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Losers, Food, and Sex |
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2016, 2/2, 99â122
set of masculine/patriarchal rules existed that allowed Parochial Church Coun-
cils, for example, to reject women priests solely based on the fact that they
were women, while it was not possible to reject male priests solely because
they were men.36 Parochial Church Councils could also request alternative over-
sight if their (male) bishop supported the ordination of women. And Clucas
and Sharpe argue, âwe see the idea that something about women priests is
so powerfully wrong that male bishops willing to ordain women are contami-
nated also.â37 Different â and more rigorous â restrictions apply to the pastoral
ministry of women compared to that of their male counterparts, contributing,
as the authors argue, to the idea that masculinity is natural, normative, and un-
changeable.38 âYet women priests have the additional restrictions of the 1993
Measure. In this way â being subject to additional regulation to men, and the
specific content of that additional regulation â women priests are clearly un-
derstood and defined as deviations from the male norm.â39 This deviation from
the male norm is inscribed and reproduced on a structural, legal, and doctrinal
level.40 The naturalization of masculinity has often rendered masculinities â un-
derstood as a perspective of seeing and engaging with the world â invisible.
Therefore, in her study on the construction of masculinities and femininities in
the Church of England, Sarah-Jane Page points out that âmasculinity as a con-
cept has been little documented in terms of the church, but it can be observed
that masculinity has been naturalized so that its existence is not self-evidently
manifest. It is only when the presence of womenâs bodies disrupts this ânatural-
izedâ order that masculine identity comes to be noticed.â41 And yet, what ef-
fect such disruptions through female clerical bodies (or pregnant female clerical
bodies) might have is a complex issue.42 The increasing number of women being
ordained (in 2009: 266 women and 298 men),43 however, might at some point
contribute to a more balanced clergy and understanding of gender.
That the Church of England is still a predominantly masculine institution and
that female vicars and office holders are seen as a threat to masculine roles and
power is rendered visible in the TV show especially through material objects
36 Cf. Clucas/Sharpe 2013, 164â167. Alternative Episcopal Oversight and the âFive Guiding Principlesâ pub-
lished after the 2014 decision finally to ordain women as bishops too make provisions for those who
reject women ministry on theological grounds, cf. Church of England 2016.
37 Clucas/Sharpe 2013, 165.
38 Cf. Clucas/Sharpe 2013, 166. In their argument, they draw on Chrys Ingraham who analyzes how femi-
nist theory sometimes contributes to heterosexual imaginaries. She argues, âFor example, theories
which foreground and bracket off its link with heteronormativity â the ideological production of het-
erosexuality as individual, natural, universal, and monolithic â contribute to the construction of (patri-
archal) heterosexuality as natural and unchangeableâ (Ingraham 1994, 207).
39 Clucas/Sharpe 2013, 166.
40 Cf. Clucas/Sharpe 2013, 167, 171â172.
41 Page 2008, 33.
42 Cf. Page 2011, 92â109.
43 Cf. Church of England 2013a.
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Band 02/02
- Titel
- JRFM
- Untertitel
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Band
- 02/02
- Autoren
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Herausgeber
- Uni-Graz
- Verlag
- SchĂŒren Verlag GmbH
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2016
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Seiten
- 168
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften JRFM