Feminist, teacher, academic, theologian. Professor Juliana Claassens from Stellenbosch University’s faculty of theology and head of the faculty’s Gender Unit speaks to MatieMedia about how she made a career out of her passion for feminism and the Bible.
“We need to change; we need to teach our boys that no means no. And that starts even before sexual violence, it starts in the media or in advertisements or in popular culture,” says Professor Juliana Claassens about challenging gender discrimination and sexual violence. PHOTO: Supplied / Julie Claassens
Feminism and theology: Two things that for many may seem worlds apart, but to professor Juliana Claassens they could not belong together more. In a field where women are not readily welcomed, Claassens is a trailblazer for women in theology and for women’s rights alike.
Claassens has been studying and working in theology for almost thirty years. But as a child, she did not think that it was a career she’d be able to pursue. Only in her matric year did the Dutch Reformed Church announce that they would ordain women, and it was then that her world changed.
“Julie, you can now become a pastor!”
“When I was in school, women couldn’t become pastors. So it wasn’t even an option, I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Claassens remembered. “I came home after hockey practice one afternoon and my father said: ‘Julie, you can now become a pastor!’ ”
The next year, in 1991, Claassens was one of the first women to study theology in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa at Stellenbosch University (SU). When she graduated in 1997, she was the only woman to do so in a class of twenty-eight men. While this was an accomplishment, Claassens admits that it wasn’t always easy being one of the only women in the faculty, and even faced discrimination from her peers.
“Although they really supported and encouraged me, my professors were all male. Only later did I receive the language to understand what I experienced, in terms of exclusion,” she said.
Changing times
Today, while the old building that houses the faculty looks the same, with its grand structure and pillars, the atmosphere has changed inside.
“It was a different time,” Claassens said. “It was also all white, you know? Now, a third of my colleagues are female, and so are about half of our students. Times certainly have changed.”
“The faculty of theology is a really special, passionate place,” said professor Julie Claassens. PHOTO: Stellenbosch University Website
After completing her masters at SU, Claassens did her PhD at Princeton University in the United States, and lectured at a few other colleges in America, including the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC.
“I had a female teacher for the first time when I got to Princeton,” she said.
While in America, Claassens met her husband, Professor Robert Vosloo, who is also a staff member in the theology faculty at SU.
“For about eight years we had a cross-continental relationship, and marriage. Then I got a position at SU, so he’s my colleague also now,” she said.
Being a role model
Initially, Claassens wanted to become a pastor, but at the time, being a woman in theology was a difficult career path. Now, despite not originally planning on going into academia, Claassens is an esteemed academic in her field.
“For a long time I really wanted to become a pastor, and now I’ve trained pastors.”
“It was still so difficult for women to get a position, so going into academia was really sort of my plan B,” she said. “But in my second year, a whole world opened up. I loved everything I did, and I absolutely fell in love with the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. And then it was in America that I really fell in love with teaching. For a long time I really wanted to become a pastor, and now I’ve trained pastors.”
“Writing is another form of reaching people,” says Claassens. Her latest project is on biblical and contemporary trauma narratives. PHOTO: Supplied / Julie Claassens
Claassens, who started working at SU ten years ago, said that she loves working with students, and especially loves being a role model to younger female theology students.
“There’s a whole generation that’s gone through me, it’s exciting,” she said.
As a female theologian herself, Claassens takes her role very seriously, too. “I think our faculty is a very safe space, but when female students go into the ministry, they often find a lot of resistance,” she said. “You have to prepare them to think critically and to have the language to be able to understand what’s happening to them.”
Fighting for feminism
“I always tell my students that feminism is the radical notion that women are people, and then most of them are converted.”
Professor Claassens’ feminism has framed the way she interacts with her students and the broader student body, as she heads up the Gender Unit in the theology faculty.
“Oh, yeah, I’m definitely a feminist!” she said, laughing. “I always tell my students that feminism is the radical notion that women are people, and then most of them are converted.”
“I’m a feminist in terms of also working for justice, gender justice and equality,” she explained. “I believe in not doing to others what has been done to you and working for a world where there is equality.”
She is also combating stereotypes of gender and feminism and has actively studied the intersections between the Bible and women’s rights.
“The Bible is definitely not a feminist book! It’s written in a patriarchal culture, and it comes out of a time where there was a very different understanding of the relationship between men and women,” she explained. “But in our time a lot of that oppression still goes on. So I’ve been using the biblical text as a way of helping us to see what’s happening in our own context.”
“I want her to grow up in a world where she doesn’t have to fear.”
Wanting to help create a better world for her daughter is one of the reasons she keeps fighting gender injustice, Claassens said.
“My seven-year-old daughter is beautiful and vibrant, and I want her to grow up in a world where she doesn’t have to fear,” she said. “Our women are vulnerable. We need change, so that’s where I see myself; trying to make the world a better place. Alone we fall, but united we stand.”
Despite having travelled and lectured all over the world, Claassens said Stellenbosch has a special place in her heart.
“I’m really happy here. South Africa is such a wonderful, rich place to do theology, I think South Africa has something to offer,” she said.