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The good fight
by Quinn E. Gorges

The wings were the worst. Made of wire from coat hangers, cardboard, and elastic, and lined with silver garland, they always slipped to one side. The silver garland was prickly on the back of my neck, and the wire dug into my shoulder blade. It seemed that I was an angel in the Sunday school nativity play every year.

I resented those uncomfortable angel wings because they meant I was an angel in the chorus yet again. I really wanted to be one of the magi, to wear a colorful robe and lay my gift before the Christ child. But as a girl, I was trapped in a single role, and it seemed unfair. (I'll concede that I wasn't the most natural choice to play the docile and silent Mary.)

In 1971, Congress designated August 26 as Women's Equality Day. It commemorates two occasions: the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, granting women the right to vote; and Women's Strike Day, August 26, 1970, when tens of thousands of women demonstrated across the United States and in Paris for women's equality. Women have come a long way, thanks to the suffragists of the early years of the twentieth century and the activists of the later part of the century.

My life is a testimony to their courage and their commitment. I attend an ELCA seminary and, as a Lutheran, am allowed to seek ordination. Last year, my seminary called a woman to serve as its president. Still, at times I feel the burden of inequality, like something heavy on my back, like those wings, and it hurts.

The Bible and equality
When I have suffered loneliness, uncertainty, or loss, I have always turned to my faith. I've gone to the Bible, to church, and to God in prayer.

But I am less sure about how my faith can help me deal with inequality. Much of the Bible seems to make it clear that women are not equal to men — nor are we meant to be — and throughout most of Christian history, the church has done little to challenge these hurtful biblical teachings. As a seminary student, I am learning to read the Bible as a testimony to God's gracious love for all of creation, but I lose confidence in the face of these words from 1 Timothy: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent" (2:11-12).

This is what the Bible says about women — but to the same Bible belong these words from Galatians: ". . . there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ" (3:28). I believe that Jesus' commandment that we love one another permits no inequality, no injustice, and no sexism. I know that Jesus surrounded himself with strong women — women he trusted, women he listened to. Some financed much of his ministry; some were called disciples. For me, the messages of inequality in the Bible are surpassed by the ones that liberate us. I cannot ignore the harsh words I find in the Bible; I simply cling to a gospel of love that utterly transcends them.

The "third sex"
It was probably a woman who made those angel wings I so disliked. I imagine her making those wings with great love, and I wonder who she was and what else she accomplished.

The work of women in the church has often been silent and behind the scenes, yet the quiet work of women has changed the world. Before beginning seminary, I served two years in Cameroon, in western Africa, as an ELCA missionary. Western women in Cameroon are accepted as a "third sex." As outsiders, western women are not entirely subject to the local culture's expectations for women's behavior. Still, we are not men.

I suspect that the "third sex" status of missionary women in the early days of Lutheran mission created an opportunity for women to go beyond the constraints they might have faced in the United States.

Esther Bacon, R.N., went to Zorzor, Liberia, in 1941, where she delivered more than 20,000 babies. She changed the infant mortality rate from 75 percent to 20 percent before she died in 1972.¹On the other side of the world, Maud O. Powlas sailed for Japan in 1918, where she developed Jiai-en, the Lutheran Colony of Mercy, in Kumamoto. She left Japan during the war, but Emperor Hirohito honored her work with a visit to the Colony after she returned. By the time of Powlas' death in 1980, the Colony had grown into a network of 21 institutions. ²

These women changed lives, including their own. They developed their capacities in response to the needs of others rather than according to the restrictions imposed on women. Margaret Bessie (Wagnild) Smith, who served in the Central African Republic from 1953 to 1983, later said: "The African women, when we went there, there were maybe one or two who could read. Everything was for the men. I asked one of the men, 'Why didn't you bring your wife with you to class?' He answered, 'our wives are just cattle. You can't teach them anything.' I just thought, boy, I'm going to help these women."

Bold missionaries like Margaret Bessie Smith burst through barriers of inequality and worked with local women to create a more just society.

Underground ministry
Karen Melang is area executive director for Habitat for Humanity in Fremont, Nebraska. She is also a writer and a Lutheran deaconess. "There weren't many opportunities for women in ministry when I was growing up," she said. "I was always a church kid, always attracted to theology and the work of ministry. In those days there were only two church professions open to women: teacher or deaconess."

Melang chose deaconess, but she encountered difficulty in finding acceptance as a minister. "I did implicit ministry, rather than explicit ministry," she said, explaining that she chose to work outside the church. When Melang's husband, a Lutheran pastor, accepted a call in rural Minnesota in 1983, "there were really no jobs at all for a woman in a town of 280, non-profit or otherwise." So she stayed home with their children, and it was then that she began writing. "I knew the power of words, that some can give you goose bumps and make you cry. And I was always attracted to that," said Melang, who has been writing ever since. She is a regular contributor to Lutheran Woman Today magazine. Melang overcame the inequality she experienced, paving the way for a future generation of women in ministry.

^{1, 2}Former Commission for Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Web site.

The fight's not over

	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 .

"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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Faith Reflections
by Anne Edison-Albright

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the city gates.
Proverbs 31:30-31

Ode to the "in-between" woman
Quinn E. Gorges writes that Women’s Equality Day is about celebrating accomplishments and recognizing a continuing struggle. With both success and struggle in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the Woman of Valor, a character from Proverbs who can be read as a perpetuation of old stereotypes, an example of women’s equality, and also as something in-between.

The NRSV gives the end of Proverbs 31 the title, "Ode to a Capable Wife." Julie Faith Parker, the teaching assistant for my Old Testament Interpretation class, translates it "Ode to a Woman of Valor." Parker's title seems apt because the woman described in this passage is a capable wife and much more: she's a businesswoman, farmer, philanthropist, and teacher. Her "capableness" reflects boldness and a pragmatic, real-world wisdom: She is prepared for every contingency; she is practical and alert: "Her lamp does not go out at night" (v. 18).

My first thought when I met the Capable Wife was, "Oh great, another impossible ideal." She's not just capable . . . she's superwoman!

Whether she is called the Capable Wife or the Woman of Valor, the woman portrayed in Proverbs 31 seems too good to be real. Then and now, women are often characterized in terms of polar opposites: virgin or whore, Mary or Eve, saint or sinner. The “good woman” is an unattainable image of pure perfection; real women can’t measure up. The only alternative — the “bad woman” — demonizes female sexuality and represents infidelity, evil cunning, and a threat to the patriarchal order.

The book of Proverbs offers such a dichotomy in the images of Woman Wisdom and the Loose Woman. Woman Wisdom, also called Sophia, is a divine figure present since creation: “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago” (8:22-23). The Loose Woman is described as an adulteress luring fools “down to death” (2:18). Proverbs takes the dichotomy a step further and pits these two women against each other: “Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ and call insight your intimate friend, that they may keep you from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words” (7:4-5).

Lutherans resist this kind of either/or thinking: we think in terms of both/and — ideas are not dichotomized, but in constant tension and conversation. After spending more time with the Woman of Valor, I find hints of both/and possibilities. Near the end of the Proverbs passage we learn that "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (31:30). Since "to fear the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7), the Woman of Valor may not have arrived at the pinnacle of wisdom, but she's getting there. Not quite wisdom incarnate and not an adulteress, here is a woman bold enough to live in the real-world middle, in between the extremes.

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.