The ideal of “liberty,” or freedom from oppression, or autonomous agency for all U.S. citizens is, ostensibly, revered in our society; yet the reality is fraught. Though the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, 15th) to our Constitution and the Civil Rights Act significantly advanced equality under the law, work remains to definitively establish within our legal system and culture that ALL people – including those with female reproductive systems, “wumen” hereafter (i) – are equally free subjects and citizens, fully entitled to liberty. In particular, after the fall of Roe, the targeted state domination and economic exploitation of this group for its reproductive labor power are of grave concern, as the protections against forced labor in the 13th Amendment have yet to apply, given lack of explicit equal protection in the 14th, not to mention little recognition that reproduction is labor. The work is political to finally certify and enforce the Equal Rights Amendment (ii), among other projects, but it is also religio-cultural.
Through worship liturgies in Christian churches nationwide – regardless of political leanings – a pervasive ancient ideological construction of wumen as non-autonomous defacto appendages of and instrumental reproductive laborers for a Father God, men, and their divine kingdom-building is continually reiterated. This ideology is hegemonic and unconscious deep within cultural “common sense" (iii), where it legitimates wumen’s inequality, subjection to reproductive injustice, and related general lack of freedom. Its active rejection is, therefore, required to achieve equal liberty for wumen (and gurls). But for Christians, a further critical feminist re-formation endeavor is in order to craft religious constructions of wumen as fully human, autonomous, moral agents, who control their own labor and determine their own reproductive journeys.
This paper is grounded in sociology of religion and ritual studies theories, which identify religious liturgy as a powerful ideological construction site – e.g. Bell (1992), Jay (1992), Rappaport (1999), and Wuthnow (1987). I then move to a brief review of freshly relevant insights from feminist liturgical scholars to elaborate the general argument that Christian Eucharist liturgy constructs, often in veiled ways, a highly patriarchal and wumen-colonizing ideology of reproduction. Indeed, these scholars answered in the affirmative to Proctor-Smith’s (1990) question: “Is liturgy one of the [cultural] forms… indicted by [Adrienne] Rich for their ability to ‘reorganize victimization?’ Does the liturgy ‘translate violence’ into beautiful forms, disguising its danger for women?” (p. 13).
For example, Bingemer (2014) remarked that in literally feeding others with their own bodies in pregnancy and nursing, women live “the sacrament of Eucharist, the divine act par excellence” (p. 371). But in the context of the Church’s Eucharist and Christology, this exclusively female capacity is conflated with God the Father’s capacity and the male Jesus’ “real presence” (p. 372-373). She clarifies that “the ultimate source” is distinctively “the Father” (p. 374), but “the Lord assumed” the female body’s “primary act of communion” in the giving of “body and blood so that others can eat and drink” and “made it the eternal sign of his real presence among his people” (p. 383).
Similarly, Proctor-Smith (1990) asserted that the “image of the body of Christ as present in the bread and wine evokes the bodies and blood of women, whose labor sustains life,” but, in institutional Christian ritual they are usually passive objects wielded by male ministers and/or acted upon by a male God, even when the minister is female (pp. 159, 162). Further, the incarnation of Christ and sacramental consecration, according to Bynum (1987), are linked, rendering the priest a “pregnant woman” (p. 268). In effect, the priest is Jesus’s, and therefore Mary’s, reproductive female body, but also Jesus as the agent of a dominant reproductive male Father God all at once. Ross (1998) argued that feminists must boldly recognize that the Christian Eucharist rite is an outright male appropriation of female reproductive power and, beyond that, an exploitation of the human desire to connect with an original unity with the mother (pp. 145, 153-155).
The question now is, “In more detail, how so?” If this ideology is to be readily visible and changed, such that those who are committed to equal liberty do not undermine themselves or the cause, then the nuts and bolts of its construction must be illuminated and analyzed. My original contribution to this discussion, thus, is to build upon previous feminist liturgical scholarship, applying its more general insights to aspects of particular instances of liturgy. For purposes here, I discuss a liturgy I participated in on December 22, 2024 at an Episcopal Church. It occurred at the culmination of the Advent season, which centers around the pregnant wuman Mary, “by whom” Jesus came to be. I consider, on the one hand, Mary’s “Magificat” speech, in which she prophetically proclaims a coming world of liberation for the oppressed. On the other, via close readings and analysis, I juxtapose that vision with the jarring contradictions of the reproductive ideology constructed by various prayers, biblical readings, the Nicene Creed, a hymn, and the symbolic elements/actions of the Eucharist ritual.
This exercise underscores the ongoing urgency of the problems raised decades ago by feminist liturgical scholars and illustrates the type of work needed on a larger scale, both to dislodge the unjust cultural common sense about wumen and reproduction and to advance feminist, liberatory re-formation of Christian worship.
i - Following the Dobbs ruling, the need to refer to people born with female reproductive organs and in/capacities, as a group, is crucial. As the word “women” has become so fraught, “wumen” is a provisional attempt to be accurate/precise in referent, succinct, and also gender-inclusive when referring to all those born with a uterus, who are differentially impacted across the lifespan in various ways by reproductive oppression. Note too, that many sources use “women” as the equivalent to “wumen” as defined here, and I do not change their spelling.
ii - See: https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/faq
iii - Roughly 62% of Americans are Christian, and most who are not now religiously affiliated (“nones”) were raised and formed as Christians. See https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/ and https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/.
Despite the American ideal of “liberty for all,” work remains to definitively establish within our law and culture that people with female reproductive systems are equally free. In particular, after the fall of Roe, the targeted state domination and economic exploitation of this group for its reproductive labor power are of grave concern. As hegemonic ideology is a crucial point of intervention, this paper commends and builds upon the work of feminist liturgical scholars, who have long charged that Christian Eucharist liturgy constructs women as colonized reproductive laborers for a Father God. Analyzing content and ritual actions in a specific instance of contemporary Advent liturgy, it underscores the renewed urgency of worship problems raised decades ago and illustrates the type of work needed on a larger scale, both to dislodge the unjust cultural common sense about reproduction culturally and to advance feminist, liberatory re-formation of Christian worship.