Modern world sets lots of problems for human beings and every time it is a considerable challenge for the mankind to try to solve this or that problem. One of these problems is the issue of gender inequality that troubles people a lot because touches every single person. But, to be true, this very gender problem is not the point of today, it appeared many centuries ago. The humankind developed together with this problem, attitudes towards it changed throughout the course of centuries but the problem itself did not disappear.
From the earliest times of human history people paid their attention to the inequality of men and women and, of course, both sides treated this issue differently. The history of human beings knew the periods when matriarchal societies existed, as well as patriarchal ones. Sometimes, this depended upon the epoch this society existed in, sometimes upon the culture of this or that nation. But, in any case, when one sex started to dominate another on would always claim that it was suppressed. Even nowadays matriarchal societies can be found, especially in the countries of Asia, where the power of women is doubtless.
The book that is to be considered in this critical essay is dedicated to the problem of gender inequalities, and namely feminism and its relation to religions of the world, their interaction and impact upon each other. This is the book by a prominent American writer Rita M. Gross called “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction”. The author of the book is widely known as a feminist and religious writer whose views arise a lot of controversy but are supported by the majority of activists of women rights movements in her country and abroad. Rita M. Gross is acknowledged as an expert in the fields of religion, especially Buddhism, and feminism, so her point of view in these issues, which she tried to express in her book, must be thoroughly considered.
The book “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” was first published in 1996 and has become a real masterpiece of feminist literature since that time. It concerns the most important points of the interrelations between religion and feminism, as well as between them both and an academic subject of religious studies. The role of women in many religions is one of the most important questions touched upon in the book. And, probably, the leitmotif of the book is an attempt to change the social attitudes and accepted judgements about religions and the way they are taught to people. So, let us now take our time and examine the book by Rita M. Gross critically in order to see the essence of the book and the competence of the author in the current issue.
The main idea of Rita M. Gross in her book “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” is the change of social stereotypes concerning religion, the way it is taught in educational and religious establishments. What is also very important is the role of women in the development of this or that religion, and, correspondently, the changes that are needed in the traditional science in connection with the shift of attitudes towards women. Simply to put it, Rita M. Gross wrote her book in order to show how deep was the delusion in the traditional history and some other sciences that are dedicated to study of men exclusively.
This is only one of “the four central issues for feminism and religion” (p. 2). Among others are such points as a sharp necessity to include the information concerning women in the religions of the world for the purposes of making those religions objective and not sexist. The second point derives from the previous one and expresses the thought formulated by Rita M. Gross, according to which the religious studies and the history should be rewritten and reread after the demanded information about women is added. The third basic point of the book examines the impact of the feminist movement upon the religions and suggests that all religions should be more feminist than androcentric because it makes them much more objective and complete.
These main ideas of this book are supported by the correspondent statements and thoughts expressed by Rita M. Gross and by other scientists dealing with the issue of gender in different countries, cultures and epochs. The author herself asks a question: “Are the world’s major religions inevitably sexist and disadvantageous to women, or are they inherently egalitarian and reformable, despite their patriarchal veneers?” (p. 2) This lines display the very essence of the book and of the whole feminist movement and religion as its part. They demonstrate that the current state of things with the religion and the role women play in it can not be called acceptable. From this expression of women’s attitudes it is evident that women are not satisfied that they were or still are discriminated, as if they belonged to some other natural species of animals, other than men. Feminists struggle for the admittance of women’s equality with men and their rightful participation in all spheres of activity of the human society.
From this the definition of “feminism” is easily formulated by Rita M. Gross. She calls “feminism” simply “the conviction that women really do inhabit the human realm and are not ‘other,’ not a separate species” (p. 16). This means, as the author explains further, that women must be treated as same human beings as men because they represent the same species. This very point leads the author to the idea of religious and scientific inequality, or so-called “androcentrism”. Rita M. Gross says that androcentric scholarship and religion can never be objective or neutral towards women, because it represents the sphere of knowledge connected only with males. Especially, when this point is used speaking about religious studies, it is much more common to study the deeds of males. All major religions of the world, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. are reflections of the patriarchy that was a norm of the society they were created in. Religious studies also operate with their terms and bear little information of women and for women.
The author does not agree with the present state of things and rejects the point of view that can be heard very often. This point suggests that feminist scholarship, as well as religion influenced by feminism, might be biased according to gender and, due to this reason, can not be treated as an objective one either. Opposing to this, the author of the book speaks of the completeness of this kind of science and gives her own evidence of this point of view being false:”… in my viewpoint, gender-balanced and gender-inclusive scholarship is far more objective than androcentric scholarship, simply because it is more complete” (p. 16) This is said by the author because it is evident for her that one should not exclude an integral part out of a single whole, i. e. if a half of pages are torn out of a book a reader will wonder where are those pages, but no one wonders where are the scientific and religious data about a half of the mankind.
Rita M. Gross also adds that in the history of human religions and sciences it is considered to be something awful when a distinction between males and human beings appears, but no one sees anything bad in the fact that throughout the history of the mankind such a distinction was used to speak of women: “Egyptians allowed women…” This line does not need any continuation because the phrase it starts with shows how low respect to women was in those times in the Egyptian society. If the situation was better, and women were rightful members of the Egyptian society that line would sound like that: “In the Egyptian society men do X and women do Y…” But the reality in that epoch was worse than it can be imagined, and Egyptians were not an exception from global tradition. Only with the appearance of feminism and such writers like Rita M. Gross the situation with rights of women started to change for better.
