Thoughts on women...

Numerous times in the Bible we see sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Women are taken as spoils of war and it's hands down one of those most uncomfortable things to read in there. One of the passages which deals with this is Deuteronomy 22:10-14. It first reads as legalising the rape of women taken captive in war. Women taken captive were to be brought into the house of the captor, then married after a month.  As abhorrent as it is to us in this era, taken in the context of the time it was revolutionary. Women were possessions (to man, not God), pawns in war, family and estate. In this scripture, men were forced to humanise the women they encountered and treat them as wives, given time to grieve, then married honourably. If they changed their minds, they couldn't be sold as slaves, only divorced as a wife with the onus being on the man as the one who dishonoured her. As with many of these ancient directives, this was a confronting law made to curb the sexual violence that...

This week I heard about the Red Chair project. The idea is that you place a red chair somewhere public and put a sign above it. It is intended to represent the women who are now missing from the world because they were murdered victims of domestic violence. Read more about the project here and download the resources you need to join in. This got me thinking about how many women and girls are not alive due to gender based violence and honestly looking at those numbers and related information is even more chilling than you'd imagine. Did you know that men's violence against women is one of the leading causes of premature death globally? In 2022, just under 89,000 women and girls were murdered due to their sex. The number of gender based murders is actually UP when the overall global murder rate is DOWN.  The Femicide Census is the only project independently collating this data. By looking at the data they can identify patterns and risk factors and this targeted information is abl...

Today marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. It triggers 16 days of worldwide activism to raise awareness of the many atrocities and oppressions suffered by women and girls globally. It also aims to provoke action by both individuals and governments. Things can change, we have to believe it, the lives and wellbeing of women and girls relies on it. This cause has been important to me for many years and my faith has only made me more committed and more sure that this is the right thing to be doing. In the Old Testament in the Bible, Micah 6:8 says "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". This verse states really strongly that justice and mercy can co-exist. We can seek justice but still have mercy for a fallen world. The only way to do that well is to be humble, recognise the part we all play in upholding systems of oppression and how "th...

Outing yourself as a feminist to fellow Christians is a bit of a minefield. Poor understanding of the word and deliberate misunderstanding and demonisation of women who stand up for an equal shot at humanity is rife in the conservative Christian world. So indoctrinated by the ideology of male headship, even some women clutch their pearls at the idea of being labeled a feminist, even those who secretly subscribe to the notion that women are equal to men in every way. It is true that some progress has been made, particularly on the east side of the pond. Women are even fairly frequently to be found in pulpits preaching, and on leadership teams pastoring (in all but title). The less said about the west side of the pond the better really, what a frightening place to be either a woman hoping for bodily autonomy or a child hoping to be safe at school. So the question remains, if these progresses have been made, why are so many women still so angry about it? For me it's the absolute lack ...

Every year on the 25th November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. This date sees the beginning of 16 days of activism and raising awareness of the systemic misogyny faced by women and girls globally every single day. On the 16th day, the event culminates in Human Rights Day on 10th December 2021. The event is now 30 years old and the theme this year is centred around the issue of femicide or the gender related killing of women. Femicide is defined as a hate crime, whereby a woman is killed as a result of her gender usually by a man or men. In 2017, 87,000 women were murdered, of which 50,000 were killed by either an ex-partner or a member of their family.  This is 137 women killed daily or 6 women every single hours of every single day by people they should be able to trust not to harm them.  In the UK a man kills a woman he 'loves' or cared for, every three days. This statistic has remained the same for the past 10 years. “Men’s violence...