More than anything else, I think the lack of a clear answer is the result of the lack of a clear question. Let’s review the OP, with emphasis added by me:
There’s a presumption here that the great majority of religions are indeed misogynistic. But that is a very debatable subject, and I really recommend that this thread might belong in Great Debates for that very reason.
I know, for example, that in my religion (Judaism), there are a great many things which certainly SEEM misogynistic, but depending on how one understands them, they can seem not anti-women, or might even be pro-women.
I presume the same is true in other religions as well. If you take any random religion and find a woman who is active and proud in it, of course there’s a chance that she’s been brainwashed and/or resentful of the misogyny, but there are also such women who will defend such practices and feel genuinely unhurt by them.
also would like to point out that the term you use ‘** isn’t inherently misogynistic**’ does not equal ‘favoring women’ though it can include such religions.
There’s a presumption here that the great majority of religions are indeed misogynistic. But that is a very debatable subject…QUOTE]
Okay, perhaps the right questions is “Are there any religions that exist today or in the past that treat(ed) men and women as equals?”. That removes the inherent active unfairness from the equation.
I think many religions try to be equal, but in practice fail, not so much because of religious doctrine but because of a societal tendency to oppress women
Generally yes, although the Church of England is now grappling with the strong resistance of many conservatives to the thought of having female bishops: Reuters | Breaking International News & Views
We’ve had female clergy in the Episcopal Church (the post-American Revolution offshoot of the Church of England) since 1976, and female bishops since 1989. As it happens, our current presiding bishop is a woman: Katharine Jefferts Schori - Wikipedia
The Episcopal Church is very fair-minded and open to all. I’m proud to be a member.
Islam explicitly does not “treat women like farm animals.” Islam has very defined rights for women. For example, a polygamous man is required to spend equal time with his wives, and support them all equally, Women’s property rights and inheritance are laid out. In cases of divorce, women have certain rights.
This was a huge improvement to many older practices, where women were literally bought and sold, and discarded without a second thought. Even today, this is true in some areas. In Northern Cameroon, for example, a Muslim widow has the right to inherit property, and her husband’s family has an obligation to make sure she is supported. A woman practicing traditional religions would have no such protection, and would probably be sold as field labor, if she was lucky.
Of course, the cutting edge of women’s rights a thousand years ago isn’t really all that progressive today. But it’s not a worst-case scenerio.
Yes, the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, as have been all of her predecessors back to Henry VIII. She has no title within the Anglican Communion, though, as far as I know; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the top British bishop, is its symbolic but not empowered head.
I think that’s something that needs to be stressed. Some religious texts may appear misogynistic to us, but in their historical context they might have been quite progressive.
On the whole, it’s true that Buddhism, as it’s practiced today, doesn’t particularly favour women. Nevertheless, one of the oldest feminist texts, the Therigatha is part of fundamental Buddhist scriptures. It’s a book written by women about women, and it certainly paints a very egalitarian image of Buddhist doctrine. Certainly, it’s full of stories of women reaching enlightenment.
Early Buddhism reflected the fact that it arose in a very misogynistic culture. In several scriptural passages, mention is made that being a woman is undesirable, but this is ultimately presented as a condition that can be transcended. Buddhist nuns had to follow a much stricter code of conduct, but some scholars argue that much of the monastic code existed for the purpose of peaceful cohabitation with society at large. In other words, they did not allow novice monks to bow to nuns because it would make them look like extremists.
Christian Science is very heavily into gender equality on the face of it - there is frequently one Reader of each gender, they refer to God as asexual/androgynous (“Father-Mother God”) and the veneration of Mary Baker Eddy is, frankly, somewhat cultlike for some C-Scientists. Not sure how that carries over to the Church as a whole…
Likewise, the United Church of Canada, Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, believes explicitly in gender equality and has ordained women since 1936 (though the Canadian Methodists, one of the component churches of the UCC, had been ordaining women since 1880). A number of women have served as Moderators of the UCC, though this is not a sacred position and need not be held by a clergyperson (the current moderator is a lay woman).
