Feminism and Religion

Structural Inequality and State-Sanctioned Oppression of Women by NCRI

Moderator’s Note: This post has been posted in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking by link below. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post. As an introduction, a NCRI representative sent us the following statement about the war. It was originally posted on March 11th and we are reposting it because of its importance.

STATEMENT: I would like to mention that the Iranian Resistance — which established a government-in-exile years ago — has long advocated a clear position: no to war, no to appeasement of the mullahs, but a third option — regime change by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Resistance and an internationally recognized figure, has outlined this vision in her Ten-Point Plan. I am sharing the link below, as it reflects the roadmap of the Iranian Resistance. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for the future of Iran

Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes dealings and political interests have often ignored this democratic alternative. In recent days, a provisional government framework has also been announced as part of this process. Announcement of the Provisional Government by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

I Believe Dolores by Marie Cartier

I played Dolores Huerta in an adaptation of Antigone Too: Rights of Love and Defiance, at the feminist theater in Minneapolis, At the Foot of the Mountain, in 1983. When the theater closed in 1991, it was the longest continuously operating women’s theater in the United States. For Antigone Too, they brought, I think, twenty- five actresses from around the country to play twenty-five significant women who stood up for social justice. We had parts illustrating our histories, interspersed throughout the traditional script of Antigone.

I got the part of Dolores Huerta—championing the cause of social justice for farm workers.

I loved the character and I was deeply honored to become her. (Today I question why I, a woman with white skin privilege, but native heritage, was chosen for this role—but at the time I was just intensely grateful.)

Ariadne & Me – Betrayers by Arianne MacBean

Two of the most well-known aspects of mythical Ariadne are the way she betrays and is betrayed. Hers is the ultimate ancient Greek karma story. She casts off the burden of her father’s narcissism, her mother’s bewitchment, her half-brother’s torment. No one thinks she has it in her. But she does. In the thick night, she holds the thread for her lover while he makes his kill and flees with him into the dark open sea. Then, in the most vulnerable space between sleep and wakefulness, she finds herself abandoned. Here, on an island in the middle of nowhere, she cries out and is moved. Did the ancient Greeks tell this tale as warning for women, or advice?

What kind of woman would do what Ariadne did – leave everything – her inheritance, her kingdom, her role as a priestess – for the unknown other? Why would a daughter do that?

She wanted to exist.

Dancing with the Divine by Rabbi Nadya Gross

Moderator’s Note: The first part of this blog first appeared on the Yerusha website on Sept. 29, 2025. You can see it here.

From my earliest memories, I saw things others didn’t see and knew things I had no business knowing. I thought everyone noticed the dance of light around bodies, or the tiny life forms at the base of trees. I assumed everyone could feel another’s emotions as vividly as their own.

That illusion ended when my grandmother—my Savta—took me into the kitchen (where everything important happened), closed the door, and said: “Never speak of these things to anyone but me.” And so, my training began.

Savta’s gifts were different from mine. She had grown up in a circle of women and their daughters—a circle where wisdom was passed from generation to generation. In that circle, women taught each other, shared their insights, cultivated their gifts and skills, and preserved a legacy of sacred knowing.

The wisdom she shared with me was as ancient as the land itself. We began with reverence for the Earth and her elements—echoes of pre-patriarchal Goddess traditions. She taught me that everything is interconnected: harm to a tree, insect, or stream is harm to us. Respect is not something to demand, but to embody. I learned to ask permission before lifting a stone from its resting place, to give thanks to the fruit-bearing trees in my grandparents’ yard when I plucked the ripened fruit, and to recognize Creation as a web of relationship.

Dove Tales, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last Tuesday. You can read it here.

That first winter after my father’s death I became obsessed with doves and finally gave in and decided to buy one. When I went to pick the dove up at the very last minute, I was drawn not to a white dove but to an African collared dove. Lily b came to live with me as a free flying house dove whose intelligence and uncanny ability to read my mind forced me to concede that something was happening that was beyond my understanding. In retrospect Lily b introduced me to interspecies communications on a concrete level which validated my life experiences with all animals wild and tame. My beloved dogs had been life-time companions, so I already knew we spoke the same language in different ways.

Lily b became a spirit/soul guide and remains one some thirty some years later*. The first sculpture I created at the edge of the sea had the head of a dove. At that time, I still separated spirit from body as most colonized people still do. Now I believe from personal experience that the two are ONE.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: COMPLICATIONS AND CONFUSIONS IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE GODDESS

This was originally posted on May 12, 2014

Although writing in patriarchal Greece from a patriarchal perspective, Hesiod said in his Theogony or Birth of the Gods that Gaia or Earth alone was the mother of the Mountains, Sky, and Sea. With the male Sky she gave birth to the next generation of deities known as the “Titans,” who were overthrown by Zeus. Hesiod’s was a “tale with a point of view” in which “it was necessary” for the “forces of civilization”–for him represented by warrior God and rapist Zeus–to violently overthrow and replace earlier conceptions of the origin life on earth and presumably also to overthrow and replace the people and societies that created them.

