In my lifetime the word “feminist” has taken on multiple meanings. Sometimes I’ve experienced the word and feminists themselves, as uplifting and empowering. Other times women have been labeled “feminist” in quite unsavory ways, assigned a derogatory meaning, what we might call today the “toxic masculine” embodiment. I’ve seen images, listened to songs, read essays and poetry, watched news clips and spent thousands of hours in conversations and classes discovering a full spectrum of what it means to be a “feminist.” When I was in college seeking degrees in anthropology and sociology, I discovered the reason for this: there are multiple forms of feminism, each with their own focus and purpose.
While feminism has a long history, the women who fought for women’s rights didn’t always use the term “feminist.” The first wave of feminists emerged around the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Most of us are familiar with it in connection to the suffrage movement – women gaining the right to vote here in the U.S. Yet the feminist movement has taken on different faces and names over the years: radical feminism, liberal feminism, post-colonial feminism, cultural feminism, post-modern feminism and more.
There isn’t ONE feminism, but many – every women has a different worldview because of culture, ethnicity, country of origin, religious or spiritual affiliation, socioeconomic status and language. Yet regardless of the differences in how a woman identifies, the aim of feminism is generally transformation.
Simone de Beauvoir, 20th century activist, feminist and social theorist, asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and therefore we can raise ourselves up beyond the system of the patriarchal realities of the world into which we were born and have been resigned to live. We can embody the position of taking responsibility for oneself, our life conditions and choose freedom in our thoughts and actions. This is the feminism of Myrtle Fillmore. This is the feminism I hear in the letters she wrote to millions of women over the years.
Born at the Right Time
The feminist movement in the U.S. began about the time of Myrtle’s birth in 1845. She was born into a large, conservative Methodist family, and from an early age was drawn to reading everything and anything, including books and topics strictly for boys. At the age of twenty-one she enrolled in Oberlin College. It was the first college in the U.S. to admit women as well as men. In 1860, the president of the college explained “…it is not good for man or woman to be alone, that neither can be elevated without the other, and that their responsibilities in the work of life, though different, are equal…”
In one of her most treasured books, Letters and Social Aims by Ralph Waldo Emerson, he says this about women: “They are not only wise themselves, they make us wise. No one can be a master in conversation who has not learned much from women…” This is the consciousness Myrtle Fillmore brought forward into her adult years as a teacher, and later as she engaged a feminist theology we now know as New Thought.
New Thought is Feminist Theology
Most people may not realize that New Thought falls squarely in the camp of “feminist theology.” It’s a movement found in several faith traditions including, Hinduism, Neopaganism, Judaism, Earth-based religions, Post-Modern Christianity, and Sikhism to name a few. Hallmarks of feminist theology include looking at practices, writings, scripture and traditions from a feminist perspective. This can include the role of women clergy, reinterpreting the male-dominated language and imagery of God, as well as studying women in varying religious contexts, such as history and sacred texts. It also includes re-evaluating women’s roles and place in the family and society in regards to motherhood, careers, and caretaking.
While the New Thought movement does not have a single point of origin, it is considered part of the feminist movement because of the thinkers and philosophers who influenced it, such as the Transcendental Movement which embodies much of a feminine perspective. Also, most of the founders and leading voices, from mid-19th century on, were women: Emma Curtis Hopkins, Mary Baker Eddy, Nona Brooks, Annie Rix Millitz, H. Emilie Cady, Malinda Cramer and Myrtle Fillmore. Even today, congregations and leadership in most churches and spiritual centers are women.
Because I live just a few miles from Unity Village, I have had the privilege over the years of visiting the archives, and reading many unpublished letters of Myrtle Fillmore’s. I continue to be amazed at the feminist voice that comes forward. This feminist theology is not about denigrating anything masculine, it is about including and raising up feminist values and principles within a masculine dominated world. For thousands of years our culture, religion and spirituality included, has been dominated by over-expression of masculine principles: sovereignty, control, protection, work hard, structure, logic, to name a few. All potentially good stuff, but an over-expression to the neglect of the feminine values of rest, wholeness, communion, nurturing, connection, appreciation, and flow, is toxic and unhealthy.
So what is this “feminist voice” of Myrtle’s? Some of her writings are quite Rumi-esque, full of mystery, seeking union with the beloved divine, and longing to know she is a part of all that is – of God. Her focus on Mother Earth and children, as evidenced by the Wee Wisdom publication. I hear it in her replies as she invites the person asking for help to put attention on healing, wholeness, feeling, receiving and intuiting.
With Love and Compassion
The beauty of it all though, is that she doesn’t lose the best of healthy masculine. Myrtle is very clear about the steps and logic of affirmative prayer, asserting each person’s agency, valuing reason and intellect, and caring for self. She just does it with a feminist perspective. This includes inviting us to move beyond ourselves, be in service for the greater good. Transforming the suffering of our world is a foundational thread of feminist theology and the feminist movement.
In most every letter I read, Myrtle Fillmore’s opening sentence is intent on nurturing the person to whom she is writing. For instance in a 1928 letter she begins with: “What a blessed privilege is mine to live a life made joyful by the love and blessings of many friends such as yourself.” She generally then moves into acknowledging the person’s situation, yet doesn’t stay there. With love and compassion, she firmly nudges and empowers the reader to heal thyself, to find their own voice.
For example: “With this treatment, continue with the suggestions given in the last letter – that your mother give her attention to looking for the good only; and that she declare her freedom from the dominance of others or their opinions… If your mother has failed to instill into her son’s head and heart the joy and the privilege and satisfaction of taking his own share of the work and responsibility, she is certainly not helping him any now by worrying about him or by allowing him to stay around to be cared for by you and her efforts. The best thing to do is to establish your faith in God, and in the God-self of your brother, declare the truth for him, and then leave it with his own soul to respond. Have a talk with him if he lives in your home and let him know that you feel he take a very active and effective hand in keeping up the home, or get out and make another home for himself.”
While I don’t know that Myrtle would have called herself a feminist, for me she embodies feminist theology because she is centered on the life-affirming principles we hold so dearly in Unity. Most letters I have read, the person is asking for prayers and healing around social issues of the day: alcoholism, child-rearing, sexuality, work, marriage, religious values, poverty, justice, environmental care and equality – and most every letter is from a woman. It would seem our issues haven’t changed much, yet our capacity to address each challenge that arises has not changed.
