So here is a (very) short list of movies and books that I think present women holistically. They are smart, strong, and kick-ass at times, but also fall in love, admit to weaknesses, and deal with pain – without being solely defined by any one of those things. I’ve started the list, I would love for readers to add to it in the comments (and yes feel free to add examples of men presented holistically as well!)

I have to start the list off with Eowyn. The quote in my blog header is from her, an image I may or may not have a version of tattooed somewhere on my body. We also named our daughter Emmaline Eowyn. So, yes, she ranks up there as my all-time favorite female character. The Lord of the Rings movies did a fair job presenting her as the strong shieldmaiden, defeating the Witchking with her declaration “I am no man.” But they only briefly showed (in the Extended Editions at that), her greatest strengths. Through all the stories she knows that she is called to do great things and fears the cages that will hold her back. In the limits of her world she assumes this means either becoming like a man in battle or marrying the future King Aragorn. He reminds her though that she is a daughter of Kings; a cage will not be her fate. But it is in the houses of healing that she discovers her true calling as a healer. Rulers in Middle Earth are healers – Aragorn is recognized as the true king because he has the ability to heal. The elves name him Elessar (my son’s middle name) because it means one who can heal. Eowyn discovers that greatness inside her once she learns to serve and heal others – that is what it means to be a ruler. I love that. I love Eowyn. And I love that it takes her a journey to discover that.

Katniss Everdeen. I love the Hunger Games. I love Katniss. She is deeply vulnerable and has a long slow journey to figure out how to cope with all the pain in her life. She cares, self-sacrificially for others and yet knows what it takes to survive. From a place of utter brokenness after the death of her father, she pulled her family together and helped them survive by learning to hunt and forage. In the shadow of a totalitarian government that wants to use her as their pawn, she through trial and error figure out how to stay true to herself and yet protect those she loves. She succeeds spectacularly and fails tragically in the books and yet manages to figure out how to survive both. She isn’t cocky and she has more questions than answers. She feels pain deeply and gives tremendously. She is my hero.

President Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica. Okay she could be annoying at times, but her balance of taking charge in a crisis (the end of the world) and living in the vulnerable space of dealing with breast cancer at the same time is hard not to respect. When robots of our own creation return to annihilate the human race, I want her as my President.

Robin McKinley’s treasured The Hero and the Crown (Newberry winner) and The Blue Sword (Newberry Honor book) set the standard for strong female protagonists in beautifully written stories. The first book tells of the legendary Lady Aerin the dragon-slayer who saves her Kingdom despite her family’s assumption that she was just a worthless girl. The Blue Sword takes place centuries later as the orphaned, unladylike and socially awkward Harry discovers that she is heir to Lady Aerin’s mythical blue sword. These books have just the right amount of girls overcoming stereotyped roles without reducing them to simply being glass-ceiling smashers. Their stories are mesmerizing as you fall into them completely and find in Aerin and Harry heroes any reader can love. (On a side note, McKinley’s Sunshine is in my opinion the best vampire book ever written and it has an amazingly strong female protagonist as well).

Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. So there are some major gender issues in this play, the whole denounce Hero at the altar for being unvirtuous thing is just plain creepy in today’s world. But the development of Beatrice and Benedick and their witty brilliance are worth the weirdness. She is as independent of a woman as she can be in her world and is astute enough to point out her constraints. She is smart and understands that she does not need a man to fulfill her which of course makes the relationship she stumbles upon with Benedick all the more meaningful. Emma Thompson defines this role for me (she is great at playing real, vulnerable, and yet strong women). Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more…

I love the movie Away We Go and Maya Rudolph’s character Verona in it. She is funny, smart, and creative and trying to come to terms with being pregnant. After losing family and her home young, she is trying to understand what it will mean for her to start a family. She and her husband travel the country in search of a home and in the process define for themselves what family does not mean to them. The extreme stereotypes of women (the domineering wife, the hippie attachment-parenting mom) are humorously depicted as limiting women. In short, the film is the holistic woman’s hero’s journey as she seeks a way of being in the world that allows her to be herself – intelligence, scars, humor and all.

So now it's your turn – who would you add?

