Wednesday, March 9, 2011
A Feminist Take on Lent.
Amy Laura Hall suggests that for Lent, which is typically a time for self-denial and penance, it might be a healthier practice for some women to be kind to themselves, for example, to eat chocolate every day during Lent. How does this blog entry relate to what we've learned about women's ways being in the medieval Church?
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We've been talking a lot about denial lately, especially in relation to women in the medieval church--how women were told to abstain from pleasure, and if they did allow themselves pleasure they were considered "lecherous." I think that this idea, while not quite as extreme, is definitely still present today. In my opinion, the idea of a woman denying herself something for 40 days is more radical/effective than a woman allowing herself something special for the same amount of time. Lent is supposed to bring you closer to God--your experiences are supposed to mirror his. But I think that a woman doing a positive thing for herself (such as the example Hall uses in her blog post, with the anorexic woman who makes herself cookies every day) is just as spiritually effective. This idea would hardly be accepted today, much less in the climate of the medieval Church.
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