Lutherans from the Southern Cone analyze problems facing young women

Edelberto Behs, SAO LEOPOLDO, Brasil, May 20, 2004

“Women in search of fullness of life,” with a special emphasis on young women, is Taxi Heathrow Airport the theme being debated by 45 representatives from Lutheran Churches affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation meeting in this city from May 18-21.

“We want to discus who is this young woman in the Church and in Society. We know that she works, studies, has children, maintains a family, but also seeks spirituality. But, what spaces does the Church open for this new type of woman,” asked the coordinator of Lutheran women for the Southern Cone, Vera Roth. 

“Fullness of life finds space and meaning in the reason for being in community life,” said the executive secretary of the Women in Church and Society sector (WICAS) of the LWF, Priscilla Singh, during the opening conference. Lutherans from Argentina, Brazil and Chile analyzed the document “Churches say No to violence against women,” elaborated by the LWF. 

The document states that this is not only a problem that affects women. If the feminist movement demands a new model for women, in which she is responsible for her destiny and is not a victim, there is also a need for new models of masculinity that do not depend on dominating women.

Domestic violence, according to the LWF workbook is the most common type of violence against women: Studies carried out in 35 countries show that 25 to 50 percent of women who are attacked suffer aggression at the hands of their current or former partner.

Regarding the sexual abuse of children under the age of 16, in 40 to 58 percent of cases the perpetrator is a family member or someone the child knows. A UN report states that each year 2 million girls and adolescents are mutilated: 75% of cases take place in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan. Genital mutilation rituals, considered religious, are carried out under the argument that they are a cultural rite and initiation ceremony into adult life.

The LWF document also focuses on the effects of modernization and globalization in people’s economic and personal lives. “The globalization of production increased the feminization of work, in particular in sectors such as elaborating food, clothing and assembly lines for goods and services. However, this does not equip women to acquire a skill but rather submit her to mass, routine production with no creativity,” according to the study.

The document demands reflection and change, beginning the process with a provocative question: “Is there violence within the Church?” The same text, in its chapter entitled “Name the sinner by name” answers the question. “The most important thing is to confess that there is also violence within the Churches, due to some policies and practices that impede women’s access to leadership.”

The Churches, the document continued, must analyze whether “preaching the Gospel for centuries in some way contributed to man’s predisposition to violence, to the impotence of women and girls and to the social tolerance of family violence.”  In many parts of the world, the text adds, the Church tends to marginalize separated and divorced women as well as single women and single mothers. The condemnation is more intensive if women are prostitutes or the victims of rape, without making any effort to understand the system that lead to these situations.

Meanwhile, the men are not even judged, not even when they have created or contributed to the emergence of these situations. “Sexism perpetuates the belief that some people are superior or inferior to others based on biology,” said the text, emphasizing that the “law imposes changes while structures continue to remain the same.”