Last week I saw two movies and was quite intrigued by a pattern I noticed during the trailers: women being tough guys. The three trailers were for Underword:Awakening with Kate Beckinsdale, Haywire with Gina Carano (both action films) and The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.

I have read enough feminist literature to know that there is a principle (which Thatcher made famous) that “In a man’s world …” a women often has to out ‘man’ the guys in order to break into the boys club and be taken seriously….

What do we do with the karate-chopping drop-kicking heroines of violence on the silver screen these days? On one hand, it is nice to women getting these big-deal leading roles in major films… on the other hand, are they real portrayals of women-ness or is it the bad kind of mimicry – like ‘Girls Gone Wild’ as a picture of sexual liberation or power.

Bo brings up some really good questions to which there are no easy cut and dry answers. I ranted/blogged about this general topic a few years ago, but the issues still exist, and perhaps are even intensified. On one hand, I would start by pointing out that just because a woman is an action hero, tough as nails, or possess traditional leadership qualities doesn’t mean she is acting like a man. That could simply be just who she is and she should be given space to be herself without being judged. But at the same time, I agree that it is a widespread cultural issue that women often feel like they must put on the persona of men in order to succeed. Our culture doesn’t know how to handle women who are strong, intelligent, and assertive. So women who are those things must become overtly masculine (like Thatcher) or play up objectified femininity in order to appear safe (be in perfect shape, always look pretty and put together, or be the supermom). For instance, I’ve found in settings like seminary, church, or conferences if I am even half as vocal and assertive as the guys around me I get told I am rude or am mocked. But if I can talk about my kids, help with a family event, or provide food for something, I am seen as more feminine and therefore safe. Like you said, we have to find ways to overdo it in order to gain credibility.

The main issue for women at hand here is how aspects of our self (traditionally labeled as feminine) are objectified and therefore not embraced as strengths but become symbols of our weakness or inferiority that make us safe and acceptable. Most action movies with female leads give us physically strong women who are also eye candy and use that to their advantage (seriously, who does martial arts in a leather catsuit and high heels? It’s not even physically possible). These strong women are safe because they can be objectified as sex objects. It is the rare film that breaks that trend. I recall after watching Salt that that it was refreshing that Angelina Jolie never once used her sexuality as one of her weapons in the film, she was simply a slightly awkward, highly intelligent, kick-ass spy. Then I found out the part had originally been written for a man, mystery solved. Sucker Punch also brilliantly deconstructed and critiqued the pattern in movies of women entering worlds controlled by men and having to become oversexualized and exceptional in order to succeed in those places. But neither Salt or Sucker Punch did well in the theaters – they strayed too far from the mold.

In college I recall reading a novel for class and thinking that it had the best portrayal of women that I had read all semester. In class though the professor tore the book apart for its horribly unrealistic portrayal of women. He argued that not just in fiction, but in reality all women fit the Madonna or whore category (pure saints or sensual sinners) – for him (to the shock of many of the women in the class) women can’t be real people we can only be those archetypes. That is what the world expects as well, so our movies deliver – we get weak princesses in need of rescue or sexualized action heroes – but very few real strong women. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kick-ass female action heroes. After we saw the Haywire trailer, my husband leaned over and said “that is soo your type of movie.” Sydney Bristow and Mara Jade are my heroes. Accepting even objectified strong women is at least a first step (albeit flawed) towards accepting strong women for who they are. (My hope is that with Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (pictured) we will be getting a wholistic strong woman who captures audiences' attention.)

In an ideal world women could be strong, kick-ass, and intelligent without being objectified or assumed to be acting masculine. And our other strengths – even the traditionally feminine ones like mothering, or cooking, or artistry – will be seen not as things that make us safe because as the weaker sex we should be limited to them, but as strengths in and of themselves that are all part of the matrix of who we are (the Doctor Who Christmas Special this year did a fantastic job portraying this btw). As a mother my identity should not be reduced to that role, but neither should it be something I should be ashamed of or use to prove I can succeed at everything. Women should be able to be strong without having out out-violence or out-revenge the men. Women should be able to be smart without having to either be the smartest in the room or search for ways to make her intelligence acceptable to men. Women should be able to feel pretty and accept their sexuality without being turned into be eye-candy or live in fear that they are causing men to stumble. Women (and men) should be valued as themselves regardless of whether or not they fit traditional masculine or feminine labels.

