[Vision2020] Gender Discrimination Part II

[Art Deco]

From:  The Washington Post

Religion lays foundation for gender discrimination
Frances Kissling  | Apr 13, 2011 6:59 PM

When women of different faiths who are committed to women's equality get together, there is little space between their views. They agree that official, internal discrimination against women which withholds the most important leadership roles from them is rampant. At the same time, no institutional religious leader accepts the premise that he or his denomination seriously discriminates against women. Heaven forbid! If it were not for religion, women would not be educated and would have minimal health care. Increasingly religious leaders speak out publicly against some human rights abuses women experience, but minimal efforts are made within the congregation to curb violence against women in the family. 

The absence of a commitment to eliminating gender discrimination is most evident in the denial of opportunities for spiritual or congregational leadership. Whether it is the persistence of laws and practices that prevent Muslim women from leading prayers in many mosques or the fact that few women rabbis are heads of class A synagogues, or even the fact that Tibetan Buddhism, the branch led by the Dalai Lama has not yet fully ordained a single woman while Chinese, Korean and other branches of Buddhism have women know we are not equal. The kind of leadership that actually influences teaching and policy, the top "jobs", are still reserved to men. I know this best in my own faith Roman Catholicism so I will discuss that, but let me be clear gender discrimination is pervasive within almost all religion. 

It was in the mid 1980's that theologian Dan Maguire and I were on Nightline discussing the role of women in the Catholic church with then Archbishop John Foley who was the president of the Pontifical Council of Social Communications. The archbishop was insisting that the Catholic church did not discriminate against women. He pointed to great women the church honored; mostly long dead ones like Mother Frances Cabrini and St. Catherine of Sienna, and, of course, Mother Teresa. Dan quipped immediately "Why not make Mother Teresa a cardinal if you value her so much?" Foley was momentarily taken aback, although there was a hint of a smile. Recovering, Foley noted that "Mother Teresa had not expressed an interest in such a position." She was, he implied, an appropriately humble woman who would not seek such office, in fact she would probably turn it down if asked.

Now, does anyone seriously think there is a male priest around who would say "Lord, I am not worthy?" In the 1980's a sense of entitlement was still the province of men. I thought things had changed until I read a 2010 interview in the Washingtonian with Fr. Tom Reese, considered a progressive Jesuit, so progressive, that the Vatican sought and ultimately got him fired as editor of the Jesuit magazine America. Reese was asked what issues were off limits in the church but should be considered. He acknowledged that "a lot of them are in areas that affect women-birth control, abortion, women priests, married priests. The more educated a woman becomes, the more alienated she becomes from the church. That's a recipe for disaster. The church can be run without men; it cannot be run without women." "Wow," I thought "this is great." And then the shoe dropped. Reese explained why women were important. "Women pass on the faith to the next generation. They teach their kids their prayers, they talk to them about God. They are interacting with kids all the time. Priests get five minutes on Sunday." 

Sure, an argument can be made that educating the next generation as parent is the highest form of contribution to faith. But if that is true, how come so few male religious leaders choose that role? What Reese seemed unable to link the fact that most of the issues the church did not wish to discuss - sexuality and reproduction, women priests and married male and female priests had to do with the fact that women were not in formal leadership roles. So long as the issues of intimate human relationships were seen as the province of women and of culture while the big political issues of war, poverty, migration, violence and the theological issues such as how we image God and what is expected of us in the larger world, solutions to the problems of discrimination against women in both society and the world would elude us. As long as boys and girls watching a papal visit or attending mass see only men dressed for success and believe only the boys can grow up to lead women will not be equal. The role the religion plays in gender discrimination is to lay the foundation for it.

Frances Kissling  | Apr 13, 2011 6:59 PM



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