|
| Feminism and Religion |
Feminism and Religion ...
======================
MONTHLY FEATURE: Feminism and Religion/ Spirituality.
======================
Many religions have strong convictions around not holding individual power and yet as soon as religions become institutionalised there is a requirement that someone hold 'judicial' power over doctrines and power over who can delegate and the patriarchy rears its ugly head and women are marginalised once again. The ABC's Religion Report provides some excellent readings to kick the discussion off and we're looking into the possibility of a guest speaker. Happy reading... and happy talking.
The question of women's authority in the church continues to fuel passionate debate. The New Testament implies that there were once women deacons, but a recent Vatican-sponsored theologian's committee is not so sure. The priesthood, of course, remains a closed shop. This week Sydney's Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, appointed his wife a deacon, but Anglicans are divided on women's ordination to the ministry. We talk feminism, sociology and theology with campaigner Patricia Brennan; National Convenor of Movement for the Ordination of Catholic Women, Jane Baker; and Netherlands-born theologian John Wijngaards.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2002/728953.htm
In 2003, an organisation called the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice was established in Ontario to serve as an arbitration body for Ontario's Muslim communities. The Institute was set up to use principles of Islamic law to arbitrate on matters of family and inheritance, and Muslims would be required to use it rather than the secular courts to settle disputes, as a testament of their faith - and that women will be pressured into taking family disputes to the Islamic courts rather than the secular courts. The argument was that Ontario's existing Arbitration Act already allows religious groups to resolve family disputes in-house, provided the judgements are consistent with secular Canadian law. Orthodox Jewish groups have their own courts, so why shouldn't Muslims? Well since then, alarm bells have been ringing all over Canada, particularly on the part of Muslim women's groups, who say that Islamic law doesn't view women as equal to men, and that therefore it can't provide justice on issues of divorce, or child custody or the division of property. In June last year, Ontario's former Attorney-General Marion Boyd was approached by the government to review the existing Arbitration Act. In December, the Boyd Report was handed down, and it proposes that the Arbitration Act should continue to allow disputes to be decided using religious law.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2005/1334120.htm
It's over a week since former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw made his incendiary comments about the naqib, but with debate still raging in the press, the veil row shows no sign of abating. Stephen speaks with Islamic law expert Jamila Hussein about the significance of these comments, the veil and women in Islam.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2006/1767486.htm
A Victorian Muslim women's group takes on issues of power and representation. Are women emerging as the voice of progressive Islam in Austalia?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2005/1290321.htm
Public sex education programs in conservative Islamic societies are beset with difficulties - and dangers - for those who run them. We talk religion and taboo with sex researchers from Iran and Pakistan.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2002/745059.htm
The Australian Anglican Church's Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) celebrates its twentieth anniversary this month. But with several dioceses - among them the influential Sydney diocese - still banning women from becoming priests, does the anniversary mark victory or defeat?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2003/860046.htm
Controversy over the ordination of women is not confined to the Christian churches; it is also a hot-button issue in Buddhist countries. Venerable Dhammanada Bhikkuni is a Buddhist nun living in Thailand, where the ordination of women to the Buddhist priesthood is attracting political attention.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2003/898138.htm
The Diocese of Cairns recently hosted the first-ever National Conference for Women Leaders of Catholic Church Agencies. It was attended by a range of women from all over the country who administer Catholic organisations looking after education, social justice and health care. Women's ordination wasn't on the agenda for discussion, partly in obedience to the previous Pope, John Paul II, who decreed in 1994 that ordination would only ever be open to men. But the women at the Cairns conference certainly weren't sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, in fact they provided ample testimony to the fact that a bar on ordination hasn't stopped women from taking the reins of power in the church. Which at the same time isn't to say that women now hold equal status with men in the eyes of the hierarchy. Therese Vassarotti is Executive Officer with the Commission for Australian Catholic Women; she also co-chaired the Cairns conference. I asked her if she felt that women in Catholic leadership positions should be using their influence to lobby for women's rights within the church?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2005/1381641.htm
Last week we reported on the practice of Australian Muslim families sending their daughters overseas into arranged marriages
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/a/ar/arranged_marriage.htm>
This week we thought we'd take a closer look at some of the issues that surround marriage in Muslim families. Maha Abdo is a relationship counsellor with the Australian Muslim Women's Association, and she finds that religion, far from being an oppressive force in young people's lives, is actually enabling them to stand up to their parents on such issues as forced marriage.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2005/1470398.htm
Finally, and staying with the topic of impressive women in religion, the Great Synagogue of Sydney has been the hub of Australia's Orthodox Jewish community since was built in 1878, and it's just seen the election of a new president. Her name is Rosalind Fischl, and she's the first woman in Australian Jewish history to be elected president of a major Orthodox synagogue. An editorial in this week's Australian Jewish News commented that Rosalind Fischl's election 'will go down in history as a turning point in the growing enfranchisement of women in Orthodox Judaism'. But there are limits on how far she's going to be pushing the boundaries. I spoke with Rosalind Fischl yesterday at the Great Synagogue, and asked her what the president of a synagogue does.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2005/1488026.htm
Stephen Crittenden: It strikes me that there are other issues involved here that create this atmosphere of willingness to support this idea. One is, of course, that you've got women bishops, and have had for some years now, and that those women who went through the women's ordination fights twenty years ago, are certainly not going to be supportive of a conservative position on an issue like the ordination of Gene Robinson, are they? Andrew St John: No. And behind the whole women's issue, of course, is the whole civil rights tradition, and I think Australians easily forget that. But that is a very, very strong theme in American life, that they fought the fight on behalf of Afro-Americans, and that is very deep-seated in the culture. And the women's issue and the gay issue are seen as civil rights issues.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2003/977546.htm
THIS FEATURE TOPIC HAS BEEN RESEARCHED AND COLLATED FOR THE FEBRUARY 2007 BFO NEWSLETTER
|
|
|
|
|
| Comments - Make a comment |
| The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
|
|
| What's Related |
| These might interest you as well
Web Pages
Bulletin Board
Announcements
|
|
