Good themes for a women's group?

April 21, 2018 8:32 AM

My UU church has a women's group - each month one attendee volunteers to host. The host provides some food, comes up with the topic or activity for the group, and kind of "leads" on the night. I am hosting next month's meeting and I have no idea what to do...help?

Usually, the theme is something sort of relevant to women / spirituality / personal growth and the host comes up with 2-3 questions or jumping off points, then we go around and share our responses. Occasionally we do an activity (i.e. tarot card reading, annual clothing swap, etc) or a craft, but the craft is usually related to a topic rather than just for crafting's sake (for example, we recently talked about altars and sacred objects and each decorated a box to take home).

I am not good at coming up with this kind of abstract stuff but it's a wonderful supportive group and I would love some ideas that could be fun or get a good discussion going. Some themes we have done in the past year so I don't want to repeat: nurturing / mothering (this sparked a lot of emotional labor discussion), vulnerability, how to handle big transitions, family holiday rituals, resilience against adversity. I'd be up for leading a craft, I'm just not sure how to make it self-contained and make sure everyone can participate (ability levels vary). Sometimes people "teach" a bit based on their own religious beliefs (like we have a Pagan member who has led short rituals) but I'm basically atheist/agnostic so I don't really feel able to do that.

Possibly relevant details: not sure who will be attending in advance but it's usually 5-10 women, age range from early 30's to mid-70's, a mix of family/marital status, sexual orientations and religious backgrounds. A few potential attendees are not able to walk or have chronic pain. Generally it's a safe space and our regular attendees do tend to share some pretty personal stuff, but we are also happy for people to participate as much or as little as they want to (I will make this clear as the host).

Thanks in advance :)

posted by cpatterson to Religion & Philosophy (20 answers total)

How about a session on how to set, and enforce, personal boundaries? It could be physical boundaries (i.e., protecting one's personal space) or emotional (i.e., not taking on someone else's emotional labor). Many women are taught that having men/others invade their physical and emotional personal space is just something they have to put up with or allow.
posted by LOLAttorney2009 at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2018 [13 favorites]

I just led a UU Chalice Circle with the them of "Your Moral Compass," and people got really into it -- it sounds heavy but people talked about their ethical decision-making processes a bit, and it was really a good discussion. Our questions were:

1. How would you describe your moral or ethical code? How has it developed over time? Who have been your major influences, if any?
2. Can you think of a moral or ethical quandary you've faced recently? How did you resolve it? What factors did you consider?

People varied in how personal they got for the second question (and some were not personal at all), but it led to interesting discussions about ethical capitalism, loyalty/betrayal/keeping one's word, how to be ethical in the workplace (which got into the MeToo movement), and probably some other stuff. It was neat to see how people started out with a general feeling of "It's totally simple!" and ended up realizing that morals/ethics are actually pretty complicated.

UUA also has a bunch of agendas for Chalice Circles on their website. You might be able to tweak some of those to fit your group better, or use the topics for inspiration.
posted by lazuli at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2018 [10 favorites]

Now that it’s finally cool for grownups to do it, how about colouring? Maybe greeting cards or postcards for women who are homebound or far from home?

My local P.E.O. chapter did this recently. It was really relaxing and fun, and nobody wanted to stop, even when it was long past time to move on.

Other things we’ve done: trivia games, chocolate tastings, show-and-tell, inviting women from the community to speak about cool stuff they had accomplished.
posted by armeowda at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

This article is really interesting. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-men/. The ability to know fetal sex has led to sex selection, and cultures are changing because there are so many more men than women.
posted by theora55 at 9:04 AM on April 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here are some ideas and readings for chalice circle topics. Krista Tippett's On Being could provide some inspiration.

Craft ideas:
Origami flowers (you can get special origami paper but you can also use colorful or printed magazine pages, they just have to be cut into squares. If you get ambitious you can make stems for the flowers and put them in a vase.

Hand-made greeting cards - if your theme is something like connection or reaching out or communication, you could make and send cards to someone you've been meaning to reach out to.

Coloring is also a great idea - A UU friend hosted an impromptu coloring session a while back and it was fun.

