Women’s Agency – Feminism and Religion

Faithfully Dissident Daughters Reclaiming Christian Womanhood Beyond Patriarchy by Chelsea Kim Long: Book Review by Esther Nelson

After a beautiful and insightful Foreword by Christena Cleveland, Chelsea begins her engaging book by telling us, “Up until the age of 26, I didn’t struggle to align my identity and my life experiences with the white, evangelical way of seeing the world.” Born in the late 1980s and raised in a nondenominational megachurch, she grew up with a strong sense of belonging. All was well as long as she matched her thinking and experiences with authoritarian expectations. “I was able to exist in those spaces just fine until, quite suddenly, I wasn’t.”

What changed? Pregnancy. “It was the first splinter in a crack that eventually ripped my whole worldview apart, forcing me into a crisis of theology where I felt I had to choose between myself and the church I loved.” Experiences surrounding pregnancy and childbirth opened Chelsea’s eyes to the realization that as a woman in a patriarchal structure, built by men, she didn’t fit. Interpretation of Biblical text empowered men. “I couldn’t see my femininity reflected in and affirmed by the God they made in their image.” She fled her home church.

“I walked through many lonely years trying to wrestle my way into a version of faith that reflected my reality and contained my life experience.” Chelsea, as a child, had memorized Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” No room in her natal faith for “heart knowledge” since logic and reason superseded intuitive thought. She had learned to mistrust and silence any wisdom that came from within her own Being.

Gloria Steinem: A Personal Remembrance by Beth Bartlett

Wikimedia Commons, Jewish Women’s Archive, Share Alike 2.0.

I was only in my 20s, a kid really, when I first heard Gloria Steinem speak to a small gathering in a church in Little Falls, Minnesota. I don’t remember a word she said. I only know that that day she changed my life forever. I left that meeting knowing that that was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to become like her — an activist, a mover and shaker for the feminist movement. I was already writing my PhD thesis on 19^th century feminism – the First Wave of feminism in the US, but here was the Second Wave right in front of me and I wanted to dive in. I’d found my passion.

A month or two later, I left Little Falls for Duluth, Minnesota. Little did I know that I was moving to one of the most significant hubs of feminist activism in the country at just the right time.[i] Within my first week here I connected with a group of women at the university who were in the process of trying to start a Women’s Studies minor and was quickly recruited to join them in their efforts. I spent the next year very involved in what would be a successful effort and was lucky enough to teach the first Intro to Women’s Studies ever offered at UMD a year later.

SheSpeaks! Women of the Bible Have Their Say by Janet Rudolph

Author’s Note: I have been working on this project for about 3 years now. It is based on almost 30 years of research. I have written about some of the vignettes here on FAR before. With each re-telling and each performance the story deepens and comes more alive. On Thursday, Sept. 24th at 11:00 am NY time, the SheSpeaks!Ensemble will be doing a one hour live/zoom, free performance of the arc called EveSpeaks! You can access the zoom link on the 24th through this webpage. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the link.)

The storyteller holds great power to both reflect the culture and to give it further shape and form. This is especially true for stories of the Bible which are foundational to our world. Whether we see them as mythological, historical, divinely inspired, wisdom teachings or simple folktales, they have shaped our beliefs and values. People see all different faces of God. If we look to the movies, God has looked like George Burns (Oh God, 1977), a vengeful John Huston (The Bible, 1966), Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty, 2003) and even Groucho Marks (Skidoo, 1968). There aren’t a lot of women although Alanis Morrisette did play a silent God (Dogma, 1999). If most people were asked to describe God, they would most likely picture a Charlton Heston-like figure (The Ten Commandments, 1956) when he played Moses reflecting the vehemence of God’s anger.

But . . . alas . . .biblical women’s history is most like Alanis – mute. Women’s voices have been diminished and even silenced. Female deities, female voices have either been translated out of reach or turned into purveyors of “evil” or curses.

Iranian Women Trapped by War, Poverty, and Domestic Abuse by WNCRI

The war and intensifying economic crises in recent months have exerted the greatest and most direct pressure on Iranian women, placing them on the frontline of vulnerability as the psychological resilience of families sharply declines.

The inevitable consequence of these conditions is an unprecedented rise in domestic violence against women, a violence that increasingly manifests in complex psychological, emotional, and economic forms, severely jeopardizing both their physical and mental safety.

The Changing Face of Domestic Abuse Under Economic Stress

Livelihood pressures, severe economic insecurity, and war-induced anxiety have fueled an escalation of abusive behaviors against women within the home. While domestic violence was once primarily recognized through physical assault and battery, women now constantly face emerging and pervasive forms of abuse, such as systematic humiliation, threats, extreme control, deliberate deprivation of financial resources, and continuous psychological distress.

Medieval Bhakti Women Saints: Early Voices of Feminism by Sonal Jakhar

Long before the first wave of feminism in the mid-nineteenth century had its initial launch, a well-established religious movement sparked a socio-political awakening in India. The processes of social and cultural integration in the bhakti tradition have significantly reshaped medieval Indian society. To understand the reclamation inherent in the bhakti movement, one must first acknowledge the ‘dominant power structure’ that prevailed.

The orthodox Brahmanical hierarchy (the priestly class) enforced a strict monopoly over religious ceremonies, temple access, and sacred texts. On the other hand, spiritual knowledge was bound within Sanskrit, a language only upper-class men could learn. The bhakti movement arose from a desire for a direct relationship with God while rejecting society’s rules and rituals. Women and marginalised castes were heavily oppressed and restricted from public spheres. Since religious space was the only space available to women in the early medieval period, many women embraced bhakti (devotion), and it eventually provided them space to define their own voices that revised society, relationships and religions.

