WUNRN
FEMINISM & FAITH
By Judith Plaskow, Rosemary Redford Ruether, & Amina Wadud
This essay is the Foreword for Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Feminists on Why We
Stay edited by Gina Messina-Dysert, Jennifer Zobair, and Amy Levin.
“Feminism saved my faith” is the concluding phrase of one of the writers in
Faithfully Feminist, and though not everyone would say it
that way, most of these women have found feminism and faith vibrantly
interrelated. The contributors to this anthology articulate a range of reasons
that feminists might choose to remain within a patriarchal religious tradition.
They also remind us that women reconcile their faith and feminist identities in
diverse ways. This volume testifies to the dynamism within the religious
communities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the United States, and to
their internal diversity. This diversity allows for the contributors to engage
in a process of their own development as feminists of faith that interacts with
similar processes of development going on in their religious communities.
The overriding common bond for these women of faith is the shared
conviction that the conflict between religion and feminism is real— even when
it is generated by other people’s expectations that those two identities are
separate and irreconcilable. Once each woman arrived at a place where she no
longer felt an imperative to abide by an either/or dichotomy, she was able to
define the terms of her religion and feminism for herself and to own both
identities as significant.
Multiply the individual accounts in this volume by tens of thousands, and
the effect of these women’s decisions and the concerted actions for change that
have flowed from them has been enormous. For example, feminism has profoundly
altered American Judaism in the last forty-plus years. Women are ordained in
all branches of liberal Judaism and, in all but name, in modern Orthodoxy. New
denominational prayer books written in English use inclusive language and
incorporate writings by women. Feminists have written Torah commentaries,
designed rituals for important turning points in women’s lives, and created new
scholarship on women that contributes to a fuller history of the Jewish people.
Likewise, Christianity has been significantly impacted by the work of
feminist theology. While some branches continue to refuse leadership roles to
women, many others have acknowledged that every person embodies the spirit of
Christ and have embraced the ordination of women. In 2006 the Episcopalian
Church ordained its first woman bishop, the highest office in the church. Inclusive
language has found its way into the prayers and rituals of many churches and
feminist commentaries have shifted thinking on scriptural interpretations.
Dialogue within and across branches of Christianity are expanding borders, and
movements like Woman Church and online feminist spaces have created
opportunities for women to claim agency and participate in roles that have been
traditionally withheld.
In the long road to Islamic feminism, women have sometimes lacked agency to
define either Islam or feminism. Traditional definitions of these words which
operate as a constraint on work within Islam towards justice, equality and
dignity; feminism was connected to Western imperialism and invasion into
Muslim-majority nation states, and centuries of patriarchal control and
interpretation stifled women’s efforts to claim Islam for themselves. This is
changing, aided by campaigns such as the 2009 launching of the Musawah movement
for equality and justice in Muslim family law. A new freedom is emerging that allows
Muslim women the dignity and honor of defining Islam and feminism for
themselves—no matter how little they might know of global discourses and
historical traditions. All that was necessary was to, identify as a believer
and expect a life of justice within that belief. Islam has also witnessed
women-led prayers and a move toward inclusive prayer spaces.
The profound changes feminists have inspired and worked for do not mean
that all problems have been solved and that women’s subordination is a thing of
the past; there is plenty of work for a new generation. The difficulties with
overcoming the glass ceiling and balancing work and life that women within the
larger society face also bedevil women in all three religious communities.
Panels, boards, and publications often exclude women’s voices completely or
have only token female participation. Ordained women in Judaism are paid less
than their male counterparts and rarely become senior rabbis in large or
prestigious congregations. If women “choose” to serve smaller synagogues —the
explanation often tendered to explain these gaps—that is partly because the
expectations surrounding the rabbinate have not kept pace with its changing
demographic, and women who want to combine rabbinic work with raising a family
face considerable obstacles. Christian ordained women face similar obstacles
within the priesthood and continue to be denied leadership roles in some
branches, including Catholicism and Mormonism. Similarly, Muslim women are
often excluded from panels at religious conferences and are underrepresented on
the boards of religious institutions. The idea of women leading Muslim prayers
remains controversial. And too often, discussions about women’s role in Islam
still revolve around the issue of hijab, or covering.
The challenge for feminists today is passing on feminist insights and gains
to the next generation. Is women’s history being incorporated into elementary
and high school texts, or are students being taught the same parade of male
names and faces? More particularly for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, when a
girl or woman wants to mark some nontraditional ritual occasion, is it clear
where to turn for resources? Do most Jews, Christians, and Muslims even know
that it is possible to create new rituals that feel deeply meaningful and
religiously authentic?
Finally, when teachers—and parents—talk about God, how is God imagined? Are
children still growing up thinking about God as a distant male figure, or are
they offered a range of images, and emboldened to create their own? Are
children being encouraged to talk about and challenge passages in and
interpretations of the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an that are misogynist or
otherwise unethical? Are they developing critical tools that will allow them to
engage with and transform difficult parts of tradition?
The next generation of feminists should consider a move beyond rhetoric and terminology towards substance and personal affirmation. Identifying as feminists of faith helps forge global alliances towards meaningful dialogue across difference—even the differences within. It is only when these deeper levels of change are addressed that the question, “Why stay?” will cease to be relevant.