sex or race: pick one

this week we talked about christianity around the world in class.  as you can imagine we barely scratched a tiny bit of the surface, but one thing that we talked about was the role of women in missionary work.  although women couldn't be ordained ministers, they were allowed to have leadership roles in missionary settings.  at first women just supported missionary work, but then they began to be sent into the field as teachers, nurses, and deaconesses. 

in many mission areas, the native peoples were looked down on as heathens and as less than white people.  christianity was understood as the "white man's religion," so white men were supposed to be the ordained ones doing the preaching and presiding at holy communion.  although native populations were encouraged to evangelize those around them, they were not seen as able to administer the sacraments.  as missionary work increased and spread, this created a dilemma.  there soon were more christians among the native populations than missionary men who could preach and administer the sacraments.

since there weren't enough white men, they began to allow white women to fulfill those roles.  the reasoning was that although white women weren't as good of an option as white men, they were "still better" than native peoples.  the hierarchy created is especially poignant when considering who was being converted to christianity.  by and large the outcasts of the societies where christianity was being preached were the ones converting.  in india the "untouchables" were converting but not nearly as many brahman were.  so, christianity had a huge pull for those who were outcasts because of its message of radical love and inclusion and yet at the same time it would not allow just anyone to preach and administer the sacraments.

to be fair, in some places, such as india, indigenous clergy were ordained fairly quickly, which was important because good leadership is the key to keeping a movement going.  overall, though, white women gained more equality with white men because of racist ideals that allowed white women to do official ministry so that it could remain white people doing the ministry.

this has interesting implications today because so much of society and movements for rights are put into competition with each other.  instead of working against sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, etc. together in collectives, the different movements are played against each other.  it can be a fight for equal wages for women or a fight for equal wages based on race, but it couldn't possibly be a fight for equal (and livable) wages for all people (please, not the sarcasm).  this is smart by the powerful because if there's infighting further down on the pyramid, then nobody has time to look at the top of the pyramid and try to bring down the whole pyramid.  if we looked at the whole kyriarchy, instead of just one system of oppression, what a change it might make.