The world is not there yet. And the church certainly is not. But the rise of the female action hero means that the conversation is started. The confines of gender stereotyped identity are being deconstructed, we simply have not gone far enough yet. Instead of allowing people to be whole in who they are, we assume that to not be feminine is to therefore be masculine (or vice versa) and therefore that the person is lacking for not conforming to our gender expectations. I don’t know if we will ever get rid of the categories of masculine and feminine (which sadly always portrays the feminine as weaker and lesser) in favor of simply naming strengths and virtues for all people. Perhaps the place to start is in making our heroes women who display “masculine” strengths and men who display “feminine” ones in hopes that the definitions will one day become too blurred to be distinguished, or at least the feminine traits valued more. I know for me, I am encouraging my kids (as I did when I worked with youth) to question those limits, to interrogate images in movies and television, and embrace their strengths no matter how they are labeled. I am still trying to navigate how to be a woman in a world that tries to limit, ignore, or objectify me so I know it is not an easy task. But being aware that it is a struggle, and helping my kids be aware as well, I think helps make it more doable.

Parents of real kids know that our girls (and boys) don’t fit any gender stereotyped box. My daughter loves dressing up as a princess and playing with her fairy dolls just as much as she loves imaginative pirate adventures in the backyard and pretend space battles with her Star Wars figures. Assuming any of those activities to be more for girls or boys denies her of her true self. If building spaceships as opposed to a bikini pool party scene is for boys, then girls that like doing so are implicitly labeled as not being real girls. This message assumes there is something wrong with them – which if they are not bullied for they often learn to be ashamed of and hide. Who they are supposed to be is dictated to them by these stereotypes – defining for them what they should look like, what they should enjoy, and what they should do with their lives. Who they really are, the person God created them to be, gets denied as they try to live up to these images. This holds true for boys as well, but it is often intensified for girls.

This denial of the true self was brought home to me as I recently read the poignant blog post, How
Modesty Made Me Fat. The author honestly tells of how the message that it was her responsibility to ensure that she never cause a man to stumble led her to serious eating disorders and health issues. The message she received was that who she was as a person didn’t matter, all that mattered was how she appeared to the world. She writes –

Modesty taught me that what I looked like was what mattered most of all. Not what I thought. Not how I felt. Not what I was capable of doing. Worrying about modesty, and being vigilant not to be sexy, made me even more obsessed with my looks than the women in short shorts and spray tans I was taught to hate.

Her post wasn’t a call to immodesty (the pressure to be sexy is of course just as damaging), but an attempt to expose the modesty culture as simply being the flip side of that same coin. When women are reduced to appearance, just as when girls are limited to stereotypes, it takes away their true self. The personality, the intelligence, the creativity, and the vibrancy of who they are are silenced as they are replaced with a puppet version of themselves – controlled by the hand of another.

It is easy to get distracted by the debates surrounding these issues without realizing what is happening to actual people. In the debates – Are girls different than boys? Is she dressed too sexy or not sexy enough? – we can miss looking at actual girls and women and seeing who they truly are in all their creativity and emotional depth. To be able to say of any girl or woman, “what it is is beautiful,” we first have to let them be themselves.

While many from the left were outraged by the idea of associating these arch-conservatives, who stand against many of the things historical feminists have supported, with feminism, others supported the idea. Naomi Wolf, who seems to have a love/hate relationship with feminism, wrote that the problem some have with calling those women feminists is that we don’t understand the history of feminism. She argues (rightly in my opinion) that feminism has only become associated with leftist agendas since the 1960’s, but was, in its origins, more balanced and open to conservative values. But then she explains her reasoning why -

