Religion Can Empower Women, But Does It?

Women can indeed be empowered by religion, although much of the feminist critique of religion in the 1970s and 1980s suggested they could not.

What we are seeing is the capacity for religion to empower women - historically in such single sex institutions as convents, abbeys, missionary organizations, and in recent years with the presence of women as clergy and rabbis and even bishops - but not necessarily the reality. Some religions and some particular stances within other religions have actively discriminated against women, on religious grounds.

You can see that within Roman Catholicism, though women had great power in the convents historically, where women priests are not even being contemplated, despite a shortage of men as candidates. Or in Islam where women play a very limited role indeed, though the variation is far wider than normally recognised, from the anti-women stance of extreme Islamist positions to the equality preached by Ismaili Muslims, and much else in between.

However, Hindus have a few women priests, Protestant Christianity has women in almost all imaginable leadership roles, and non-orthodox Judaism has allowed women to be rabbis, chair assemblies of rabbis and so on. So it is a mixed picture. But there is something else. The very basis of spirituality can empower women. Within themselves they find strength in the life of the spirit, and it motivates them to do a whole variety of different things- from the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century to the human rights movements of the twentieth, from Medecins sans Frontieres to Save the Children.

Women were great social reformers in the nineteenth century, inspired by their faith to do amazing things, and they continue to be inspirational, inspired by their own faith, in the twentieth and twenty first century, whether as creators of the modern hospice movement, as with Cicely Saunders or dealing with homelessness in Philadephia, as with Sister Mary Scullion, at Project Home. And there are many many more, from Mother Teresa to Octavia Hill. So religion can empower women, though I would argue that they are mainly empowered by faith rather than religious structures. But religious structures can also disempower women, and we need to make strong representations to those religious authorities who seek to deprive women, and therefore the next generation, of education. For that is singularly disempowering - and has terrible and long term effects.

What we are seeing is the capacity for religion to empower women - historically in such single sex institutions as convents, abbeys, missionary organisations, and in recent years with the presence of women as clergy and rabbis and even bishops - but not necessarily the reality. Some religions and some particular stances within other religions have actively discriminated against women, on religious grounds. You can see that within Roman Catholicism, though women had great power in the convents historically, where women priests are not even being contemplated, despite a shortage of men as candidates. Or in Islam where women play a very limited role indeed, though the variation is far wider than normally recognised, from the anti-women stance of extreme Islamist positions to the equality preached by Ismaili Muslims, and much else in between. However, Hindus have a few women priests, Protestant Christianity has women in almost all imaginable leadership roles, and non-orthodox Judaism has allowed women to be rabbis, chair assemblies of rabbis and so on. So it is a mixed picture. But there is something else. The very basis of spirituality can empower women. Within themselves they find strength in the life of the spirit, and it motivates them to do a whole variety of different things- from the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century to the human rights movements of the twentieth, from Medecins sansFrontieres to Save the Children. Women were great social reformers in thenineteenth century, inspired by their faith to do amazing things, and they continue to be inspirational, inspired by their own faith, in the twentieth and twenty first century, whether as creators of the modern hospice movement, as with Cicely Saunders or dealing with homelessness inPhiladephia, as with Sister Mary Scullion, at Project Home. And there are many many more, from Mother Teresa to Octavia Hill. So religion can empower women, though I would argue that they are mainly empowered by faith rather than religious structures. But religious structures can also disempower women, and we need to make strong representations to those religious authorities who seek to deprive women, and therefore the next generation, of education. For that is singularly disempowering - and has terrible and long term effects.

By Julia Neuberger  |  November 24, 2008; 9:27 AM ET Save & Share:                 
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