Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee All the Best.

During our last two episodes, Sherry Crawford and I discussed Gerda Learners the creation of patriarchy,

and we talked about structural patriarchy in the ancient world, including in the Bible.

Just a couple of days after we recorded those episodes, some dear friends of mine and my husband

had their first baby, a little boy. They're Jewish, and we were invited to the Briss. I could not

believe the timing. The very week I had talked about circumcision on the podcast, what we had called

the penis covenant, I was going to witness a bris, which is a ritual circumcision,

and in Hebrew means covenant. And I saw our friends there with their new baby and their family and their

rabbi. And my heart was so full, I was immediately emotional. But because we had just read Gerta Lerner's book, and Gerta Lerner, by the way,

was also Jewish. And I think actually part of her project was confronting the male supremacy in her

own religious tradition. Because we had just recorded that episode, I had all of those parts of the Bible

that excluded women fresh in my mind.

And so parts of the bris were really hard for me. And I felt the way I often feel in my own

religious heritage, just completely left out. I just felt marginal in a spectator role as a woman, while God does the important

stuff with his favorite children, the boys. But it was also so beautiful. When the rabbi wrapped

our friends up with their baby in a Talit or prayer shawl, I felt like my heart was going to explode.

The love of that mother and father for each other and for their baby and the connection with

their ancestors and their faith tradition and that language and the community that they had so generously expanded to make me a part of

welcoming that baby into the world was so, so beautiful. And yet it was still hard for me.

And I share this because this experience of having those two experiences right next to each other,

recording that episode on the creation of patriarchy, and then participating in that beautiful

religious ceremony, just kind of showed me how complicated all of this is.

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