Category Archives: Feminism and Religion

Caroline Corbin (Miami) has posted to SSRN her essay, Religious Liberty in a Pandemic,70 Duke LJ. Online 1 (2020): Here is the abstract: The coronavirus pandemic caused an unprecedented shutdown of the United States. The stay-at-home orders issued by most … Continue reading →

Musa Usman Abubakar (Associate Professor in the Department of Islamic Law at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria) has published a new book, Gender Justice in Islamic Law (Hart 2018). Here is the publisher’s description: This book seeks to interrogate the classical … Continue reading →

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (Professor Emerita, University of New Mexico School of Law) is running for Congress! Her official campaign page is here.  The page includes the candidate’s views on a variety of issues including these: Antoinette believes strongly that women … Continue reading →

In 2015, for the American Jewish World Service’s Chag v’Chesed (“Celebration and Compassion”) series, Justice Ginsburg published a Passover story that highlights the role of women in the Exodus.  Here’s an excerpt: These women had a vision leading out of … Continue reading →

Via Anita Silvert at JUF News: It started with Dr. Susannah Heschel. The story you may have heard goes something like this: After a lecture given in Miami Beach, a man (usually Orthodox) stood up and angrily denounced feminism, saying … Continue reading →

From author Elana Maryles Sztokman over at The Jewish Week: Yom Kippur asks us to forgive, but this a challenge for me because I think forgiving can be much harder than asking for forgiveness — especially if we are expected … Continue reading →

Over at Jewish Women Watching: In these days of repentance, ask yourself: Is the leader of my organization a man? Is the board of my organization more than 50% men? Is my rabbi a man? Why? Plus feminist Rosh Hashana … Continue reading →

Writing the Jewish Women’s Archive (here), student Dina Lamdany has these reflections on the “gender-neutral” quality of Yom Kippur: The morning Torah reading is about the Kohen Gadol’s (high priest) Yom Kippur service in the temple, and the afternoon reading … Continue reading →

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 →