For over a decade, women of all races, faiths, backgrounds, and sexual orientations have gathered at St. James Episcopal Church for the bi-annual WomanKind conference to share their experiences, insights, and questions in a safe space and this year’s two-day event kicks off Friday.
“The idea was to have a conference for women, by women,” said Reverend Hilary Streever, an associate rector at St. James’.
Launching in 2004, each year local and guest speakers and attendees discuss topics centered around a certain theme and this year, the theme is Lift Up Your Hearts: A Transformative Power of Word and Table.
Accredited by Streever as the “child” of Dana Corsello and Ruth Ellett and Catherine Southall, during the course of the conference, women will attend workshops that tackle sensitive issues dealing with sexism, racism, and discrimination and will focus on welcoming and inviting all walks of life to join the Table, which references to the act of communion in the Church.
“Today we notice frightening pronouncements made daily that marginalize, dehumanize, and banish people of all kinds but especially women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community,” said Streever. “Women in general in our society need their own space in which to explore issues pertaining to them.”
This year’s event will give attendees the chance to hear from more workshop leaders from across the state than previous years and offer insight to a variety of topics to “intimately share in context of Word and Table.” It will also be the most diverse to date, with half the leaders representing minorities who will host workshops that discuss racial issues and social injustice including Coming to the Table: Having the Clumsy, Courageous Conversation on Race, hosted by Martha Rollins and Danita Rountree Green, and Hate Has No Home Here: Proclaiming God’s Word in the Public Sphere, led by Elaine Ellis Thomas and Brenda Brown-Grooms.
With the tense political and social climate that the nation is feeling, it is vital that every person or organization that holds a position of power gives a platform for those who are discriminated against a chance to speak and a chance to be heard. This position of power includes the Church.
“The churches have the same problems you see anywhere. The churches are racially segregated, power hungry and exclude women, but, that’s not the heart of what we invite people to come and see,” said Sara Miles, founder of the Food Pantry and former Director of Ministry at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
Miles is Saturday morning’s keynote speaker and brings attendees to the topic of the Table. In addition to the food pantry and her work in the church, Miles is also the author of Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion; Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead, and City of God: Faith in the Streets.
“I think that there are powerful forces within the church that work against the inclusion of women,” said Miles. “I also think that there are powerful forces that work for the inclusion of all people.”
No matter your faith or your beliefs, one cannot argue the importance of a safe and inclusive space for all women to come and meet and discuss the problems that plague them the most.
The use of the word “safe space” has often been used in mainstream media as a way to attack and ridicule those who have been discriminated against or those who are at risk of being discriminated against.
With many comments bashing safe spaces as a place for liberal yuppies who just want to cry–WomanKind is a way to counteract that assumption by showing that a safe space for those who are marginalized is an effective way to bring about important change in a community that some will say need it the most.
“I wish women felt free to speak their minds at all times but, when it comes to sensitive subjects, a lot of women don’t feel that, particularly around men,” said Streever. “It’s important for women to feel like they can speak and be heard. We feel the best way to do that is to have it be women only.”
Streever said although they do receive pushback from men and also some women, but with this conference, they hope to prove that the women who attend will act out and pass along what they have been taught in their everyday lives.
“On one hand, I’m sympathetic towards them, but on the other hand, the dynamics of sexism are at play here,” said Streever. “If you’re not that person and you don’t walk in their shoes there’s just stuff about this world that you won’t know.”
Streever pushes the idea that although this is an all-inclusive setting for all different types of women, it does not mean that they are being hateful or ill-willed towards the men. The idea of an all women safe space seems like a necessary evil.
“The need to create a safe space is a response to that power dynamic. It’s not an effort to leave men out of the conversation, but as something that’s necessary for women to be having the conversation in the first place,” said Streever.
WomanKind also serves as a necessary and comfortable platform for those women who are in leadership positions within their faith.
“The church, in general, is similar to our society where women are not in those higher up positions,” said Streever.
To some, the idea of women leaders within the church seems taboo and simply out of the question, but both Miles and Streever, however, mention in their interviews on how women have been cited in the Bible as leaders and important figures within the Church.
“I see the richness and depth and power of women involvement within the church,” said Miles. “I think you see the role of women as preachers and prophets and priests consistently throughout the history of the church.”
It is also important to note that although Streever and Miles are welcomed as leaders within their Faiths, that does not make them immune to the discrimination of that as well.
“We run into less obvious forms of discrimination and thoughts of what a woman in church leadership ought to be like, look like, sound like, dress like. Even what kind of jobs we should be allowed to have within the church,” said Streever.
Registration for the event costs $85 and ends on Thursday, Feb 22. The fee is used to provide scholarships for women who may need financial support in order to attend. St. James’ Episcopal Church hopes to accomplish with their bi-annual, women only, WomanKind conference the weekend of Feb 23-24.
