Every semester, fall and spring, I try to begin every course with a narrative, a story of something that happened during the summer or something that I saw during the December break. Sometimes the narrative is course specific. Whenever I teach The Christian Tradition I tell the story of walking into Notre Dame Cathedral and seeing the “Beware of Pickpockets” sign. I then tell my students that as we study the Christian tradition we will read of the beautiful, the majestic and the divine, but we will also encounter the “pickpockets.”
One fall I began each class by recounting a scene I observed on a playground. Three little boys and one little girl were playing. The little boys were brandishing toy swords and imagining all manner of medieval deeds and acts of heroism. The boys ordered the little girl to stand perfectly still in a small area that they determined was the dungeon in which she was being held captive by an evil knight. The girl played along for a while but became bored just standing there, and in a surprising turn of events she swiped one of the swords out of a boy’s hand as he walked by and announced, “You're taking too long! I’ll save myself,” and she bravely fought and stabbed the imaginary foe in the heart, and walked on her merry, liberated way. I’ll leave you to guess how I utilized that story as an academic lead-in.
The story for the Evil and Suffering course is a tragic one about a six year old girl named Angela who took a walk with her mother and father on a beautiful New England morning in April. As they walked on the sidewalk in front of their house about to open the gate to enter their yard, a car jumped the curb, struck Angela and hurled her against the tree in her own front yard, killing her instantly. The theological questions that arise out of such an event, the questions one might ask about God’s role in human suffering are the same questions that constitute the traditional, philosophical Problem of Evil.
I think I have found my story for this semester. The background information I need not share with my students, but the story for this semester is provided by Harvard Magazine in an article on the fiftieth anniversary of the admission of women to Harvard Divinity School. The article describes the history of the long debate begun in 1893 when a group of HDS graduates submitted the proposal. At the inauguration of Caroline Hazard as President of Wellesley College that year, Harvard President Charles William Eliot presented his views on women’s education, which he described as “an experiment, wondering aloud about women’s intellectual capacities and about the ability of women’s colleges to inculcate good manners while providing an education that would not injure women’s ‘bodily powers and functions’” [Ann Braude, Harvard Magazine, May-June ‘06].
It took 60 more years for the original proposal of 1893 to be accepted by Harvard Corporation and in 1955, eight women enrolled at Harvard Divinity School. In 1970, thirty women enrolled, almost as many as had graduated in the previous 15 years. In 1971 Mary Daly became the first woman ever invited to preach in Harvard’s Memorial Church, at which time she herself extended an invitation that has become legend in the field of feminist theology. For on that November day she urged all women present to join her in walking out of the church (literally and figuratively). She descended the pulpit, marched down the center aisle and out the door. Many followed, some to return and some not. In terms of a gender diverse faculty, two of my former professors marked milestones in the history of HDS. In 1983 Margaret Miles became the school’s first tenured female professor and in 1988, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza became the first woman appointed to a named chair. I enrolled in HDS’ Master of Divinity program in the 36th year of its admission of women. I was 36 years old that September.
Granted, the history of women’s education is much broader than the history of one school and yet the story that emerges from HDS provides an example of the struggle of many men and women to ensure that women be afforded the opportunity to study and learn in academic environments that encourage freedom of expression and doubt. I sometimes encounter female students who claim to reject feminism and feminist theory and so, I repeatedly remind them that had it not been for their feminist foremothers, they would not be sitting in my classroom on their way to soccer practice at period’s end. And certainly, I would not be their teacher. The directive expressed in the New Testament’s first letter to Timothy would have won the day, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent” (1 Tim. 2:12).
Women have made great strides in higher education and their recent collective success has begun to raise eyebrows. In the last few years the number of women accepted into college and the number of women college graduates exceeds the numbers for men. The cry that is raised is that men are being “left behind” by modern history’s emphasis on women’s education. I think this is funny and typically androcentric, of course. The conclusion reached is that if women are excelling at a rate greater than men it must be because men are being neglected, NOT because when given the opportunity women are talented, determined, organized, dedicated and just plain smart. Harvard Divinity School began to admit women 50 years ago; the Third Wave of the feminist movement in this country is just a few years younger than that. If women have shown such academic excellence and have made such advances in just 50 years, imagine what we will do in 100, or 150.
The story I will tell to my students this semester forms a portion of this history of women at Harvard. In the fall of 1971 Harvey Cox (also a former professor of mine) was teaching a course entitled, “Eschatology and Politics.” Two students proposed that the seminar devote two weeks to the study of feminist theology and to make an effort in the classroom to stop the use of male specific language in reference “to people or to God.”
No one wanted to be the one to constantly point out when another student had violated the commitment, so the instructional budget of Harvard Divinity School dished out the money to buy each student in that class a kazoo, which would be sounded at the first recognition of androcentric language. The school was never the same again.
Just a few weeks from now, I will introduce my four classes to the methodology for the study of religion utilized in my classroom. I will give a lecture on historical/cultural criticism and literary criticism. I will follow that lecture with a lecture on the feminist critique of religion. And on that day, I will tell the story of a group of students at Harvard Divinity School who played their kazoos. And on that day I will hand out 140 kazoos, one to each of my own students so that whenever anyone in the class speaks a gender specific male term in reference to God or humanity the little trumpets of liberation and awareness will sound once again.
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