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The fight's not over
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We're not there yet. . .
A new study released in July 2006 revealed that
women still lag behind men as top corporate officers.
According to the research, "it could take 40 years
for women to achieve parity with men. . . "
Read more
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"Women make up 62 percent of the church, and that's a
critical mass," said
Joanne Chadwick recently. (Chadwick retired in 2005 as
director for the ELCA's Commission for Women. The
Commission was eliminated in the churchwide
restructuring approved at the 2005 Churchwide Assembly.)
But Chadwick cautioned against taking for granted the
progress women have made: "The fight is not over. If you
are the first woman to serve in a particular setting,
you may face the same kinds of things we faced 35 years
ago."
Chadwick's concern for women's continuing struggle to
rise above inequality echoes the forward thrust of
Women's Equality Day. August 26 is not simply a
commemoration. The day "is a symbol of the continued
fight for equal rights," according to the joint
resolution of Congress designating August 26 as Women's
Equality Day.
Angels don't run or shout
I was cast as an angel in the nativity play so often
because I was a girl. The boys had more choices. A boy
could be an angel, a shepherd, a wise man, Joseph, or
the innkeeper. When I think about the future, I wonder
if I will be able to help the girls in my future
congregation surpass the limits that bound me. I hope
they will learn that their gifts are not unwelcome
because they are girls. In striving for women's
equality, I am not alone. I am a part of a rich history
of women who have struggled for equality. "We are
standing on a lot of shoulders, and we have a
responsibility to pay it forward to the women of
tomorrow," Melang said. Chadwick added: "We need to
mentor our younger women, and they need to mentor us."
As an American woman of 25, I have inherited many
privileges because my foremothers fought for the rights
of women. I can vote, be ordained in the Lutheran
church, and even write about issues of inequality
because women before me forged bonds of sisterhood and
changed the world. And the fight continues. Racism,
poverty, and hunger erode equality. Single mothers and
their children are especially vulnerable. Our sisters in
many countries do not enjoy the rights we have in the
United States. As we celebrate what our foremothers have
accomplished, we can use the rights they won for us to
follow their example, widening the circle of equality to
include all women, everywhere, without exception.
So,
Happy Women's Equality Day, and let's keep up the good
fight.
Quinn E. Gorges graduated from the University of
Kansas in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in anthropology
and French. She then served for two years in Cameroon as
an ELCA missionary. Quinn is currently preparing for
ordained ministry at Pacific Lutheran Theological
Seminary.
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Our Woman of Valor is defined both by what she is not (neither a Wise
Woman nor a Loose Woman) and by what she is: a homemaker who takes
care of business ("She rises while it is still night and provides food
for her household," v. 15) and an entrepreneur who takes care of
business ("She makes linen garments and sells them," v. 24).
I believe the Woman of Valor can be seen as an example of equality. I
can see her as Katerina "Katie" Von Bora, wife of Martin Luther, "who
considers a field and buys it" (31:16). She is a Women of the ELCA
participant, raising grant money for women and children living in
poverty: "She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to
the needy" (v. 20). She is my grandmother, whose strength and sewing I
miss: "She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong,"
and "she makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and
purple" (vv. 17, 22).
Proverbs is generally a book of dichotomies — people are either good
or wicked, rewarded or punished. As Parker, my teaching assistant,
told our Old Testament class: “The real world isn’t so tidy.” Women
aren’t either wise or loose, Sophia or Jezebel. When we find parallels
to the Woman of Valor in the both/and women in the Bible and in our
own lives, we realize that the Woman of Valor is a real woman, and a
real model of biblical equality. May God bless our faithful attempts
to live into our real-world, in-between, both/and, women-of-valor
possibilities.
Anne Edison-Albright of New Haven, Conn., is a
second-year master of divinity student at Yale Divinity School, where
she is the Lutheran sacristan and a part-time intern at Bethesda
Lutheran. She is seeking ordination through the ELCA Metro Chicago
Synod.
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