The core of feminism is individual choice and freedom, and it is these strains that are being sounded now more by the Tea Party movement than by the left. But, apart from these sound bites, there is a powerful constituency of right-wing women in Britain and Western Europe, as well as in America, who do not see their values reflected in collectivist social-policy prescriptions or gender quotas. They prefer what they see as the rugged individualism of free-market forces, a level capitalist playing field, and a weak state that does not impinge on their personal choices.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that there are many forms of feminism. And I’ll even admit that this rugged individualist strain made up of (as Sarah Palin described it) “gun-toting self-reliant women” is, in its own way, a form a feminism. But I am highly uncomfortable with people who, like Wolf, reduce feminism to simply being about “individual choice and freedom” (and I’m not the only one). This reduction is something I encounter in the church-world all the time. Feminist or liberation theology is labeled as merely being about individual rights, and since Jesus didn’t come talking about rights but about how we can live communally and eucharistically together as the body, such theologies must be dismissed as simply cultural and therefore unbiblical. Granted, such a dismissal usually allows for the powers that be to continue to assert their own individual preferences and ideas over those of everyone else in the guise of being biblical, but the conversation has already been shut down.

It’s like the people who mock or complain about so-called political correctness. They view having to be aware and sensitive to the feelings and situations of other people as infringing upon their rights (like their right to make fun of other people). It’s not about loving and respecting others, but about losing their right to oppress. Complaining about other people doing the very thing they’re already doing ensures that meaningful conversations that might lead to change never occur.

But, contrary to what those who fear their loss of power might assert, individual freedoms and rights has never been what feminism has been about for me. My affinity to feminism (or postcolonialism or liberationist thought) has always been based on that call to live faithfully as the body of Christ. Loving others as Christ loved us means loosing the bonds of oppression and setting captives free. It means treating people, all people, as image-bearers of God. If that means advocating for rights for some, and for the elite to relinquish some of their power in order to put an end to oppression, then so be it. If that means giving up personal comfort and choices so that I can respect, instead of mar, the image of God in others, then so be that as well. Rights for the marginalized are simply a by-product of the privileged finally attempting to live self-sacrificially as part of the body of Christ. Conversations about feminism or postcolonialism help me become aware of who the people are who need love and what ways I can make myself a living sacrifice in order to do so.

Holding so tight to privilege that one rejects discussions about helping others, or disdains collectivist social-policies that mirror the sort of eucharistic life Christ expects of us, is more in line with rugged individualism than the feminism I have known. Associating feminism with that selfish, individualist, and blatantly unchristian way of living that the far right preaches these days, hurts. Just as I often have to say in response of some far-right Christians’ attempts to harm the poor, destroy God’s creation, and keep people captive, that that sort of Christianity has little to do with the message of Jesus I find in the Bible, I guess I now have to start saying to the rugged individualist feminists that I am not that sort of feminist. Palin and Bachmann can have their “it’s all about me and my privilege” feminism, but, as a Christian, that has nothing to do with me.

I had to laugh at that. It reminded me of that quote about Ginger Rogers – how she did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels. No one generally cares how much harder girls have to work to meet cultural expectations, just as long as we look pretty doing it. That truth hit even harder as my daughter explained that she was practicing so her avatar could do well at the Emperor’s Tea Party in her Disney Princess game. This is the game that has Mulan (the one halfway kick-ass Disney princess) telling the young girl players how much she owes the Emperor and how honored she is to attend his tea. As Mulan explains, he gave her a sword (for saving his kingdom!) and she humble gave it to her father. And then the Emperor allowed her to marry a man outside her caste, so she is ever in his debt and so is greatly honored to be invited to the tea (insinuating that the girls should feel the same way).

I shuddered as I heard my daughter playing that game. I know there are some cultural elements at play here (respect for elders, especially male elders), but the message is that even the girl who saved the realm must deny her accomplishments and focus her attentions on being an acceptable adornment for the men who control her. The men get the glory even though the women did the hard work.

That phenomena has been in the new a bit recently since the release of the final Harry Potter film. Some have commented that sure, Harry is the main character, the boy who lived, who faces Voldemort in the final battle – but he was only able to do all of that (and survive) because of Hermione’s dedicated hard work. She was the brains who figured out mysteries, the quick thinker who stayed calm in the face of danger time and time again, the one who mastered the spells that enabled them to fight the Dark Lord and stay alive in the process. Harry would never have made it without Hermione’s hard work. For that matter, I doubt Jesus and his core disciples would have made it without the women who traveled with them supporting them. Those women funded his ministry out of their own pockets, and (let’s face it) were probably more Martha than Mary – doing the cooking and cleaning so the boys could sit around discussing theology. Beyonce got it right in her recent song, girls truly do run the world. Unfortunately it's often by doing all the hard work so men can get the glory.

