Women And Religion

No two women are the same, similar to how no two women are treated the same. This can become especially prevalent when comparing women of different geographical, traditional, and religious backgrounds. Over the course of this semester, I have gained knowledge of just how different women of various religious traditions live their daily lives. Similarly, women around the world can also be more similar than expected, something that became prevalent to me throughout this course. Although much of the textual evident was historical, and provided us with a base of knowledge on each religion, many of the traditions and ways women were treated can be connected to women of the world today. After much article, video, and textual evidence based off many

One that stood out most to me was in the Christian community. The example here is that women in the Roman Catholic church are not allowed to serve as priest. Priesthood in this religion, and specifically this branch is reserved for men and men alone. The text by Anderson and Young suggests the three reasons why Roman Catholics reserve this holy position for men:

First, tradition, assumed to have been dictated by God, has always affirmed that only men can be priests. Second, Jesus had an open attitude toward women and could have chosen women to be among the 12 disciples, but he did not. This decision applies to all times and places. Third, when the priest celebrates the mass he is called to represent Jesus Christ to the people; this representation requires a “natural resemblance” between the priest and Jesus Christ, and this natural resemblance must be the resemblance of maleness (Anderson and Young

There are multiple examples of how women are mistreated and even considered “unclean” while they are menstruating. One religion we observed this to be an issue was in Judaism. The example here was in the context of the Hasidic religious branch, that while a woman is menstruating, she is forbidden to her husband. The husband cannot see, touch, or hear his wife because she is considered unclean. To take this further, she must prove herself to be clean before she can engage sexually with her husband. This act of depriving oneself fully to their partner may seem neglectful to some, but in the Hasidic tradition it was looked at as a beneficial strategy: “Men only want they can’t have, she explains to me. They need the consistent pattern of denial and release. I don’t know if I like thinking of myself that way, as an object made available and then unavailable for a man to enjoy” (Feldman 140). Another example where we see a similar portrayal of the deprivation of sex by the husband is in the Islamic faith. In this setting, there are laws suggesting that husbands have authority over their wives, and that comes with the right to their body: “The husband, for his part, is given considerable legal authority over his wife and has a legal right to enjoyment of any part of her body, with the exception of contact forbidden by law, such as