When I first read the OP I thought of posting about Christian Science. My own take is that it reveres equality moreso than women. In Science and Health (often called the Christian Science textbook) Mary Baker Eddy wrote:
One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; con‐
stitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the
Scripture, “Love thy neighbor as thyself;” annihilates
pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in
social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves
nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.
I read once years ago that the godesses were worshipped before Gods came in to power. Archaeologists have found many small statues fom that time of female gods.
Yep. A lot of things need to be put in context: in a time and place where nobody had thought of giving women the right to vote, would it be mysoginistic to not let women vote in [church] business? It would have been, it was, business as usual.
There’s a bit of that going on in Conservative Judaism, too. There is a committee of rabbis that decides what Conservative Jewish law is, but local rabbis or congregations can decide to override that. They won’t get kicked out or told they can’t call themselves Conservative Jewish any more if they do.
In my experience, most Conservative synagogues do call women to the Torah and do not have separate seating for men and women. I certainly wouldn’t join one that didn’t call women to the Torah, did have separate seating, or did have a problem with women in leadership positions. These requirements have never been a problem for us when looking for a Conservative synagogue.
Not sure about Judaism, but there is no such thing in Islam.
No they don’t. You’re just making shit up.
Although one of my exes had been to Russia and showed me a dress she got there which was a regular tent, like an extra-voluminous muumuu but full-length. She said in the old days, Russian peasant women had to pull the plows (what, they didn’t have mules?), and they wore this type of dress for the work. My ex never wore the thing, of course, she just bought it to demonstrate the former status of Russian women.
As for Wicca, when Gardner put together the Gardnerian type of Wicca in the 1930s, he encoded hard and fast gender roles that appear obsolete to 21st-century eyes and are unfriendly to all gender variants.
My nominations for the best woman-friendly (and not man-unfriendly) forms of Witchcraft are Feri and Reclaiming. Both are radically egalitarian and liberatory as to gender. Every possible gender or combination thereof or lack thereof is welcomed and valued. I’m in Reclaiming, and I’ve never found any religion that suits me better; I felt absolutely at home in it for the first time in my life.
As for Dianic Craft, it’s a tragic failure. It could have been such an awesome deal for witch women if it hadn’t departed from positive feminist principles to become a misandric hate group. (Yes, guys, there is a difference between them.) If Gardner’s Wicca is stuck in the 1930s as to gender, Dianic Witchcraft is stuck in the 1980s’ sex wars. The world has moved on from that stuff.
Also: What everyone else said about UU. They are right on.
Matches my observations, too. There’s a lot of lip service to equality, but most of the movers and shakers in the community are the women.
Word. And that’s trickled down to a lot of Generic Neopaganism, as well. Where the hell does one stand when the Maypole is divided into two rings - men and women - if one has a gender not matching sex, or a gender that is neither exclusively male nor female? The good news is, I’ve had a LOT of interesting discussions with other Priest/esses about different ways to divvy people up without forcing everyone into a gender binary. The bad news is, the gender binary is still predominate in public rituals.
Yay! Glad you found your home. I really dig Reclaiming, except there was a witch war with my local group a few years ago that turned me off them in particular. sigh (And, wow, someone else who knows of Feri?! You’ve been seeking pretty hard, I can tell. That’s not well known even in neopagan circles.)
I think Dianic Wicca can be a good step along peoples’ Path, but it’s not a great final destination. I’ve found that some women really need that Wymmym Power energy and space for a time to shed their patriarchy baggage, but most who stay there for long are…not healthy.
Despite where it came from, I’ve found most Golden Dawn offshoots to be pretty egalitarian in practice, moreso than many Wiccan offshoots. There’s still a strong binary on paper, but powerful learned people of multiple genders in equal or nearly equal representation in the hierarchy. But that could just be my locals.
