Part II
Cross-Cultural Issues
17
Religion and Gender
Introduction
The religions of the world have been studied in great detail but until recently little attention has been paid to gender differences and their impact on religious teaching and practice. Yet religions are an important source for the understanding of gender. This may not be self-evident but on closer examination it becomes clear that all religious traditions contain prescriptive teachings on gender roles, and religious beliefs and practices are themselves significantly shaped by gender perspectives.
The critical gender analysis which has grown up since the 1970s has gained great importance in all contemporary scholarship, including the study of religions. A new critical awareness of gender differences, linked to the existing asymmetry in the power relations, representation, knowledge and scholarship between men and women, challenges the traditional practice and study of religion and is thus setting a new research agenda for both theology and religious studies.
The debates about feminist theology in particular have attracted much public attention in Western countries. This is primarily due to their importance in influencing the reform of liturgical practices and language, and in advocating the ordination of women. Such developments, however, are not restricted to religion in the West, but have an international and even global dimension. All religions, whether of ancient or modern origin, are beginning to be affected by debates about gender issues which are raised by the new consciousness and voices of women who in the light of their own experience have undertaken to re-examine critically all existing social, cultural and religious practices.
Conceptual Clarifications
The notion of religion is a complex one and not always easy to apply cross-culturally. Thus there is always much room for interpretation and debate as to the precise meaning of the concept religion in different contexts. Similar debates surround the meaning of gender, though for different reasons. The notion of gender is much discussed in contemporary sociology and anthropology, where gender identity and gender relations are seen as central for the understanding of any social order. Gender ideologies are frequently hierarchically organized so that sexual inequalities are embedded in thought, language and social institutions, including religious roles and institutions. Yet the more we know about the complex and sometimes contradictory male and female roles which exist in different societies, the more difficult it becomes to state insights about gender in universal terms.
The idea of genderedness is an important new insight of feminist thought and represents a breakthrough in the history of human consciousness. Gender is a primary source of individual and social identity, but it interacts closely with other factors such as race, class, age and ethnicity. But what is meant by gender? Contemporary writers distinguish sex, as the biologically given differences between women and men, from gender, as the historically, socially and culturally developed ‘construct’ or interpretation of what it means to be a woman or man in different religions and cultures. Though applicable to both sexes, the notion of gender is currently mostly debated with regard to women. Feminist scholars have developed a substantial body of new theory and knowledge which has already become an integral part of many women's studies courses. However, these generally make little reference to religion and often deal with women's changing experience in an entirely secular context without taking into account that the origin of different gender constructions and inequalities is often deeply enshrined in religious teachings, especially in sacred scriptures which are considered as foundational and normative in particular religious traditions. Similarly, many current debates about the experience and self-understanding of women, their role, image and status in society, are still shaped or affected by religious teachings even when these are sharply criticized or vehemently rejected. It is therefore especially important to address gender-specific inquiries to the whole field of religion.
The feminist critique of society focuses particularly on the close and complex relationship between gender and power, expressed everywhere through the marginalization and subordination of women, frequently experienced by them through different forms of exploitation, oppression and violence. The prevalence of such experiences is a proof of the pervasiveness of patriarchy, understood as an all-ma1e power structure and universal male dominance, so clearly present in many social institutions, assumptions and attitudes. Patriarchy is the major focus of all feminist critique and the term is used not only to describe the understanding and practice of sex roles and the formation of separate gender identities, but also to refer to women's past and present dependence on and subordination to fathers, husbands, brothers and all men in positions of influence, power and privilege. Rarely commented upon is the religious origin of the word patriarchy itself, which in the Christian tradition has for centuries described the dignity, see or jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical patriarch. Not only the word, but the reality and existence of patriarchy are inextricably connected with religious roots and ramifications. All historical religions are inherently deeply patriarchal.
Another focus of women's critique is sexism, which has been defined as an exclusive ordering of life by way of gender or rather by sharply differentiated gender roles and by the assumption that one sex is essentially superior to the other, resulting in discrmination against members of the supposedly inferior sex. Sexism is currently endemic in all social and religious institutions. Almost everywhere women are kept in subordinate positions whereas men hold most, and often all, positions of power and authority. This male-centredness in human history and institutions has meant that male experience has been taken as the universal human norm and become an integral part of our thought structures, concepts and language.
This hidden dimension of patriarchy in our conscious and unconscious mind is also referred to as androcentrism, a word which means that men or male experience are at the centre of reality. In the past, men have named things and people, have thought and shaped the world, have created religion, history and culture. They have mapped out reality for themselves and established its boundaries according to their own experience alone, whereas women have been assigned a place within the scheme of things invented by men without being acknowledged as agents and participants in their own right.
Wherever one looks in the world, religious institutions are affected by patriarchy, sexism and androcentrism. Women are either invisible or marginal to the public positions of power, hierarchy and authority. Whereas women represent almost everywhere the majority of religious pracitioners in the ordinary day-to-day religious life at grass-roots level, they are hardly ever the official ‘spokeswomen’ of religious institutions and organizations. This is also clearly the case in the current inter-faith activities around the globe, though mention may be made of the positive developments in Christian ecumenical circles associated with the World Council of Churches (WCC). The WCC is making considerable efforts to increase the proportion of women among its official representatives and on its working committees. Its ‘Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women’ (1988-98) is intended to accord women also greater visibility and participation in local churches around the globe. Though widely varying in its effectiveness, this is a pioneering programme which provides a model for similar positive affirmation and action programmes which need to be launched by religious groups elsewhere.
Much feminist critique is addressed to the wider issue of the masculinity of contemporary culture, understood to be associated with competitive, exploitative, manipulative and destructive aspects of human behaviour which are seen as a great threat to the future of humankind and the planet. Similarly criticized are unexamined assumptions of ‘value neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ underpinning the research work of many scientists and scholars. These concerns have important implications for the debates about the most appropriate methodology for the study of religions.
Contemporary women have developed a new critical consciousness grounded in their own experience. This has empowered them to define their own agenda, to find their own voice, but also to rediscover the voices and experiences of women hidden in the cultural and religious artefacts of the past. Whereas previously male scholars of religion have occasionally made women's religious roles and experiences an object of their study, the growth of feminist critical awareness and the possibility of women's own scholarly training up to the highest academic level have now enabled women to be themselves both subjects and objects of their own scholarly analysis. This development has produced rich new data, insights and perspectives of inquiry in the study of religions while at the same time challenging some of the dominant paradigms in theology and religious studies.
Historical Overview
‘Religion and gender studies’ is a fast-growing field where some of the most innovative and creative developments in the contemporary study of religion are taking place. Women scholars in religion are developing a different kind of methodology where the researcher's existential participation and commitment enter into the interpretation of what is being researched and call into question much of the assumed ‘objectivity’ of previous methods, thus inviting a new critical reflection on what religion is about and for.
So far most of the feminist analysis and challenge of religion has been concerned with Christianity and Judaism, but a growing number of studies are dealing with women in other religions too. Historically, religion was an important dimension of the first wave of the women's movement in the nineteenth century when many women working for social, legal and political equality drew inspiration from the Judeo-Christian belief that both men and women are created in the image of God and are called to be equal heirs of God's kingdom. In their fight to gain access to higher education and the professions, women also asked for the right to theological training. The Free Churches in the United States granted this right to women as well as that of ordination. Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825-1921), the first woman theology graduate at Oberlin College, also became the first woman ever to be ordained, in 1853, at the age of twenty-eight, by the Congregational Church in New York; soon thereafter other women were ordained by the Universalist Church, the Unitarians and the Adventists [27: 333–5]. Without such access to theological education women would never have become theologically literate and sufficiently well trained to criticize the androcentric assumptions of their discipline.
In the history of religions, too, women sought professional training early and made important contributions to the study of religion which up to now have unfortunately been given little official recognition in the standard reference works of religious studies [26]. Some women scholars, together with several ordained women, were highly acclaimed plenary speakers at the historical 1893 World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago [27], and when the international history of religions congresses were organized from 1900 onwards, women scholars regularly participated, although they were not specifically concerned with gender issues as such at that time.
Feminist theology and feminist studies of religion only began to come into their own in the 1970s, at first in the United States, then in Europe and the rest of the world. An important focus and catalyst for these developments has been the section on ‘Women and Religion’ which has been regularly convened at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion since 1972. Much work has come out of the United States where feminist theology and women in religion courses have become an integral part of many university and college curricula. A landmark was the publication in 1979 of Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow [12]. Now considered a classic, it was republished in 1992. The vigorous growth of women's critical scholarship is best demonstrated by the pages of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, published in the US since 1985. A number of other, more popular journals on women and religion have come into existence since then. In Britain, Feminist Theology has been published three times a year since 1982, while the only feminist theological journal in Asia, In God's Image, has appeared regularly since 1982 and is now followed by additional titles published in other parts of Asia.
In Europe the European Society for Women in Theological Research was founded in 1985 and has held several bi-annual conferences since then, complemented since 1993 by the publication of an annual Yearbook. Women's theological work in the countries of the so-called Third World has been much stimulated and supported by the Women's Commission of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) which was founded in 1983 and has initiated several national and international conferences [16; 29: 1–20].
Among women scholars in religion, rather less numerous than Christian women theologians around the world, interest in feminist methodological debates and topics can also be documented, especially since the 1980s. It is indicative that the fourteenth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), held in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1980, included a section on ‘Femininity and Religion’, but this was not continued subsequently. A decade later, however, at the seventeenth IAHR Congress in Rome in 1990, a lively debate on gender issues took place at a specially organized panel on ‘Religion and Gender’. A selected number of papers given at this panel have now been published together with a survey of the current state of debate and a bibliography of recent publications [30: 1–38].
New courses are being introduced and new conferences held; new publications in the field of women and religion continue to appear; new dictionaries and encyclopedias are being planned. Thus the religious experience of women in past and present times is being more and more closely examined, made known and critically evaluated. When Mircea Eliade edited his Encyclopedia of Religion in sixteen volumes in 1987 [15], only two articles dealt specifically with current gender issues. One was Rosemary Ruether's examination of ‘Androcentrism’ [38]; the other a helpful and succinct survey of ‘Women's Studies’ in religion by Constance H. Buchanan [9]. In it Buchanan discusses the critical and constructive tasks of women scholars in religion, showing that the development of feminist theory on gender, religion and culture is thoroughly cross-disciplinary (one might add, even trans-disciplinary), with women scholars from different religious backgrounds working on diverse religious traditions and drawing on methods and insights from several disciplines. This enables them to gather a new body of data which then in turn can form the starting-point for further theoretical debates.
Anne E. Carr has maintained that the innovative research of women in religion means that:
much of past scholarship is placed on a new map of religious reality. Less than half the story has been told. To begin to tell the other part is to acknowledge that women have always been involved (even when excluded or ignored) in everything human, in everything religious. As the distinct subject matter of women's studies is the experience of women, that of women's studies in religion is the religious experience, expression, and understanding of women. But the concept of gender reminds us that the experience of women has been and always is in relation to men in the whole of human society. Thus women's studies affects the study of men (now seen as part of the whole), the study of the human in its wholeness, and religious studies generally [11: 93].
Women in World Religions
Faced with a vast area of investigation and a proliferation of data about women in the different religions of the world, it is both necessary and helpful to distinguish some major lines of inquiry. To begin with, a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ (Paul Ricoeur) has to be applied to all traditional knowledge about religion. Religious teachings and practices have to be meticulously deconstructed into their constituent and original elements so that due attention can be paid to the emergence of unequally weighted gender differences. Women attempt to analyse and critically deconstruct past materials so that they can reconstruct them in a new and different way. June O'Connor describes this as ‘rereading, reconceiving and reconstructing religious traditions’. By ‘rereading’ she means re-examining religious data with regard to women's presence and absence, their words and their silences, whereas ‘reconceiving’ requires the retrieval and recovery of lost sources and suppressed visions, sometimes also described as ‘reclaiming women's heritage’. The final aim of reconstruction involves the task of reconstructing the past on the basis of new information and with the help of the historical imagination as well as the use of new paradigms for thinking, seeing, understanding and valuing [35: 102–4].
Another way of looking at women in world religions is by asking systematic and comparative questions. Here it is possible to point to three major clusters of inquiries. The first concerns women's role and status as prescribed by different religious traditions, their scriptures and teachings. What is women's role and nature as defined by those teachings? What is women's participation in ritual and liturgy? In which rites can women participate and from which ones are they excluded? Do women possess rites of their own different from those of men? What religious and spiritual authority can women exercise? What access do they have to priesthood, monasticism or religious leadership, for example? What kind of religious communities are open to women?
The second cluster of inquiries, though not entirely separate, focuses more distinctly on the image rather than the role of women. How are women represented in religious language and thought? What kind of images are associated with women in different sacred writings and theological texts? Do such texts project empowering or debilitating images, images of equality and partnership or negative, stereotypical images of women's weakness, inferiority and subordination? Are feminine images and symbols used in relation to ultimate reality, in referring to the divine or transcendent, and if so, do such images have any positive effect on the lives of actual women?
These two clusters of inquiries deal with mainly androcentric material because they are concerned with what world religions have traditionally believed and taught about women. Thus they indicate how women have been treated by men rather than what women have experienced and said themselves. A third, exciting area of inquiry is concerned with women's own religious experiences and their distinct articulation, in so far as this has been possible at all. This involves the historical task of rediscovering women's voices in the past and recovering women's spiritual and mystical experiences. How far are these experiences possibly different from those of men or at least expressed in a different way? When women have been able to describe their own religious experiences, this has usually not been through a conceptually well-defined theological language but much more through a rich devotional and mystical literature of a more personal or autobiographical nature. To what extent are the images and symbols used in such literature created by women distinct from and in contrast to those used by male authors?
Until now studies on religious experience have paid little attention to gender differences; their primary data are often dealt with as if derived from asexual beings. This is a rich field inviting comparative investigation, yet at present the comparative study of female and male saints and mystics is still in its infancy. However, such religious figures, women of strong devotion and deep spiritual insight, are found in all religious traditions. They exercise a considerable fascination on contemporary women because they provide such inspiring role models in terms of female identity, autonomy and strength, even though their living conditions were in many respects very different from those of today. Here, more than anywhere else, women ask searching questions about which elements of the past remain usable for a viable religiosity and spirituality today.
Specific Studies
A close examination of the teachings of almost any religious tradition usually reveals a profound ambivalence towards women. Most religions seem to work with a double typology, presenting both negative and positive traits about women so that on one hand women feel subordinate and rejected while on the other they can discover religious elements which can inspire and transform, empowering them to seek equal space and participation in religious life and institutions. Many contemporary women's voices challenge traditional religion by expressing protest and anger, but there also exist voices of promise and prophecy which speak of women's newly found freedom and spiritual power and are of the utmost importance for the renewal of religion today.
I have explored these comparative themes in Women and Spirituality: Voices of Protest and Promise, which also contains a bibliography of over 500 titles on women and world religions [28: 229–59]. It is impossible to attempt to make even a small selection of books which might claim to be representative of this fast-growing area of religion and gender. All I can do here is to direct the reader's attention to some significant recent studies which contain again further bibliographical references.
Quite a few books now provide brief introductory surveys on women in different religions, but most of these remain descriptive of what religions have traditionally taught about women without including a critical analysis of these teachings. Wherever possible, it is preferable to study primary sources in a critical perspective. An excellent source book with texts from different religious traditions is Serenity Young's Anthology of Sacred Texts By and About Women [47]. This includes a general introduction discussing cross-cultural themes followed by texts from Judaism, Christianity, religions from the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome, northern European paganism, shamanism and tribal religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and alternative religious movements. This unusually wide collection shows clearly how the image and status of women have ofren been prescribed, idealized and vilified in a very similar manner in the sacred literature of different religions. An examination of the images and roles of women in specific religions is found in the earlier pioneering essays edited by Rosemary Radford Ruether under the title Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions [39] and in the more recently published papers on Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women by Julia Leslie [32].
The task of feminist reconstruction can be applied to particular aspects or periods of a religion or to the rethinking of the whole of a religious tradition. A radical rethinking of Christian origins through the reinterpretation of New Testament texts is found in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins [17], whereas the whole of Christian theology is reinterpreted from a woman's perspective in Rosemary Radford Ruether's Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology [40]; both were published in 1983. A fundamental contrast is represented by the work of Mary Daly who, ever since her ground-breaking book Beyond God the Father first appeared in 1974 [14], has devoted all her intellectual and publishing efforts to the radical deconstruction of Christianity. This has earned her the description of being a ‘post-Christian’, a designation shared by a number of other women writers, including Daphne Hampson with her study on Theology and Feminism (1990) [21].
A theological reconstruction of Judaism is offered by Judith Plaskow in her well-known book Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective [36], while the voices of Jewish women from past and present have been collected by Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton in Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality [44]. This is another book with excellent source material, a quarter of which is drawn from contemporary Jewish women writing after 1960.
Quite a few publications deal with women in Islam, either in general or wit reference to particular aspects of Islamic belief and practice, or describing the situation of Muslim women in particular countries. Very helpful are the critical studies by Fatima Mernissi, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry [34] and Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam [2]. Comparative studies are provided in Women's Studies of the Christian and Islamic Traditions by Kari Elisabeth Børresen and Kari Vogt [7].
An important book for the feminist reappraisal of central aspects of the Buddhist tradition is the study by Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis and Reconstruction of Buddhism [19], whose significance is enhanced by its methodological appendices which discuss feminism both as an academic method and as a social vision with an important impact on the study of religion.
Relevant texts from Jainism are examined by Padmanabh S. Jaini in Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women [22], while a feminist analysis of traditional and contemporary Sikh writings is found in Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh's book The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent [43]. Traditional aspects of different religious traditions are critically analysed in After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions edited by Paula M. Cooey, William R. Eakin and Jay B. McDaniel [13], and Catherine Wessinger's collection of essays on Women Outside the the Mainstream: Female Leaders in Marginal Religions in America [46] explores the little-known world of women founders and leaders of small religious groups outside the major religious traditions.
The number of specialized studies dealing with women in Chinese, Japanese or African religions, or with women in new religious movements, though small, is also steadily growing so that the traditional imbalance in our knowledge about men and women in different religions is slowly being modified. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole area of religion and gender is one of the richest and most rewarding fields of investigation in the contemporary study of religions. The intellectual importance of these developments is nowhere more apparent than when one examines some of the specific issues and themes common to several studies on women and religion.
Specific Themes
Contemporary feminist thinking is not only changing what we know but also challenging how we come to know by giving special attention to women's different experiences and ways of knowing. This has consequences for all disciplines and leads to an epistemological shift, that is to say a shift in the theory of knowledge, which has implications for practical action and ethics. New empirical observations on women and religion are closely related to the development of new theoretical reflections which are leading more and more to what Rosalind Shaw has called ‘the gendering of religious studies’ [30: 65–76].
In spite of women's general subordination and oppression through most of human history, empirical investigations of past and present lives reveal numerous women as active agents and religious subjects in their own right. Researchers have developed a special interest in women as religious actors – as shamans, witches, healers, nuns, ascetics and mystics. Such figures, widely found throughout the religions of the world, are often considered and revered as women apart who, although they possess little or no official, institutional authority, personally enjoy a high moral and spiritual authority among a wide group of followers to whom they give much help and counsel. Such female religious specialists are often recruited from among women who eschew traditional female social roles as wives and mothers or who have reached the biological limits of their womanhood through being beyond childbearing age. It is in fact extremely rare to find women who are at the same time both religious officiants of one kind or another and also wives and mothers.