This might be ambitious - you'd have to buy paints and stuff if you don't already have them - but this flower painting tutorial is really fun and very approachable for non-artists. I'd probably set it up for the group to watch the video all the way through, then work through it - pausing after the description of every step.
posted by bunderful at 9:22 AM on April 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mary Oliver’s poems are pretty popular in our UU community, maybe reading a poem out loud (people take turns reading a few lines) and then discuss what came up for people. The poems I’ve read have a vaguely-spiritual nature orientation but are certainly compatible with a Humanist viewpoint.
posted by matildaben at 9:40 AM on April 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

How about the subject of grief? People’s experiences with it, what has been helpful or hurtful from others, the concept of “normal” grieving, disenfranchised grief, the nature of love and what endures after death, differing beliefs in the afterlife and how that might affect the experience of grieving, etc.
posted by HotToddy at 9:54 AM on April 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just finished reading Carmen Maria Machado’s ‘Her Body and Other Parties’ and it has led to some very intense conversations with women I know, particularly about the first story in the collection 'The Husband Stitch.' I'm fairly sure it was mentioned on the blue here. It could be a very interesting jumping off point for a group discussion.
posted by August Fury at 10:25 AM on April 21, 2018

Emotional labor! Steal questions from the discussion.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:57 AM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I would love to have a discussion on ANGER in this type of environment and specifically with this type of group. I think that could be very fruitful and empowering. (Activities: smashing old dishes?)
posted by The Toad at 12:57 PM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Making goals and how to follow through. Couple that with making some simple vision boards - get a bunch of magazines, stock paper, glue sticks and everyone creates a vision board while talking about goals and their visions of who they are and things they want to happen in their lives.
posted by Sassyfras at 1:00 PM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

You could scan the themes Mary Hines explores on her CBC Radio show Tapestry. She often interviews women and is interested in women's issues around religion and spirituality. It's more just a thoughtful show about spirituality in general than specific religions, though she does interview religious people and discusses specific religions. I'm not religious, but I love her as a host and I frequently listen to Tapestry when it's on. The episodes are archived and there's a podcast.

Recent themes:

Forgiveness
Finding meaning in death
Interfaith love
Finding spirituality in music
Connecting with your roots
Indigenous spirituality
How to bridge the gap between atheists and believers
Emotional labour
Meditation
Fighting white supremacy
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:27 PM on April 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

With Spring finally coming (in the northern hemisphere at least) this is a good time to talk about finding joy and peace in nature. Joy is always timely.
posted by irisclara at 1:52 PM on April 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: To follow on with what The Toad suggested above: making mosaics out of the dishes you smashed. Because anger can be healthy and productive.
posted by gaspode at 2:14 PM on April 21, 2018 [7 favorites]

I am part of a similar group in my Quaker meeting, and a very popular dinner topic of conversation is how we stumbled into Quakerism - you always end up hearing some really great stories that inevitably involve something to do with protesting nukes in the 80s alongside one of the Berrigan brothers. I strongly suspect a UU circle would have some similar stories, if you asked how folks found their way into the UU congregation!
posted by mostly vowels at 4:29 PM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I suggest getting a copy of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo and working through some of her suggestions together. In particular, she talks about how to identify the areas in which you are privileged and has ideas for how you can use that privilege for good. You could brainstorm both individual and group things that you want to do.
posted by Margalo Epps at 6:34 PM on April 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: These are all such good ideas, thanks everyone. I'm going to think through some of them and check out the linked resources over the next week and then decide!
posted by cpatterson at 12:00 PM on April 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Have you ever had a "Bad Art Night?" Either people bring creative supplies or you provide some for sharing and folks sit around and make stuff. The idea is to free up folks who swear they have "no creativity" and no "talent" to be creative anyway. The objective is to just have fun and make stuff while supporting the efforts of others.

I've had some "open" nights with no theme, one where I supplied polymer clay and we all made figurines and stuff, and one with duct tape. The duct tape one was the most fun. I showed everyone a few basic principles of duct tape construction (wallet) and people went to town. One lady made a bustier and matching tiara out of duct tape on her first go.

If you want more explicit spiritual tie-ins, you can work in art as a form of prayer. But there is something inherently spiritual in the shared experience of having creative collaborative fun in a supportive environment.
posted by cross_impact at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2018 [4 favorites]

I went to a "share embarrassing stories from middle/high school" party/chat, and I could imagine that flowing nicely into a community discussion of how you can help people who are having embarrasing moments, and how you can help yourself/others recover from things and not hold on to them so hard it makes them cry 20 years later.
posted by aimedwander at 10:16 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Just to follow up, we had the meeting tonight and I went with anger as a topic (GREAT discussion, especially about how men's and women's anger is perceived and experienced) and then we smashed plates and made the pieces into stepping stone mosaics. I'm not convinced the mosaics will be beautiful (have to wait for the concrete to dry...) but the smashing was the point :)

A lot of these other topics will be great for future meetings when I host again and overall the church is always on the hunt for topics for covenant groups, dinner discussions etc so I am really glad I asked here.
posted by cpatterson at 7:44 PM on May 7, 2018 [3 favorites]