Gender-bendy
Today sucked; I was at work too early and too often :-p So I'll tell you about yesterday instead
Last night I went to a play about gender-bending in the Bible. One-person thing, he started off with Deborah and Jael, then Joseph, then the eunuchs in the Book of Esther, then the "man carrying water" in the Gospels. Framed it all with the Gospel of Thomas, and all really interesting explorations of gender that I hadn't considered before.
Jacob and Joseph were both described as feminine - Joseph's technicolor dreamcoat may have been a pretty princess dress in the Hebrew :-p - which surprised me, because Jacob, you know, gives rise to an entire nation and Joseph saves everyone from famine. Maybe I have been too beaten down by the patriarchy, to associate masculinity with success. Ick, Linzi, you are better than that :-p
I do take offense to the man carrying water thing. The disciples were sent to find this person in a nearby town, Jesus sends them and tells them to ask for a room where they can celebrate Passover. Anyway, women carry water, water's been a symbol of femininity (wisdom is personified as feminine too, btw, so there's a healing balm I suppose :-p), so the play played up that it was strange to have a man carrying water. Except the Greek is anthropos - just person. (Undeniably male is aner/andros. fyi) So that was a stretch, it certainly could've been a woman-sort-person carrying water, and it offended my Greek sensibilities terribly :-p Anyway, it was an excellent play, so up my alley and engaging and intelligent
Also as far as feminism/women's studies goes, I've begun reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. I've been in the mood for nonfiction and oppression :-p It's interesting so far; I think that she's incorrectly limiting herself by tying sexism against women all back to beauty specifically, rather than a more general gender dynamic. But I need to explore further
Last night I went to a play about gender-bending in the Bible. One-person thing, he started off with Deborah and Jael, then Joseph, then the eunuchs in the Book of Esther, then the "man carrying water" in the Gospels. Framed it all with the Gospel of Thomas, and all really interesting explorations of gender that I hadn't considered before.
Jacob and Joseph were both described as feminine - Joseph's technicolor dreamcoat may have been a pretty princess dress in the Hebrew :-p - which surprised me, because Jacob, you know, gives rise to an entire nation and Joseph saves everyone from famine. Maybe I have been too beaten down by the patriarchy, to associate masculinity with success. Ick, Linzi, you are better than that :-p
I do take offense to the man carrying water thing. The disciples were sent to find this person in a nearby town, Jesus sends them and tells them to ask for a room where they can celebrate Passover. Anyway, women carry water, water's been a symbol of femininity (wisdom is personified as feminine too, btw, so there's a healing balm I suppose :-p), so the play played up that it was strange to have a man carrying water. Except the Greek is anthropos - just person. (Undeniably male is aner/andros. fyi) So that was a stretch, it certainly could've been a woman-sort-person carrying water, and it offended my Greek sensibilities terribly :-p Anyway, it was an excellent play, so up my alley and engaging and intelligent
Also as far as feminism/women's studies goes, I've begun reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. I've been in the mood for nonfiction and oppression :-p It's interesting so far; I think that she's incorrectly limiting herself by tying sexism against women all back to beauty specifically, rather than a more general gender dynamic. But I need to explore further