eased my depression and gave me such a lovely kick in the ass.

I miss her. All of my heroines are dying. Gloria is still here.

Do we have any younger ones who aren't into 'fun feminism' and learning how to pole dance?