“Delta G” usually shown as ΔG, in mathematics means change of any changeable quantity. I ran across this idea while working with formulas and calculation in my Ecology class in college and was intrigued with the idea of applying it in a theoretical way, particularly in how I was perceiving changes happening with women’s roles and how active gendering of girls was being challenged.
I created a group of paintings during the early 2000s which I lumped together in a group I called “Contested Bodies”. It was my way of processing a lot of what I was getting in my feminist philosophy classes, but a lot of what I was learning in the ecology, and biology classes seemed to fit compatibly and provided me with many ideas for my art work.
A “Women and Religion” class with the excellent and erudite professor, Dr. Randi Rashkover, sparked my interest in visualizing an alternative godhead /Ultimate Being. Her class masterfully guided a student to understanding how stories and myths get made into laws and codified rules (especially about women and women’s bodies). If you could change the stories, you could change the laws.
What if Ultimate Being wasn’t gendered as male but was more ambiguous (ie energy, spirit)? Can you imagine the difference that would make for the acceptance of women in places over the world where they’re excluded? A woman might become the Pope. More women could become officials in governments. Women would train as surgeons. Girls would regularly attend schools. Women would have the same bodily autonomy as men.
How to do that?
In the Judaic tradition, you can interpret and read in between the lines to discover what’s implied but not stated. In the Christian tradition, it’s harder because there’s no tradition of interpretation; you have to deal with what’s literally written. Fortunately, the New Testament was written about loving and accepting everybody— that is, if you take “Jesus” at his word.
Change happens. Slowly though, it seems, for a culture that’s based on outdated rules that have governed women’s bodies for 2000 years.
If you could change the stories and myths of a culture, how would you rewrite or envision it?