The bhakti movement, since its emergence in the 7^th century in South India, had a seismic impact on women and marginalised groups. Ideas of inclusivity, accessibility, and connectivity were running through reforms and resistance. A small but steadily growing group of thinkers called for the democratisation of the Divine against the social hierarchy in religious practises. Many women supported this reform with resilience, as they knew that change, whether conservative or revolutionary, would inevitably shape gender relations and advance women’s rights.

Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Anthology by Madeleine White

Introduction: When I last wrote for Feminism and Religion, I shared some of the experiences that led me to write Maiden Mother Crone, a memoir in verse exploring trauma, motherhood, addiction, recovery, hope and the search for more inclusive forms of spiritual expression.

That personal journey has now opened into a wider conversation.

Maiden Mother Crone: The Anthology, published by Sea Crow Press and co-edited by me and Sea Crow Press founder and publisher Mary Petiet, is the third and culminating volume in my Crossing Places series. Drawn from around 150 submissions and developed through workshops in the UK and internationally, it brings together poets from across cultures, generations and geographies to explore body, memory, land, love, loss, motherhood, daughterhood, ageing, renewal, courage and hope.

While responding to Mary’s questions about the anthology, I found myself returning to Bosorka, a statue I encountered recently in Bratislava. Created in memory of the women and men persecuted and killed after being accused of witchcraft, she seemed to embody many of the questions at the heart of the collection: whose voices are heard, whose experiences are mistrusted or erased, and how poetry and storytelling can help us remember, bear witness and create connection.

Soul-Fully Scripting Flesh: Poetic Justice & Joy by Margot Van Sluytman

Ours is a city of abundant tattoo shops. Places, I was to learn, where art and heart are rife. Places in which rich conversations occur. Conversations that linger long after the ink has begun to settle.

Wending my way to find the place to begin the process of scripting my skin, I spoke with a young man. His back was bent as he focussed on his animal friend and for a short while, before approaching him with my questions, I read the ink that covered his arms and legs. So many designs, descriptors, expressive strokes of thought and meaning known only to him. Hieroglyphs wherein his voice, his many selves, were revealed, yet hidden unless conversation were struck and desire to speak forthcoming. Wherefrom grew his choices?

I decided to cross the street and to ask him the meaning of some of his tattoos, the ones that spoke most vocally to me. As I moved closer, I spotted the script on his wrist. Script among an array of the colours and images. That script struck me. A fragment from The Tempest. Caliban’s words.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of
noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give
delight and hurt not.

Islam: A Feminist/Womanist Faith by Jamilah Ali

American media and the Taliban in Afghanistan have both long disparaged Islam regarding the status of women. I would like not only to correct the contention that women are second-class, but to provide for you an argument that Islam is, based on our Prophet and the Holy Quran, a feminist and egalitarian religion. It has been falsely maligned.

For your convenience I will use the English word for Allah, God, throughout this piece. (Did you know Arabic speaking Christians call God; Allah?)

Please note Muslims believe that all the Holy Books, the Bible and Torah, were indeed revelations from God. Belief in all the Holy Books is one of Islams 7 articles of faith. However, according to Muslim creed the Bible has been changed by humans through time deliberately or not. Thus Quran, the most recent revelation sent 610 years after Christ, is relatively unaltered from its original. It was radical, even then, for providing women the rights to inheritance, to have their own money and property, and for them to retain the dowry paid for marriage, not the father.

From the Archives: Creating Space: Mosques Affirming All Bodies, Minds, and Hearts by Laury Silvers

This was originally posted on December 31, 2013

In my first blog for Feminism and Religion, I discussed the cognitive and embodied dissonance that some Muslims experience as a result of historically (not eternally) gendered ritual forms. I ended with a promise to share with readers the ways in which el-Tawhid Juma Circle mosques try to create space to break free of those forms. Our mosques affirm all human beings as spiritually, socially, and ritually equal and try to break down the social hierarchy of ritual and theological leadership by opening up a space for all bodies, minds, and hearts to lead and follow as equals among each other.

Breaking out of cognitive and embodied dissonance requires cognitive and embodied habituation to what Amina Wadud names, “The Tawhidic Principle.” Meaning, the space must be one in which human beings can embody divine oneness by recognizing that their relationships with each other are on the horizontal plane and refrain from mediating between any other individual and God on the vertical plane. Wadud has described it as a triangle in which God is at the top with self and other at the two points beneath. Each has an individual relationship with God and a relationship of reciprocitous community with each other. Wadud argues that to mediate between another and God is nothing other than idolatry because the mediator forces another to accept that satisfying his expectations is the same as satisfying God.

Zahra Tabari by WNCRI

Women’s National Council of Resistance of Iran (info below)

In a continuation of the escalating crackdown on political dissent in Iran, Zahra Shahbaz Tabari, a 67-year-old political prisoner, was sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Rasht on October 25, 2025. The regime’s judiciary has accused her of “supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).”

Who Is Zahra Tabari?

Zahra Tabari, 68, holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and is a graduate of Isfahan University of Technology and the University of Borås in Sweden, specializing in Sustainable Energy.

She suffers from chronic health conditions, and the poor conditions in Lakan Prison, combined with shortages of medication, medical care, and constant psychological pressure, have severely deteriorated her physical condition.

She was arrested on April 17, 2025, after security forces raided her home in Rasht without presenting a judicial warrant. During the raid, agents searched the house and confiscated her and her daughter’s electronic devices. For weeks, her family had no information about her whereabouts or health condition. She is currently being held in Lakan Prison in Rasht.