leora tanenbaum
Leora Tanenbaum is the author of Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; forthcoming January 2009), about devout women across the U.S.--Christian, Jewish, and Muslim--who love their religion but hate their unequal status within their faith, and are doing something about it. She is also the author of Catfight: Rivalries Among Women—From Diets to Dating, From the Boardroom to the Delivery Room, about the ways in which women often try to sabotage one another, and Slut! Growing Up Female With a Bad Reputation, about girls labeled "sluts" by their peers (both HarperPerennial).
She has written for Newsday, Seventeen, Ms., and The Nation, among many other publications. Tanenbaum has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Inside Edition, The O’Reilly Factor, Politically Incorrect, and other programs. She has been featured in Redbook, The Washington Post, and The Forward. She lives in New York City with her husband and two sons.
Tanenbaum addresses high schools and colleges, counselors and educators, and parents; religious institutions and houses of worship; companies and organizations involving religion; and women’s studies professionals, health care professionals, and general audiences. She offers three presentations:
Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality (beginning January 2009)
Tanenbaum discusses the explosion of millions of women in this country rising up and demanding religious equality. These women love their religion but hate their second-class status within it. She talks about the movements for reform among Catholics, evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Muslims, and observant Jews. These women seek the same meaningful spiritual connections enjoyed by their brothers, fathers, husbands, and sons. They are critical of their faith's male-oriented theology and liturgy. These women are not abandoning religion. Rather, they are taking back their faith and making it stronger. For example, there is a network of Catholic women who are illicitly ordained as priests. Evangelical Protestant women are engaging in serious, high-level Bible study in which they challenge Sciptural interpretations that place husbands as heads are wives, who are instructed to be subservient. Mainline Protestant women are gaining leadership positions, giving them more of a say in whether or not their theology and rituals include women. Meanwhile, Muslim women are participating in prayer services in which a woman recites the sermon and women pray adjacent to men, not behind them. Observant Jewish women are attending prayer services in which the curtain dividing the women from the men is pushed aside so that a woman can chant the words of the Torah.
Tanenbaum is herself one of these women and she offers her own personal experiences along with the experiences of others. She explains that when practiced with a commitment to gender equality, religion becomes stronger for everyone.
Any Girl Can Be Labeled a ‘Slut’: The Destructive Power of Namecalling and the Sexual Double Standard
Tanenbaum discusses "slut-bashing," when students in junior high or high school harass and ostracize the "class slut." Tanenbaum speaks about the experience of being targeted as a "slut," the reasons a particular girl is singled out, and how having a "reputation" affects a girl in the short- and long-term. She demonstrates that slut-bashing, as part of a wider culture of a sexual double standard, affects not only the targeted girl but everyone else—other girls, boys, parents, educators. She calls attention to the fact that slut-bashing enables sexual violence to persist and that, curiously, girls are usually at the front-lines. Tanenbaum explains why this behavior persists and what we can do about it, both in the schools and in the courts.
Why Are We So Hard on Each Other? Catfights and Competition Between Women
We women feel pressured to prove our superiority to other women—to be the thinnest and the most fashionable with the most handsome and high-earning partner. At work, we need to show everyone that we are the most efficient but also the most cooperative. And our children have to be the most adorable, with the highest IQ’s and the best table manners—who are accepted into the nation’s best colleges. Tanenbaum analyzes the roots of this behavior. She explores the ways in which women are conditioned to feel resentful or envious of other women, and how these feelings translate into underhanded, indirect forms of competition. But there is hope. Tanenbaum shows that since competition is learned, not innate, one can overcome the impulse to sabotage another woman. She concludes with examples of women collaborating to achieve important goals.
For more speakers on religion, see: Irshad Manji, Shelby Knox
For more speakers on young women and bullying, see: Rosalind Wiseman, Peggy Orenstein
For more speakers on body image, see: Nancy Redd, Amy Liu, Courtney Martin,
