Category Archives: Feminism and Religion

From colleagues at Brandeis, this CFP: GENDERED RITES/GENDERED RIGHTS: Sex Segregation, Religious Practice, and Public Life Call for Papers The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law seeks paper proposals for an international conference entitled Gendered Rites/Gendered … Continue reading →

From Reuters (here): The largest organization of U.S. Catholic nuns on Friday rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops. … Continue reading →

Marie Ashe (Suffolk) has posted to SSRN her article Women’s Wrongs, Religions’ Rights: Women, Free Exercise, and Establishment in American Law, 21 Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review 163 (Fall 2011).  Here is the abstract: This article provides an … Continue reading →

Caroline Mala Corbin (Miami) has posted to SSRN her chapter “Expanding the Bob Jones Compromise,” which will appear in the forthcoming Cambridge U Press book edited by Austin Sarat, Matters of Faith: Religious Experiences and Legal Responses in the United … Continue reading →

A reader of the NY Times sent in this letter to the paper after reading about the Vatican’s condemnation (see here) of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest organization of U.S. nuns: I am a lifelong Catholic, 80-plus … Continue reading →

Via The (UK) Telegraph, this story of vandalism to a billboard outside an Anglican church in Auckland, New Zealand: A scissor-wielding protester has destroyed a controversial billboard of the Virgin Mary, just days after it went up outside a New … Continue reading →

Writing for Sh’ma (here) in 2005, Martha Ackelsberg (Political Science, Smith College) asked, “How Can a Feminist Like Me Enjoy a Liturgy Like This?” My secret is now out: I actually enjoy the Yom Kippur Avodah Service. How can this … Continue reading →

Leslie C. Griffin (Houston) has posted to SSRN her essay Smith and Women’s Equality, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2011).   Here is the abstract: This essay was part of a Cardozo symposium celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the landmark … Continue reading →

Even Time magazine is hip to the orange on the seder plate: Some may consider the orange a symbol of women’s rights, derived from a man supposedly telling Professor Susannah Heschel that “a woman belongs on the bimah [in a … Continue reading →

Caroline Mala Corbin (Miami) has posted to SSRN her article Nonbelievers and Government Religious Speech, 97 Iowa L. Rev. __ (2011).  Here is the abstract: In the past few years, nonbelievers have become much more prominent in the United States. … Continue reading →

This short film is narrated by Susan Sarandon and is about women religious in the United States.  Here’s the description from the film’s website: In the February 23, 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey made a seemingly serious … Continue reading →

Rebecca Alvin (Cape Cod Community College) has made a documentary film, “Women of Faith”, about women and the Catholic Church.  Here is the description from the film’s distributor, Women Make Movies: This absorbing documentary examines women’s decisions to lead religious lives … Continue reading →

This postcard was on every seat when a colleague arrived at her local synagogue for Rosh Hashanah services.  (I have redacted the name of the congregation.)  My colleague was irate, and asked others sitting around her whether they, too, found … Continue reading →

The proposed construction of a Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan has received national media attention.  Earlier this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a tremendous plea for tolerance.  It is one of the best political speeches I have … Continue reading →

Why a women’s seder?  Here’s how Rabbi Susan Fendrick explains (here): To read the biblical story of the Exodus with open eyes is to understand Passover as, among other things, a celebration of women’s heroism. But in the traditional haggadah, … Continue reading →

Ilan Fuchs (Schusterman Visiting Israeli Professor, Tulane; Bar Ilan University) has posted to SSRN his paper,  “‘Sephardic’ Halakhah? The Attitude of Sephardic Decisors to Women’s Torah Study: A Test Case”.   Here is the abstract: This paper examines Sephardic rabbinic … Continue reading →

In this column Nicholas Kristof briefly discusses intersections of gender and religion. It made me think back to this Pandagon post and the associated comments thread. Generalizing about “religion” is deeply problematic. –Ann Bartow

From the National Catholic Reporter: Mary Daly, radical feminist theologian and a mother of modern feminist theology, died Jan. 3 at the age of 81. She was one of the most influential voices of the radical feminist movement through the … Continue reading →

In this month’s Hadassah magazine, a story about a Modi’in,   Israel educator who has added a female role to his dramatic interpretation of the Hanukkah tale of Judah the Maccabee who led the Hasmonean people in defying Syrian Greek … Continue reading →