More Than Serving Tea in Seattle

A year ago I posted about an upcoming event in Seattle:  More Than Serving Tea:  Asian American Women Sharing the Journey.  Well’s it’s finally a go this Oct 18.  Why an event specifically for Asian American women?  It is not to be exclusive.  I had an intuition that Christian events solely aimed at Christian women (which are usually dominated by whites) and Christians events for Asian Americans (which are usually dominated by males) may fail to address the unique set of issues due to the convergence between race, gender, and faith. 

Recently I took a mini-course for faculty at SPU on Women’s Studies.  One of the best readings we were assigned was Bart Landry’s Black Working Wives.  In it Landry traces the history of black feminity in America and contrasts it with white feminity and highlights the fact that one cannot not properly understand issues of gender to the exclusion of race.  In regard to black women feminists he writes:

Unlike white women, black women refused to isolate gender issues from other forms of oppression such as race and nationality, including the struggles of colonized nations of Africa and other parts of the world.  Women’s issues, they suggested, were tied to issues of oppression, whatever form that oppression might assume. (76)

Like black women, there are a unique set of issues that Asian women face that are different than that of white women or other races.  This is an opportunity to address some of these issues from the perspective of Christian faith.  And not only to discuss issues but to be ministered by, and minister to other people!

Also if you haven’t heard about it already, Quest Church is putting on a Faith and Gender Class and Conference with Lauren Winner.