With the triumph of Christianity in the age of Constantine in the 4th century AD, Christus Victor replaced Zeus in the cities, while the religion of Mother Earth continued to be practiced in the countryside. Over time, many of the attributes of Mother Earth were assimilated into the image of Mary, and priests began to perform rituals earlier dedicated to Mother Earth, such as blessing the fields and the seeds before planting. In the Middle Ages “the Goddess” re-emerged within Western Christianity in devotion to the Virgin Mary, the female saints, and figures such as Lady Wisdom, at the same time that the history of the Goddess was being erased.

In the middle of the 19th century, in Das Mutterrecht (The Mother Right), J. J. Bachofen stunned the scholarly world with his theory that matrilineal kinship, matrilineal inheritance, and reverence for the Great Mother were to be found at the origins of civilization. Bachofen challenged the view that patriarchy and the worship of male Gods had existed “from the beginning .”

From the Archives, Herstory Profiles: Irish Women of Faith, Activism and Politics by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

As it is March, and March is a month for me that is always devoted to celebrating my Irish roots and women, my Herstory Profiles will be on a few exemplary women from Ireland: Brigid (Irish Goddess and Catholic Saint), Margaret O’ Carroll of Éile (Paragon of Leadership, Strength, and Compassion), and Mary Robinson (Historic Leader, Activist, and Humanitarian.)

We look first to one of the most known religious, divine females in Ireland – Brigid. She plays a fascinating role as she is both in the Celtic Religion (Predates Christianity and can be considered part of the indigenous religion of the Celtic Isles) and as a Christian monastic/saint. She has many variations of names and celebrations but she is first and foremost crucial and important enough to last through the ages and changes in religious traditions.

Brig, Brigid, Brigit – the Celtic Goddess of wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing, and domesticated animals. There is evidence that she was considered at times, a triple deity; Brigid the Poet, Brigid the healer, and Brigid the Smith.

Standing On the Edge: Flipping the Goddess Community & Bringing Her Back by Caryn MacGrandle

As the creator of the divine feminine app, an online platform to find circles, events and resources to which an average of three women a day have found their way to for the past decade, I have been privy to quite a few opinions.

A large majority of the 12,000 women who have registered on the app are Circle hosts, course creators, retreat organizers, book authors, singers, product sellers and others that ‘She’ has tapped on the shoulder.

And I hear quite a lot.

‘Be careful about her.’ ‘Do you know what she did?’ ‘I would watch your back.’

‘Why do you have her work on your app?’

Ariadne & Me – daughters of narcissist fathers by Arianne MacBean

Portrait of Minos, king of Crete, from the Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum

As the Ancient Greek myth is told, Ariadne’s father, Minos, is a powerful brute. The offspring of rape by the God Zeus of the Phoenician Princess, Europa, Minos’ violent origins reflect his development as a man, ruler, and father. He conquers and plunders while harboring secrets and wreaking havoc on his family. In the mythic world he is the definition of a victorious king. In today’s world, we call Minos a narcissist.

Half divine and half mortal, Minos moves between sacred and profane spaces to his advantage. He gains his throne as King of Crete with the support of the Sea God, Poseidon. When given a giant white bull as a congratulatory gift, Minos chooses not to sacrifice the bull as he promises Poseidon, but to keep it for himself. It is this choice that reveals Minos’ shadow narcissism. To Minos, the bull is his greatness, not a symbol of it. In a rage, Poseidon punishes Minos for his choice by cursing his wife, Pasiphaë, to become enraptured with the magic bull. While Minos is away from Crete conquering other lands and other women (he fathered several children outside his marriage), Pasiphaë under possession of Poseidon’s spell, convinces the inventor, Daedalus, to build a contraption to lure the bull into her. Ariadne’s half-brother, the Minotaur, is born out of this union.

From the Archives of the FAR Founders: Anita Caspery, IHM: Prophetic Icon of Renewal By Cynthia Garrity-Bond

This was originally posted on 10/17/2011

this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us.

Adrienne Rich

Last week a colleague of mine forwarded the sad news that Anita Caspary, IHM [The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary], had died at the rich age of 95. This was the same day (October 5) that Steve Jobs passed away from his battle with pancreatic cancer. The tension between the two figures was not lost on me. The death of Jobs, an icon of ingenuity and leadership, wonderful husband and father, is mourned throughout the world. The life and legacy of Anita Caspary will be remembered and mourned as well, but by comparison, on a much smaller scale. That’s unfortunate, because the life and legacy of Caspary as an instrument for change in the lives of Catholic women in general, and Women Religious in particular is what legends are made of.

As an IHM sister, Caspary was teacher, poet, author, and president of Immaculate Heart College (1958-1963), but is best known in her role as Mother General Sister Humiliata (1963-1973) of the IHM’s. In Witness to Integrity, Caspary dramatically chronicles the painful struggles and controversies between the IHM sisters and Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, James Francis McIntyre, in which 600 IHM Los Angeles nuns were released from their canonical vows in 1970. Released because of their self-determination in remaining at the center of their religious fidelity and thought by putting into practice The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Up-to-Date Renewal of Religious life, or Perfectae Caritatis. Addressed to priest and religious, this decree sanctioned the exodus from the middle ages for the sisters by insisting they join the modern world in both dress and discernment of vocation that best utilized each sister’s talents. In an exert put forth from the 1967 Decrees of the Ninth Chapter, the IHM community clarify their position for renewal: