Concilium
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2006 / 3
Women's Voices in World Religions
Introduction
Hille Haker, Susan Ross and Marie-Theres Wacker
With the beginning of the new millennium, we observe a new political concern for women's concerns — be it in the Millennium Goals of the United Nations, or the World Development Reports that critically analyse the milestones that have been reached — and those that were forgotten in favour of other issues on the political agenda in international politics. On the other hand, we also observe a renewed conservatism in all world religions and within the study of religion, which we need to address.
In this issue, we take a look at the actual situation of women in different religions — as seen by those actors who in their particular cultural and religious traditions try to find their own perspectives, institutional positions and a space to reflect upon what it means for women to address their own questions. We hope to offer some insight into what women in different religions consider important, where they stand today; in this we wish to create some space for further interaction and dialogue. This we consider the most important outcome of this methodologically rather unusual issue. There have always been feminist theological contributions to specific issues of Concilium, as well as several issues that have been dedicated specifically to feminist theology. In contrast, this issue reflects on women's actual situations in their specific contexts.
We decided to ask women themselves to share their experiences and views. We asked them to write about their understanding and experiences of being a woman in their particular tradition and what they consider to be central questions today; to write about the institutional structures and the organization of leadership, and to focus on women's participation in leadership. Furthermore, we wanted to know the state of affairs of women's studies / feminism / gender theory in their traditions, and whether this approach is helpful for their own work, whether it is established on an institutional level. However, we did not send out a questionnaire or make use of any kind of sociological methodology, but rather sought to hear the authors' own voices into speech. [8]
While we were waiting for and reading the first articles, we began a conversation among ourselves about our own traditions, being European and Northern American editors, rather arbitrarily focusing on our own situation. The result of this beginning conversation is documented in our own contribution, as our own personal accounts, together with some initial information on feminism in Catholicism and Protestantism.
With inter-religious dialogue becoming more and more important in our social as well as in our academic contexts, we hope to provide you with texts written by those who are rarely asked first to contribute to the endeavour of inter-religious dialogue. With our more or less autobiographical approach, we believe that it is possible to intensify our own dialogue, and raise those questions which are of pivotal importance for us.
In the first section, two Jewish scholars give their account. Adele Reinhartz begins with a question that perhaps every religious person needs to address: the question of identity. With respect to women's role and women's identity within Judaism, she distinguishes between participation in the community life of a particular synagogue and identification within one of the Jewish denominations or movements. With regard to women's roles in the synagogue, she distinguishes between lay and cultic functions, on the one hand, and the different denominations, on the other. She also describes the diversity within Judaism: there are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Havurah movements, each of which has rather different perspectives on the role of women. Reinhartz's personal account is the way of a Jewish woman and mother who holds the Jewish way of life in high esteem but who, at the same time, subscribes to egalitarian, that is, feminist views. Reinhartz shows how she faces this tension, and concludes that in her own thinking it was not so much feminist theory but the practical women's movement that has most influenced her.
Elisa Klapheck, rabbi in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, gave us an interview in which she takes up our questions, and gives some insight into her work and position in the Beit Ha'Chidush. She talks about the transition from being an `ordinary' member of the community to holding a position of responsibility and gives her own account of how she was encouraged by Jewish feminist scholars. In the last part of the interview, Klapheck turns to the present situation of Jewish women in positions of leadership (such as rabbis, cantors, academics) and argues for a distinct European Jewish identity.
In the section on Christianity, Anne Nasimiyu-Wasike writes about the status of women in traditional family structures in Kenya, and gives her own account of how Christianity on the one hand played into the hands of the existing patriarchal structures that considered women subordinate, but [9] also extended this devaluation in considering them inappropriate for ritual services and positions of leadership, contrary to the roles women play in traditional African religion. Nasimiyu-Wasike addresses the problems of the difficult social and economic situation, and sheds light on its effects, particularly on women and girls. Although gender studies and feminism have been introduced in academic life in Kenya, it becomes clear that Christianity in Africa still has a long way to go before women's potential is acknowledged and developed.
Katerina Karkala-Zorba introduces the Orthodox perspective, focusing on women's roles in the Orthodox Church and in religious life. Drawing on Paul's concept of unity in Christ, she holds that the question of gender is a secondary question for Orthodox Christians. There is, however, a rich tradition and a place for women within the hierarchy that Karkala-Zorba interprets affirmatively. She criticizes feminist theology from a western point of view for not leaving sufficient room for a constructive interpretation of the tradition. At present, the ordination of women as deaconesses is being discussed within Orthodoxy, although the question of marriage raises other issues.
Virginia R. Azcuy, writing from an Argentinian background, emphasizes the roots of the Christian feminist movement in the tradition of liberation theology, but also stresses the critical relationship within that tradition because of its underlying understanding of femininity and gender roles. Women in general and female theologians in particular face a difficult situation in Latin America: although academia is open to them by now in most of the countries, the prospects of a professional life are rather dim. For this reason, women have begun to develop networks at the university level as well as at the level of pastoral work. This, she holds, is the first step in developing a distinctive perspective for feminist theology.
In the section on Islam, Hamideh Mohagheghi writes from her perspective as an Iranian-born Muslim woman living in Germany. She analyses women's scholarship and women's role in the teaching and interpretation of the Qur'an throughout history, and addresses the difficulty in the relation-ship of feminist theory and women's religious lives. Furthermore, she sees the tensions of German Muslim women who are caught in the challenge of adaptation to western culture while maintaining their own identity. Though arguing that both do not contradict each other, Mohagheghi is as critical of some western developments in lifestyle and culture as she is critical of some interpretations of the Muslim tradition. But she emphasizes that there is a specific Muslim `enlightenment' tradition that women (and men) in Islam can make use of today. [10]
Mehrézia Labidi-Maiza gives a personal account of her upbringing in Northern Africa and her decision to live women's emancipation without neglecting her religious tradition. The hijab, for her first and foremost a spiritual expression, has become a political symbol of Muslim women's struggle to find their own identity and position. Labidi-Maiza shows how she has come to learn to acknowledge the religious and cultural differences between herself, a highly educated Northern African woman with French nationality, and other Muslim women in her life context. She concludes by confirming equity and equality among men and women, which is needed to realize the partnership and solidarity upon which Islam is based.
In the section on Hinduism, Madhu Khanna's article presents a thorough and rich survey of the history of women's role in the Indian Hindu tradition, from the high valuation of the ancient goddesses, the increasing claim to women's subordination because of their inborn evil nature, to the `modern' struggle for equality and female identity since the nineteenth century. Khanna explores the gap between urban (elite) empowering and (rural) gender inequality; women's participation in local politics, and the question of leadership within the Hindu tradition. Moreover, she introduces new initiatives in feminist and gender studies, together with the establishment of centres for women's studies, and argues for a hermeneutics that could enrich the feminist approach which at present has a rather `western' shape. In order to address the Indian and Hindu diversity and plurality, she develops a framework for gender research, starting with critical text analysis, the exploration of the Goddess tradition, and the regional oral sources representing the diverse Hindu culture and religion.
Lina Gupta offers more insight into one specific part of the Hindu tradition, namely the Autumn Festival of the goddesses in India. Brought up in India as a Hindu, Gupta came to share the ecofeminist approach in the USA, and did a lot of research on the Hindu Goddess tradition. In her article, she draws not only on this but also integrates the voices of Indian Hindu women she interviewed during several trips to India; often enough, she claims, Hindu women are met with western prejudices about their actual lives, so that spreading their views in itself can be seen as critiquing particular west-ern victimizing attitudes towards Hindu women. Describing the Autumn Festival of the goddesses, as it is celebrated in Bengal, Gupta responds to the assumed equation of Hindu women and oppression, and gives a lively picture of the `source of strength and power of Hindu women'. Centred around the `mother goddess' Durga, women find a space to interrupt their ordinary lives where inequality is more caste-based than gender-based, as one of the interviewed women, Maya Sen, writes. In the final part of her [11] article, Gupta focuses on the major concepts of Hinduism that have influenced her, namely the concept of the divine, of self-realization, of respect for other traditions, and of active non-violence.
In the section on Buddhism, Young-Mi Kim reflects upon the Korean Buddhist tradition that has had a very important impact on Korean history especially between 918 and 1392. Neo-Confucianism, she recalls, brought an end to women's admission to temples, and their subordination and confinement to the family circle remained more or less unchanged until the twentieth century. With regard to Buddhism, however, she notes that even in the times of Buddhist oppression by Neo-Confucianism, women did not comply as well as men did with the restrictions — resulting in the fact that women are now the vast majority of Buddhist believers, as well as in the religious orders. Kim tells how a woman's religious life is centred on the family, without her having much opportunity to participate in public social and political life. Furthermore, she also sheds light on the life of Buddhist nuns. The last decades, Kim writes, have seen a shift in the attention to social as well as gender issues in Korean society and within Buddhism — due mostly to lay women and nuns who made this shift possible. Kim explores the Buddhist tradition with respect to gender equality, and shows how different schools present different views on this. Despite this, the Korean Buddhist Women's Development Institute was established in the late 1980s, and has taken up several social projects together with inter-religious collaboration with the Christian Church.
Rita Gross, US-Buddhist feminist scholar, writes about her long journey into Buddhism, particularly as a western feminist who could not and would not close her eyes to the tensions between this religion and feminism. Looking back at her own personal experiences, it becomes clear that feminism in Buddhism for her is first and foremost a question of spiritual leadership. Gross argues that as long as there is no equality in this leader-ship, namely as many female teachers of Buddhism as male teachers, she cannot see that gender does not matter. Writing about her relationships to both male and female teachers, she emphasizes this claim that connects the two main sources of her religious identity: feminist Buddhism.
This issue ends with a bibliography on `Women in World Religions' that we hope will be helpful for anybody who wants to continue her or his reading.
