GENDER AND GOD
Women from All Religions Are Pressing for Equal Treatment
by Sharon Adams

     As a child Nimira Lalani noticed how the men in the family seemed to make all the important decisions. As a young woman, she noticed women were not often in positions of authority in society, and began questioning why.

     As she learned about religion, Lalani noticed the diminished roles of women in her own and other faiths, and wondered why.

     So when Lalani became a graduate student of community health in the University of Calgary's faculty of medicine, she decided to explore the links between health, women and social participation.

     Lalani found she's not alone. Women in many faiths are questioning, too, pushing for reinterpretation of religious texts and new cultural expressions of those texts in order to feel more a part of their faiths.

     "Many women are searching for the feminine face of God," said Lalani, who presented research on women in religious traditions to the University of Calgary's annual spring gender research symposium.

     "I don't think there's any religion exempt from bias at its roots. Religion can do a lot of good, reaching out to the Divine and connecting with other people."

     But Lalani, who chose not to disclose her faith says, "I strongly believe that women's oppression has descended from the conceptualization of the Supreme Power as male."

     Women are excluded when hymns, texts and sermons use only the masculine pronoun in describing God and humans, and when women are denied significant roles in the religious hierarchy. Women's authority in religion and society is eroded or discounted when only men are figures of authority, said Lalani.

     Some women have given up on traditional faiths and turned to the Goddess movement for spiritual fulfillment. The Goddess represents female power as beneficent and independent. Any women at any stage of life can find herself reflected in the Goddess, depicted as a maiden, a mother and a crone, Lalani writes.

     But most other women press for changes within their own faiths.

     In religions the world over, women are pressing for equal representation and treatment.

     ORIGINAL BIAS

     Some, like Christian women, want reinterpretation of original texts.

     Interpreted in more patriarchal times, translations reflect a linguistic bias not found in the original texts, and events which could be described in non-sexist ways were given sexist interpretations.

     For instance, Lalani says that woman is often portrayed as created out of man, leading early interpreters to assert women are inferior and subordinate.

     The interpretation that woman was created last to reflect she was less important can be turned around: the order of creation indicates a progression, not regression, in importance.

     A reinterpretation of the belief man has dominion over woman because she was created from him, is that because God caused man to fall asleep before the creation of woman, man was neither a "spectator, participant nor consultant" at woman's creation.

     Cultural expressions of texts are being challenged in other faiths as well.

     The Qur'an is considered the word of God in unadulterated form, writes Lalani, but some teachings have been "extended to imply that women are inferior to men--physically, intellectually, even morally."

     Such subordination has limited Muslim women's participation in and contribution to political activity.

     For instance, while the Qur'an states only that women should dress modestly, veiling was the response when early contact was made with outside societies centuries ago. Many women continue to veil, many others have cast off the veil; others have adopted modest but not seclusionary clothing, she says.

     Questions remain about marital and legal practice. Many women are married before puberty, and divorce is easier for men. Women's inheritance is limited to half that of a man. In court, a man's testimony is equal to that of two women.

     Orthodox Jewish women are legally prevented from questioning a legal system created and continuously defined by men, Lalani writes. They are also precluded from leadership positions.

     The response by women has been to celebrate the feminine in rituals, but because the virtues emphasize wifely and motherly qualities, they "marginalize unmarried, divorced, widowed, separated and childless women."

     In Hindu tradition, women represent power and nature (which gives them a dangerous character) and growth, benevolence and prosperity.

     This "danger" is the excuse for excluding women from authoritative roles in their faiths and their homes, Lalani says. Law books emphasize control of women because of their evil character. Women's primary duty is to submit to male authority.

     FEMALE SOLIDARITY

     In Hinduism, women have access to salvation through devotion to deities. Women build female solidarity and seek alternative sources of religious power by participating in life-cycle rites that focus on the health and prosperity of the family.

     Even in the more egalitarian Buddhist tradition, cultural biases prevent women from full participation.

     Buddha preached to women and men, allowed women into religious communities and let them become nuns. Cultural stereotyping that associated female with the emotional and male with the rational is removed in Buddhism, which emphasizes meditation, contemplation and mysticism.

     CULTURAL BARRIERS

     Yet cultural practices still present a barrier: nuns are traditionally subordinate to monks. Women's monasteries are supported less than men's. To avoid temptations of the flesh presented by lay-women, monks squelched desire by describing laywomen in repugnant terms.

     It's important for religions to join women in addressing such problems, says Lalani. Religious symbols create attitudes and feelings that have consequences for social and political systems.

     It is insufficient to discard outmoded or sexist symbols, she says. They must be replaced by affirmative, empowering symbols with which people can identify.

     Lalani warns, however, that solutions must make sense in terms of each particular religion and culture.

     For instance, many Muslim women disapprove of the consequences of western liberation; the high divorce rates, sexual permissiveness and loss of male authority which ensures them care and protection and a family environment in which children are inculcated with sound values.

     So the solution for Muslim women will be different from that of women in other faiths. Nonetheless, it's important the issues be addressed, says Lalani.

     "I feel in order for religions to serve their purposes in a better way, they have to take into account the fact they are excluding half the congregation."