So as I watched my daughter practice her curtsy and thought about her question, I had to tell her the truth. That yes, it is a lot harder to be a girl most of the time. It isn’t fair, and maybe someday it will change, but that’s the way life is. But. If she would rather bow than curtsy, then she should just go right ahead and bow.

The latest version of Jane Eyre was spectacular. Those of us who love the novel have been waiting for Hollywood to finally get this one right. Charlotte Bronte wrote into the character of Jane that longing she as an intelligent woman in her age had for independence. Jane is a person who isn’t afraid to tell the truth even if convention discourages such from a woman. But she also is constrained because she is unable to express outwardly all that she holds in her head. While that is explicitly expressed in terms of her artwork, it serves as a metaphor for women in that era. The best she could hope for was to be a governess and to teach others what she passionately cares about. Charlotte Bronte too felt that gender constraint in her time. Even this tale of a woman struggling to be independent had to be published under a male pseudonym because society would never accept such writing from the pen of a woman. All her gifts were constrained by what the world allowed her to offer.

Into this world of constraint Jane asserts, "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will." In willing it so, Jane finds a way to be herself despite the constraints of culture. Yet interestingly it is cultural constraints that are ensnaring that very message with this film version. The film is being received as a beautifully portrayed period piece love story and the audiences in the theaters are mostly women. While the film might be those things, it tells a story that is far deeper than those stereotypical gender-based constraints. That message of women breaking free and being accepted in the world as creative intelligent people is lost amidst the background romantic tale.

The other feminist film of the moment, Sucker Punch, suffers from a similar response. The film itself is a brilliant exploration of the history of the struggle against patriarchy. It portrays young girls who have been betrayed by imposed fathers (step-fathers and priests) being shut away and taken advantage of because they are women. Their attempt to escape this imprisonment is depicted through dream sequences that use Jungian symbolism to show them entering worlds typically controlled by men (church, battlefields, fortresses, technology) and conquering them in order to escape them. They had to play by the rules of those worlds and demonstrate that they could dominate in those realms in order to move past them. It is a deconstruction of those realms that leads to a better world for the girls.

Yet the movie itself follows the same format. It accepts the genre of fan-boy action films and subverts it. The girls look like the typical mindless sex toy – with costumes, lollipops, and choreographed moves expected in that genre – but don't embody those roles but are portrayed that way in order to enter that oppressive realm and expose it for what it is. But of course, the average movie-goer can’t get past the trappings and understand the commentary. They want it to be a straight fan-boy film full of babes with guns that they can ogle at and therefore criticize it for not meeting their expectations. The message is lost on them for they came expecting the very thing the film serves to deconstruct. Who can hear the feminist message when they are upset that they weren’t titillated enough by the eye-candy?

I loved both films. But as I read the responses of others, I have to wonder what place feminism (as in the assumption that women are people and not just objects) has in Hollywood and therefore our culture. It is so rare for strong whole women to be portrayed or for the patriarchy to be questioned, and when it happens it is lost on most audiences, so what hope is there for that message to ever truly take root in our cultural imagination?

But beyond that religious difference, I started pondering if such detachment from visions of different worlds is even possible in our media saturated culture. If the idea is to be fully present in the moment and not be caught up in a vision of a different world, how is that even possible when everything we encounter throughout our day serves to construct for us a different world?

On the most basic level, there are the marketers that try to sell us a vision of the good life (which of course includes their product). Their ploy is easy to see through, but even as we recognize their manipulation the subconscious idea of what constitutes a good life permeates our collective unconscious. Even if we intellectually think otherwise, it’s hard to escape the media images’ view of what success looks like, or what is beautiful, or what sort of people are to be respected and listened to. Whether we like it or not, those very basic concepts are defined for us by our culture presenting to us a vision of a world we are to desire to live in. We are presented with an image of a possible world, told that world is the norm, and then we strive to live into that world and in effect create that very world.

