{"id":1461,"date":"2009-01-21T08:23:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T13:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2009-01-21T08:23:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T13:23:39","slug":"global-exchange-faith-and-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/01\/21\/global-exchange-faith-and-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"GLOBAL EXCHANGE: Got Religion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Taking off our inaugural ball gowns (woo-hoo Obama!) and picking up our pens, this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Global Exchange will take a look at religious faith and feminism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The inauguration is a good place to start for an examination of religion, since we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to tell you that our pal religion \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the controversy surrounding it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was on full display during the festivities. <\/strong> President Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s selection of Pastor Rick Warren<\/a> to conduct the inaugural invocation set off a firestorm of protest from the left, and particularly gay-rights and women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights organizations, for his recent support of the gay marriage ban in California (as well as previous positions on divorce and abortion, among other issues).<\/p>\n

On the progressive side, Bishop Gene Robinson, the “first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and enemy of the religious right, was chosen to give the opening prayer at the We Are One concert held on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial (the controversy continued when HBO decided not to include Bishop Robinson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prayer<\/a> in their official coverage of the event).\u00c2\u00a0 Reverend Sharon Watkins<\/a> was selected by the President to be the first woman to lead the national prayer service on the day after the inauguration.\u00c2\u00a0 And who can forget the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inaugural benediction<\/a>?\u00c2\u00a0 For our purposes, this obsession with, and prevalence of, religion during the inauguration provides a perfect inroad to explore the historically complex relationship between women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and religion.<\/strong>
\n
\nTraditionally, women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and many aspects of organized religions have had a strained relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 However, women have not been the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passive followers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that some interpretations of religions would have them be, and in fact, women play an important role in many religious traditions (think Virgin Mary, Esther, A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122isha).\u00c2\u00a0 Today, through actions such as taking a stand against religious fundamentalisms<\/a>, criticizing Pastor Rick Warren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position on domestic violence and divorce<\/a>, and coming together across faiths to denounce the violence in Israel and Gaza<\/a>, women continue to ensure that their voices \u00e2\u20ac\u201c voices for peace, justice, and equality \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are an essential part of religious and political values.<\/p>\n

The list of women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grievances in terms of inequitable treatment in organized religious practices is long, and varies according to religious tradition, culture, state policy, and community structures, among other factors.\u00c2\u00a0 But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s take, for example, the issue of women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership roles.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leading religions, Catholicism and Islam still hesitate to allow women leaders (although there is discussion among Muslims on the parameters for female imams).\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, in spite of the lack of space for women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership in some religions, research has linked economic development to religious belief.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, recent research has found that a key stimulant to economic growth is the belief in hell<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Not as surprisingly (at least to us) women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s human rights are also key to economic growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One has to hope, then, that the incarnation of religion for the majority of people (according to a 2005 Cambridge University survey 88% of people worldwide believe in a God of some type ) around the globe is based on progressive ideals of equality and social justice.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 International Agencies recognize that key faith\/religion stakeholders need to be involved in economic development planning. The question is how has the religion\/development debate expanded to include women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and gender equality?<\/p>\n

In 1998 the former World Bank head James Wolfenson and the then Archbishop of Canterbury Carey formed the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD)<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The current head is Katherine Marshall and our findings shows that, while sparse, gender has been addressed in their research and at their conferences.\u00c2\u00a0 The WFDD marks a growing trend, as more and more faith organizations contribute to international development and peace initiatives.\u00c2\u00a0 Gender needs to share the spotlight with religion and faith on the international development stage – it is imperative to truly equitable growth.\u00c2\u00a0 Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s organizations globally recognize this, its time for International Organizations to do the same. (We wonder, of course, why the organizations that have the most resources are always a few steps behind? \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but the historical gender bias inherent in these organizations is a story for another day!)<\/p>\n

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)<\/a> has in many ways \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mainstreamed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d religion, paying attention to how it affects all aspects of women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives.\u00c2\u00a0 Outside of UNIFEM\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good work, NGOs globally have taken the lead in addressing gender, religion, and development.\u00c2\u00a0 The international women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s organization AWID has a key initiative focused on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Their recent report, titled Ten Myths about Religious Fundamentalisms<\/a>, is a collaborative effort by activists globally that find many similarities in the (often negative) effects of fundamentalists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 teachings on women, and encourages readers to hold fundamentalists accountable for their words and actions.<\/p>\n

For its own part, the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s movement in the United States (which prides itself on a tradition of separation of church and state, however rhetorical) has had a historically strained relationship with organized religions.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation<\/a>, notes that the disagreement within feminist movements in this country dates as far back as the first suffragist movement in the 1840s. Smeal recounts the fact that<\/a><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Cady Stanton believed that the feminist movement should take [religion] on forthrightly–that it should be dealt with–that you could not ignore this institution that was teaching woman’s subjugation. In fact, she spent a great deal of her life writing a women’s bible, and Susan B. Anthony felt that this was too much–that feminists had taken on so many opponents that they didn’t need one more opponent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stanton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work to reconcile women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights and faith is reminiscent of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work by organizations such as Helen LaKelly Hunts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Sister Fund<\/a>, which aims to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153challenge society’s perverted applications of scripture that would exclude or demean women.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Organizations such as JOFA (the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance)<\/a> and Women Living Under Muslim Laws<\/a> work towards similar goals by developing gender-sensitive curriculum for religious schools<\/a> and reinterpreting religious texts and laws to be more gender equitable<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The Sister Fund supports many of these types of initiatives, and also runs a Faith and Feminism website<\/a> (together with Faith in Public Life and the Women, Faith and Development Alliance) which seeks to open a dialogue between secular feminists and feminists of faith who are working towards social justice goals.<\/p>\n

DC-based policy organization IWPR is also committed to opening such a dialogue.\u00c2\u00a0 IWPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Politics, Religion, and Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Public Vision<\/a> research and outreach program is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153committed to promoting a vision for U.S. policies and practice rooted in women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public vision and values.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Through research, the program has found that religious women activists are deeply committed to a set of moral values that must be brought into public discussions on religion, morality and politics and, importantly, into the women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s movement itself.\u00c2\u00a0 IWPR drafted a Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Vision and Values for Public Life out of the program\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s research findings, and the Vision is worth taking a look at in full<\/a> (they even have a comments section).\u00c2\u00a0 And because we are such fans of their vision of equality and individual worth, balanced power, family and community (and because there were certainly echoes of all of these values in President Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inaugural address<\/a>), we are going to close this months\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Global Exchange<\/em> with the opening of that Vision:<\/p>\n

Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full integration into public life is essential to building a truly democratic society, creating a more caring culture, and improving the lives of women, their families, and all communities. We call on leaders in politics, the economy, society, and religion to promote practices that empower women of all backgrounds and advance their equality and well-being in public and family life. We call for policies that embody the values of caring and consideration for humanity and support practices that encourage cooperative models of public life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amen to that.<\/p>\n

[1] Zuckerman, Phil. “Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns “, chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2006). Ed. Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking off our inaugural ball gowns (woo-hoo Obama!) and picking up our pens, this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Global Exchange will take a look at religious faith and feminism. The inauguration is a good place to start for an examination of religion, since we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to tell you that our pal religion \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the controversy surrounding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1907,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-exchange"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}