Susan,
I guess I just don't agree with your assertion here about men in power
and women in service as relates to the House of Justice. The symbolic
issue may be important, but its importance may go to the question of
justice on a global scale rather than as a equity issue. We should
acknowledge that there is a bias, and that the bias is intentional. So
to reach for an understanding we can't look at the issue as an equality
issue but as a question of function. What is the function of the House?
What are the challenges to asserting that function? How do the function
and the challenges integrate to form the outcome of justice, peace,
socio-economic equity, even gender equity. If you want to deal with the
issue of the House as a male only team, and support for gender equity,
then you have to answer the question, 'what is gender equity?'. Then you
have to discuss how the world might achieve that status. And you might
find that having strong support that is absolutely masculine in nature,
may create just the symbols for other powerful men in the world to shift
their attitudes. And remember this has to happen on national policy and
supranational entity levels. But that is only one of their functions,
and only one area where the symbol may be relevant. What does the whole
look like.
There are other ways to look at the whole issue. You can look at it from
the point of view of evolutionary development. Might not the purpose of
modern religion aka the past 10,000 years being the movement of species
development from the primate response to some more liberating response.
I think Baha'u'llah explains the essential educational approach of the
Manifestation of God is to work to the extent that the human society
allows. And we don't have the same insights Baha'u'llah had about that.
So, as you suggest, we do default to the acceptance position. Yet we
still have to make an attempt to foster an acceptance by the seeker, in
the House of Justice as a body that will support major impactful changes
in the equality of men and women globally. And that the House of Justice
will enable the body of their supporters to do this better than anyone
else in the world. So we do need to be really very rigorous in asking
questions of everything that gets taken for granted on this issue, and
perhaps a whole set of other questions that the secular society hasn't
dealt with.
Regards
Owen
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Susan Maneck
Sent: Thursday, 7 August 2003 11:18 PM
To: Baha'i Studies
Subject: Re: Anything new on the House and women question?
Dear Owen,
I'm not suggesting that women can't get justice within the Baha'i system
because men are at the top. I am suggesting that having men only at the
top does have an important symbolic significance that can be
disempowering to women in other respects. I don't find the assertion
that service is more important than power in the Baha'i Faith terribly
comforting especially if it means that men continue to hold more of the
power and women perform more of the service.
Having said that, let me reiterate that given the authoritative
interpretations of our texts, I don't think the Universal House of
Justice has any option but to take the position they have taken.
warmest, Susan
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