There exist not only many examples of women religious actors but also of women religious innovators. Throughout the history of religions one can find numerous women leaders and participants in dissident and so-called heretical religious movements. Of particular interest is the role of women in new religious movements, sects and cults where their equal status and participation can by no means always be taken for granted. Women often take part in wider religious and social protest movements, but they also develop strategies of resistance for coping with their own situation of oppression. Some of these strategies draw much inspiration from different religious ideas and practices, such as specific beliefs about human destiny and salvation or practices such as prayer, fasting, religious songs and rituals, vows and pilgrimages.
Women's actual participation in religious life is one issue; the symbolic representation of women in the world of the religious imagination is quite another. Here again the double typology of the denigration and idealization of women is widely prevalent. Sometimes women are seen as sacred or as especially spiritual, whereas at other times they are considered as demonic and taboo. Serenity Young's analysis of persistent cross-cultural themes about women across different religious traditions mentions the particularly striking contrast of representing women as both evil and wise [47: xviii – xxii]. The symbolism of evil is tied up with other themes such as woman's body and sexuality, menstruation taboos, the figure of the witch and the fear of death. In opposition to these negative images many religions also possess the positive image of woman as a figure of wisdom. The feminization of the spirit of wisdom exists as Sophia in the Judeo-Christian traditions, in the goddess of wisdom in Mediterranean and Indian religions, and as the female boddhisattva of compassion found in the Far East.
Interest in the human body and in sexuality is a dominant cultural theme in present-day society. However, the revaluation of human physical existence, of sexuality and marriage, has not necessarily brought about the positive affirmation of women, nor has it led to the much-needed revision of traditional religious teachings on sexual ethics. The theme of sexuality and embodiment is central to contemporary feminist thought and there is much interest in feminist ethics, especially in the moral problems raised by new reproductive technologies and generic engineering. The wide range of views and taboos associated with female sexuality and bodily functions and the need for many reforms are well brought out in the reports on Women, Religion and Sexuality: Studies on the Impact of Religious Teachings on Women initiated by the WCC [4].
Moving from bodily existence to symbols of the sacred and transcendent, one must ask which experiences of the sacred, whether those of men or women, have been described by reference to female forms and images? Where are the female faces of the divine, and what kind of gender-related symbols are associated with what some authors call the human constructs of ultimate reality? Some religions abound in feminine imagery and symbolism, none perhaps more so than Hinduism; but the symbolic ascendancy of the feminine, particularly noticeable in Asian religions, often stands in inverse relation to the actual status of women in society, where it can go together with their denigration and subordination. The symbolic order is never a guarantor of empirical reality; on the contrary, it can often function as a compensatory projection of what is unattainable at the level of concrete reality constrained by numerous social norms and conventions.
Much contemporary feminist debate in Judaism and Christianity concerns the central challenge of whether traditional symbols, so heavily orientated towards the masculine, can be reformed or reconstructed, or whether they must be radically rejected and perhaps be replaced by new ones. A large amount of work has been done on the use of language and metaphor in relation to the image and concept of God. The dominant model of God in the Judeo-Christian traditions, almost to the exclusion of all other models, has been that of God the Father, but women theologians are now also exploring other models, such as those of mother, lover and friend [33: 91–180].
Some debates about the understanding of God explore the meaning of divine motherhood, but however empowering and affirming they are to some, the experience and image of motherhood are not necessarily always positive. Like God the Father, God the Mother can be an ambivalent model for the transcendent. Much writing is concerned with the nature of the Goddess, her historical and contemporary importance [3]. The theological reconstruction surrounding the Goddess has been termed ‘thealogy’ in order to distinguish it from traditional theology, largely centred on the perception of a divine male figure. The re-emergence of the Goddess as a vibrant religious and spiritual symbol among people in the West is linked to the contemporary reaffirmation of the body and sexuality, to the ‘Goddess within’ who is seen as a source of empowerment for women, and to an earth-based spirituality connected with ‘Gaia’, the sacred earth which needs to be revered to ensure the continuing renewal of life on our planet [18: 225–377]. This earth-centred spirituality, sometimes also understood as ‘creation spirituality’, is very significant in the contemporary search for ecological wisdom and has special importance in the ecofeminist movement too.