As much as this system upsets me at times – when it leads to women starving themselves to meet the assumed beauty norm or when it teaches children that women exist only to serve men – I know this is the basic way culture has functioned forever. Ideas always influence present reality. Humans have always defined ourselves in relation to others around us. We build expectations and strive to fit in to our culture – it’s just that those cultural influences are more in our face these days. So, I’m wary of saying I want to attempt to escape such influence – it’s going to happen even if I go off the grid. I’d much rather embrace that influence and build a better world. If our culture subtly informs our idea of what is normal – what the world we are suppose to have truly is – then perhaps deliberately presenting a more humane and inclusive world could help us achieve that.

This was brought home to me recently as I watched the Swedish versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies. Here were some very dark, political, and violent films about the ways women are abused by men at all levels of society and yet through their subtle portrayal of society presented a beautiful picture of a better world. From showing fathers caring for children and running errands, to having the main lawyer character be heavily pregnant (without once making that a plot point) images of equality suggested that the evils of misogyny can be overcome. The presentation startled me because I would never see such things in an American film. If a career woman is pregnant it is a point of controversy, not the norm we are allowed to see. In our films a guy wearing a Baby Bjorn (The Hangover) became a cultural joke and a popular Halloween costume. Men acting as nurturing fathers are a joke and not the norm in our cultural media. But watching those Swedish films made me wonder about how things could be different.

I’m Christian enough to believe that a better world is possible. I pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. Even when it frustrates me, I know my call is not to detach myself to simply live in the now but to seek that better world however I can. But I am also pragmatic enough to accept that our vision of the world is always being shaped by forces outside of ourselves. I don’t see those forces as evil in and of themselves, but as tools that can be used to either twist reality for selfish ends or to help us step into a more humane and loving reality. To build a better world we have to first believe that it can possibly exist. I just wish that we could start using the tools we have to work for that world.

I am not a fan of Disney princesses. I can deal with the tiaras and the pink, but I'm disturbed by the sexualized visions of thinness, the suggestion that to be ugly is to be evil and the promotion of extreme body modification in order to get the guy.

But my five-year-old daughter lives in the real world. Escaping the princess culture isn't even an option. So when I heard that Disney's latest princess flick, Tangled, has a female lead who is strong, adventurous and in possession of a personality, I allowed myself to hope for a non-cringe-worthy princess.

I took my daughter to see Tangled on opening day, and I wasn't disappointed. The story focuses on Rapunzel's journey to break free from the woman (Gothel) who kidnapped her as a baby and has held her captive in a tower. But it isn't just a simple tale of rescue and escape; it is the story of Rapunzel discovering her passions. Her captivity convinced her that she was weak, good for nothing but domestic chores, and in need of protection from the evil world. Yet as she enters that world she discovers that it is a beautiful place where dreams can be fulfilled. The true evil was captivity, which kept her from being whole.

The characters are all living others' dreams instead of their own. Gothel believes she must remain forever young and beautiful. Flynn Rider is convinced that if he had enough money he could find happiness. The brigands live a life of crime while their true dreams–one wants to be a concert pianist, another a mime–are left unfulfilled. Even Rapunzel's sidekick is a chameleon, changing to fit into its surroundings. Those who find redemption in the film turn away from the pressure to be what others tell them they should be and embrace who they were born to be.

Disney is finally telling a story that delivers a life-affirming message. As a Christian who constantly prays that my children will be able to live into who God created them to be and not be swayed by the siren calls of our culture, I found the message faith-affirming as well.

Other Christians don't agree. Todd Hertz's review misses the point of the redemption story, reducing the film to a story of a girl finding her parents. He suggests that the manipulative words Gothel uses to keep Rapunzel captive (the world is evil, so good must be kept protected) have biblical roots and would be a good discussion starter for family reflection. Armond White condemns the film, asserting that it is "strained through a sieve of political correctness that includes condescending to fashionable notions about girlhood, patriarchy, romance, and what is now the most suspicious of cultural tenets, faith." He derides the Rapunzel character as "a girl of contemporary spunk, daring, and godlessness," all apparently evil traits.

It's hard to raise a daughter. While the culture feeds her lies about how being a pretty princess is all that matters, the church too holds her back from living life fully. Its message is that she cannot be who she was created to be if that involves questioning authority, exposing herself to danger or showing a little spunk from time to time. Women have been held captive by these messages for too long, and I'm grateful that Tangled offers something more affirming–even if it's in the guise of a princess.