The author of the book also rises the problem of standards in the study of this or that science or religious studies. The third chapter of the book called “Where Have All the Women Gone?” is dedicated to the detailed analysis of this problem. Rita M. Gross sees the inevitability of the appearance of the androgynous paradigm in the study of any science and religion defining it as follows: “An androgynous paradigm demands that scholars be interested in women and what they do in the same way that we have always been interested in what men have done and thought. “ (p. 70).
Speaking about the standards in the study of a certain matter in religion, the author points out that, first of all, there is a need to find those who sets these standards. For example, feminist scholars must make attempts to find out who says what should be studied and what should not, which events are suitable for studying and which are not. This includes, for instance, the study of the women’s role in the development of the Christianity. No one can argue that women were very seldom leaders of some Christian religious institutions but the contribution made by women to the progress of this very religion. Giving the thoughts of other scholars, like Eleanor McLaughlin, the author of the book suggests that “’In this world of spirituality…women are found who speak and write, who made history and shaped a tradition. Men do dominate the history of theology and of church institutions. But it is a judgment and a choice, rather than an objective datum, to conclude that these subjects are what one should study in the history of Christianity.” (pp. 67 – 68).
In the fourth chapter of her book, Rita M. Gross pays much attention to one of the most controversial questions in the modern feminist literature and asks if all the religions of the world are sexist in their nature or some exceptions do exist. Having studied a lot of works of feminist authors from all over the world, the author presents this argument from all possible points of view, including those defending women’s rights and those that stand for the further existence of the androcentric society. The analysis of this question does not stop at the study of the western feminist tradition and religions of western nations, such as Christianity. Rita M. Gross is widely known in the United States of America and abroad as an expert in the field of religious studies, and especially in its sphere that concerns Buddhism, so great attention is paid to the role of women in this Asian religion, as well as to the comparison of religions based on the role they give to women in their development.
The last chapter of the book “Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” is dedicated to the most significant issue of feminism in the modern world. This is the issue of the future of women, i. e. which changes can be and must be done to reconsider the history of the mankind and the essence of this or that religion after the role of women in them is proven and restored. These changes should include such things as political correctness or the so called inclusive language, admission of the influence of feminism and women on the whole for the development of a certain religion. The existence of “feminist religions”, i. e. religions influenced much by the idea of gender equality, can not be doubted according to Gross, who asks a question: “Why are all the religions in the world based upon a male image? Why the God or Allah is considered to be men?” And the whole book by Rita M. Gross is the answer to these questions.
To express my personal opinion of the book, I would like to state the following. I am not a feminist at all, and before reading this very book I have never even thought that feminist values can appeal so close to my views and beliefs. “Feminism and Religion” represents a wide range of facts and thoughts that can persuade a reader that the situation with the rights of women really needs considerable improvements. Specific examples of ancient and modern religions being completely androcentric leave no space for discussion. Even people who are not concerned about the topic at all and who are satisfied with the current state of things start to think of the problem after reading this book.
The examples from the books dedicated to the study of the history of Egypt, lines from books concerned with the study of various religions of the world look very convincing and relevant to the topic of the book. Here we can not even say that any relevant or important fact was omitted by the author, the full range of data, sometimes unfamiliar to the most educated scholars makes this book one of the best sources of information on feminism and its impact upon religious studies.
To assess the logical consistency of the authors thought it is enough to take a look at the structure of the book. It starts with the introduction to the topic, including the background of the problem its history and causes. Than the definitions of the most relevant terms of the research are given including the notions of such basic phenomena as religion, religious studies and feminism. After this the four basic problems of feminism at the modern stage of its development are formulated and speculated upon. Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a certain topic and is disclosed in great detail thus allowing the reader to be in the topic. Probably, the only disadvantage of the book is the language it is written in. I mean that in some aspects the author operates with some terminology and it is somewhat difficult for ordinary people to go into the issue because they can understand not all the words they read.
As for the values of Rita M. Gross it is hard to judge. As it has already been mentioned, I am not a feminist and before reading this book I could not understand the problem and, respectively, the purpose of the book. But having read a couple of chapters I started to think more attentively about the words I was reading. Examples that proved the discrimination of women that existed in the society earlier and still exists nowadays made me realize that my values can be called feminist to a much larger extent than I could think. After the book is read I can say that I support the majority of evident and implicit values expressed by the author of “Feminism and Religion”. I am not a radical supporter of the feminist values and ideas but I feel like supporting the actions directed at making improvements to the situation with gender equality and women rights.
All the above said allows us to make the following conclusion for this critical essay. The issue of gender inequality is rather significant nowadays and the book by Rita M. Gross presents the wide range of various data relevant to the topic thus being one of the fullest sources of information on this point. The factual material, thoughts and specific examples they are supported with are the factors that make this book useful for every person dealing with the issues of feminism and religion. Although some terms in the book are not clear for an average reader and thus complicate the understanding, the transparent structure and the logical manner of presenting the information compensate this disadvantage.
Works Cited
Gross, R. Feminism and Religion. 2 edition, Beacon Press; 1996.