Besides exploring the different meanings of father and mother in relation to the understanding of God and representing the divine as Goddess, some women writers also recommend the conceptualization of divine life in androgynous forms or prefer a completely monistic approach to ultimate reality which transcends all human forms and images.
The relation between gender models and images of God is of great significance. This is particularly true in the Judeo-Christian traditions which teach that male and female are created ‘in the image of God’ (Genesis 1: 27). If this is truly so, then both women and men must be able to reveal something about this image. Yet throughout the ages the biblical texts on this matter have been interpreted in a very androcentric way whereby the human male on his own, or at best male and female together, but never woman alone, have been said to embody the image of God. The unsatisfactoriness and injustice of such an interpretation has only been recognized in recent times so that the holistic interpretation, whereby women and men are equally, and independently, defined as a God-like image, is a very modern development due to recent new insights into the meaning of human genderedness [6].
The lively discussions about the ‘imago dei’ – about being created in the image of God – indicate the crucial importance of reflecting critically on the question of what it means to be human as well as sexually differentiated. But they also show that gender-related symbols do not always provide an appropriate answer to this question, because such symbols function differently in different religious traditions. The perception of the transcendent may or may not include a gender component, but even where this is understood as a supreme being which is male, the dominant soteriology or message about human salvation seems to be ultimately gender-inclusive. Discussions around the theme of symbols and gender therefore demonstrate that it is not enough to look at female images and experiences alone, but that religious thought, language and practice have to be studied with reference to both genders and to the way in which they interrelate.
The emergence of feminist theology and spirituality provides powerful themes in the contemporary women's movement, also leading to changes in religious practice and to the creation of new prayers, songs and rituals. The existence of feminist theology, however diverse and pluralistic in orientation, indicates a lively struggle and includes many creative moments whereby positions of traditional faith and those of modern feminism have to be negotiated and brought together. In its widest, most inclusive sense the term ‘feminist theology’ can refer to all religious and spiritual developments in the women's movement, but its narrower and more precise meaning refers specifically to new theological developments in both Christianity and Judaism (each of which contains further distinct strands of traditional, reformist or revolutionary leanings). The term ‘feminist spirituality’ is often considered to refer to a separate religious development which is new and mainly occurring outside traditional religious institutions, but the boundaries are often fluid.
The situation of feminist theology has become more complex still through the development, mostly in the United States, of black ‘womanist theology’ by African-American women (a development also found in South Africa), of ‘mujerista theology’ (developed by women members of Hispanic groups in the US) and the distinct theological voices of Asian-American women. Thus one now has to speak of feminist theologies in the plural, a situation further enhanced by other distinct theological developments among women from different cultures around the globe [29].
Some women have changed their religious position from being practising Christians to a ‘post-church’ or even ‘post-Christian’ commitment, whereas others have taken a more active step and joined the lively new spirituality groups associated with the worship of the Goddess, or have become members of the modern Wicca movement or other alternative new religions.
Women's spirituality is an often-encountered theme in contemporary feminism and in its most inclusive sense is sometimes referred to as the ‘womanspirit movement’. It is worth pointing out that secular feminism contains already an implicit spiritual dimension; its struggle for the full humanity of women, for liberation from oppression, for peace and justice points not only to political, social and economic, but also ultimately to spiritual aims [28: 5–9].
Much has been written on women's spiritual quest and women's new empowerment from within. Prominent themes among others are women's discovery of their own self and its agency, their experience of bonding and networking, of creative re-imaging and renaming of the sacred, their growth in sensitivity to the interdependence and sanctity of all life, of experiments with new relationships and different community-building. Many of these topics are powerfully explored in contemporary feminist novels, some of whose main characters sensitively exemplify women's wide-ranging spiritual search for wholeness and integration and their struggle for the fullness of life. The rich texture of such experiences is also well reflected in the essays edited by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality [37] or those by Carol J. Adams on Ecofeminism and the Sacred [1]. The theme of spirituality also figures in many books on feminist theology, not least those by Asian women theologians who are speaking of a newly emerging spirituality arising from their encounter with the riches of their own indigenous spiritual heritage which is such an integral part of the religious pluralism of Asia.
Current Debates
The above summary of studies and themes conveys something of the tremendous range of developments which characterizes the field of women in religion. As the discussion has shown, however, it is not enough to pursue simply a historcal and phenomenological approach to the study of women in different religions, for such studies raise perhaps as many questions as they answer. The field of religion and gender requires a much more comprehensive perspective, and when this is pursued numerous new and very rewarding theoretical, philosophical and methodological questions are opened up and yield new insights. It is evident that women scholars of religion are helping us to gain a more differentiated understanding of the nature of the self, of religious experience and practice, and of our symbols and constructs of ultimate reality. Such work raises fundamental questions about the nature of religion as traditionally defined by Western philosophy, theology and sociology, but it also shows that cultural and religious definitions of femininity – of what it means to be a woman – cannot be critically examined without taking a new look at the dominant definitions of masculinity. Contemporary gender studies also include the new men's studies which apply the insights and results of critical feminist theory to a thorough re-examination of male genderedness, considered problematic in its traditional understanding and expression [8; 22].
The pluralism of questions and methods, together with the feminist perspective or angle of vision, distinguish contemporary women's studies from any traditional study of women. By now the field is growing larger still by focusing on the broader issues of gender rather than simply on contemporary women's studies. The radical feminist theologian Mary Daly has disparagingly dismissed such gender studies as being simply ‘blender studies’, but traditional androcentric presuppositions which underpin all past knowledge, in religion and elsewhere, cannot be fully dismantled without analysing the whole project of gender construction to its fullest extent. This requires a critical focus on both male and female gender roles.
Although the new men's studies make use of the insights and results of feminist scholarship, they lack at present the social and political urgency and existential commitment of women's scholarship. So far, too, they have not influenced the field of religious studies, but the complexity of gender-related symbols also requires a comprehensive rather than an exclusively woman-centred analysis. As Caroline Walker Bynum has pointed out: ‘Gender-related symbols, in their full complexity, may refer to gender in ways that affirm or reverse it, support or question it; or they may, in their basic meaning, have little at all to do with male and female roles. Thus our analysis admits that gender-related symbols are sometimes “about” values other than gender’ [10: 2].
The truth of this statement is clearly brought to light in the many case studies collected together in the volume Gender and Religion: The Complexity of Symbols [10]. Other publications which open up more inclusive religion and gender perspectives are With Both Eyes Open: Seeing Beyond Gender [24] and After Eden: Facing the Challenge of Gender Reconciliation [45]. The latter is concerned with ‘decentring’ white, Western feminism and challenges the concepts of masculinity and femininity by laying bare the sources of gender brokenness in the Western world. Committed to a Christian theological perspective, the authors examine various ways of dealing with human difference by proposing a model of gender reconciliation grounded in a Christian feminist vision which embraces both women and men.
For historical and practical reasons the discussion on religion and gender focuses at present primarily on a woman-centred approach which is itself part of the existing gender polarization, or what Sandra Lipsitz Bem [5] calls ‘the lenses of gender’. These lenses filter the hidden assumptions about sex and gender that are embedded in our cultural discourses, social institutions and individual minds. Religions have provided the fundamental matrix for many of these discourses, sacralized power and authority, and upheld a hierarchy of gender and social relations which now requires critical dismantling and creative transformation. Religious studies around the world have much to contribute to the theoretical and practical tasks involved in doing this, as is evident from the more than a dozen papers presented by an international group of women scholars in the collection on Religion and Gender [30].
Although critical work on religion and gender is at present still in its early stages, much territory has been mapped out already which indicates that these new and exciting explorations ‘will inevitably alter perceptions of female and male, the masculine and feminine, and perceptions of gender in religious studies as a whole’ [11: 94].
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