Terror and rape as acts of control is common in the Congo, especially in the mining towns where the rebels have much to gain from controlling the mines that supply much of the world’s coltan and cassiterite (necessities in our ubiquitous modern electronics like cell phones and laptops). The locals, far from benefiting from supplying such minerals to the world, call the minerals a curse for bringing such terrorism to their homes. And these rebel groups stay in power as they continue to receive funds from all of us willing to pay them to just continue our supply of cheap cell phones no matter the cost to others. A cost that apparently includes the gang rape of one month of babies.

It is so disgusting and twisted that it is hard to put into words the rage it elicits. While America is in a dither about being offended by the presence of Muslims in our midst, this is what is happening in the world right now. We talk about fearing terrorism, but this is terrorism in the flesh. At some point we have to move beyond talk. We have to stop watching films like Hotel Rwanda just so we can seem caring and enlightened at our church “God at the Movies” night, and start working to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Hatred, power, and money are all still fueling atrocities – we have to get over our poor track record of only caring about such things in hindsight. Feeling bad about the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or Bosnia, or Japanese internment camps is trendy years later. What takes guts is standing up and doing something about such things as they happen. That is never popular, and will get you called some nasty names as you encourage society to change and care. But what does it say about the state of our souls if we don’t at least try?

To that end, I see three areas where we can start to take steps forward to deal with the larger issues at play here. And, yes, these are beyond the immediate care that is needed for these women and children and the instability of the moment. These try to get at the heart of the issues in society and culture, which is why they are hard and unpopular.

1. We need to campaign for conflict-free cell phones (and other electronics). Companies that purchase minerals from these areas need to be held accountable at all levels of the process. Buying from middlemen who buy from the terrorists does not absolve a company of guilt. Putting out a product as cheaply as possible should never be an excuse for supporting terrorist groups that maintain control through mass gang rape. I want the companies I support to be transparent in who they deal with. The world needs to know what their money is actually funding when they buy a cell phone. While it is probably too much to ask that companies educate and inform us of what we are actually buying, they can at least work on abiding by US trade law and not import goods obtained through such acts of terror. Consumers can also demand conflict free items, letting the companies know that we are willing to pay what it costs to guarantee that we are not funding such rebel groups when we purchase a product. The consumer sets the demand, and it is up to us to demand a product that doesn’t support gang rape. But first we have to start caring more about the people being terrorized than we do about our latest model phone.
2. We need to start treating peacekeepers with the same respect we do the military. Peace is a dirty word in our country, while our troops are sent care packages, given discounts, and revered as heroes. But soldiers trained to otherize everyone have a hard time waging peace. Train a soldier to eliminate empathy for the other so that they can kill enemies and it is hard to then expect them to switch into roles of protector, healer, and peacekeeper. We need more people strictly devoted to caring for and protecting others. 25 UN Peacekeepers to protect thousands from guerrilla fighters isn’t enough. Instead of just sending out troops to destroy (in the name of protection), we need armies of people devoted to caring for others. And for that to be a reality, that job needs to be just as attractive and honored as those trained to eliminate others. Peacekeepers need the free ride to college, they need that half price movie ticket, they need parades in their honor, and days set aside to honor the work they do. To give the world the help it desperately needs, we need to raise up armies of peacekeepers willing to empathize, care, and protect so that the evil powers of this world will terrorize no more. But first we have to stop demonizing the very idea of being a peacekeeper.
3. Finally, we need to emphasize the full equality of women. Men who are raised to see women as inferior (in whatever way) are more apt to objectify us. When women are inferior objects for a man to use – as a subservient housewife, as a porn image, as a prostitute, or as a rape victim – we become less than human. Men seek to control us physically, sexually, emotionally, and mentally. Controlling something that is inferior or weaker for one’s own pleasure (be that sexual pleasure or the pleasure of power and money) is at the root of much injustice in this world. So often women bear the worst of any injustice because men were taught to see us simply as objects to be used in the power plays of life. All too often those that seek justice brush aside concerns regarding women’s equality as merely a distraction – something to be dealt with once the real justice issues are resolved. But as we see here, how women are viewed and treated is at the heart of the matter. Women are being gang raped as an act of control – their bodies are currency in the international games of commerce and trade. They should never be an afterthought. Caring for their wellbeing – of not just their broken bodies, but of their souls is as important as resolving the conflict over minerals. They should not be brushed aside as unfortunate victims of a larger issue; they deserve to be treated as equals worthy of intervention and advocacy. Men should not permit women to continue to suffer simply because our equality is considered too political, or liberal, or insignificant to bother with. Changing the way the cultures of the world (including our own) view women is at the core of ending these injustices. But first we must care about women enough to be their advocates even when it is unpopular.

This list is a start. It isn’t the solution – there are too many factors at play here for that. These are simply three action steps that we can start with. It is easy to be paralyzed with rage at these atrocities and feel like there is nothing we can do. But we can start pushing for change – even if that means starting with ourselves and how we view consumption, or the role of peacekeepers, or the equality of women. Choosing to care and make a difference while there is still time is difficult. Maybe it would be different if it was our family – our mothers or sisters or babies – who were being raped. We would turn the world upside down for their sakes. Is it too much to ask that we start with a few small changes for the sake of these mothers and sisters and babies?

In writing about how the sugar cane industry has destroyed the land and economies of many Latin American countries and led to numerous human rights abuses, Galeano mentioned that in certain plantations in Brazil (at least as of his writing) it was common practice for the plantation owners to claim jus primae noctis, or, right of the first night with the daughters of their workers. Most commonly known to us from the movie Braveheart this is a medieval custom giving to the Lord of an area the right to the virgin night of all the women he ruled. Although in Medieval times the actual consummation was rarely if ever practiced as many families chose the option of “giving” the Lord the bride’s dowry instead (what the Lord was after anyway), Galeano reports that on the plantations the owners would demand the right to have their way with their workers’ 11-12 year old daughters in exchange for the worker remaining in their employment.

Reading that affected me in a visceral way. In the midst of a litany of oppression, I was reminded that women truly bear the brunt of injustice worldwide. Their bodies are chattel, they aren’t deemed worthy of education, and they are fed leftovers if they get food at all. Because they are women their oppression is magnified. Not only must they endure the poverty and the colonialism, but also the objectification of their bodies and the required subjugation of their wills. When voices for liberation or revolution arise the women are called upon to endure hardships and make sacrifices, but it is never their liberation that is fought for. The few that call out for women’s needs to be addressed and for liberation to come to women are told that in light of the greater injustices and oppression that their cause is just a selfish distraction. I hear it all the time in the church – there are just too many more important things to spend energy on than trying to bring justice to women. We aren’t even worth the effort of those that make it a point to care about injustice and the oppressed.

Feminist postcolonial theologians are quick to point out this imbalance. They ask how can we say that we truly desire liberation if in achieving that liberation women still remain oppressed? They repeatedly insist that equality and respect for women should never be an afterthought to be sought sometime after the real work of combating injustice is done, but an instead should be at the very foundation of what it means to seek liberation itself. Nations and races cannot ever fully work for reconciliation and mutual respect if those nations are built upon oppression from within. But sadly, theirs are not the voices that are commonly heard.

In reading non-Western theologies recently (both postcolonial and evangelical), I have in fact encountered the very opposite. Men, who write on combating injustice and prejudice by calling the church to learn from say Korean or First Nation theologies and church practices, insist upon, as part of that process, an affirmation of gender roles that give men a strong (and sole) leadership role in the home, the community, and the church. They see a firm affirmation of this hierarchy of men over women to be integral to ending race divisions in the church itself. So not only are the needs of women ignored, healing and justice are proposed through the continued oppression and sacrifice of women.

Injustice and oppression make me sick and prompt feelings of rage inside of me. But reading about these young girls being raped as pawns in the never-ending cycle of colonial and commercial oppression left me feeling raw. This isn’t just about greed and economics. It isn’t just about racism and power-plays. It’s rooted in a subjugation of women that denies our worth and turns us into mere objects for men to use as they see fit. Most of the Western world hides behind their ignorance of history and injustice (often willfully sought) as an excuse to uphold the status quo. But when even those who claim to care about justice say that speaking out of behalf of women isn’t worth the effort I can barely respond. How can justice be justice if it is only for men?