Feminism and Religion

by Rita M. Gross

Overview

Rita M. Gross offers an engaging survey of the changes feminism has wrought in religious ideas, beliefs, and practices around the world, as well as in the study and understanding of religion itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807067857
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	10/31/1996
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Rita M. Gross is professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. She is the author of Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism and coeditor, with Nancy Auer Falk of Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives.

Editorial Reviews

This book will be an important resource for all ongoing work in feminist teaching and research in religion. -Rosemary Radford Ruether

From the Publisher

In this illuminating work, Gross (professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) traces the historical role of women in religion, including the impact of feminist scholarship on the study of religion and theology. Gross does not limit her explorations to the roles of women in Judaism and Christianity but ranges over the roles of women in Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. She also examines feminist spirituality, which has developed the contours of an organized religion. The author points out that all religions, including Christianity and Judaism, have not always been patriarchal, and she notes some groundbreaking work done by American Christian feminists in the 1800s that had been mostly forgotten by the 1950s. Historians of religion and theologians are in Gross's debt for casting a bright light on the relationship between women and religion. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gross (Buddhism After Patriarchy, SUNY, 1992), who teaches philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, provides a splendid feminist critique and social vision of the radical changes that have been wrought in religious ideas, institutions, and rituals as a result of feminism. She reevaluates the past and forthrightly considers how great but sexist religious traditions can meet the needs of postpartiarchal people. Her analysis is strengthened by her inclusion of non-Western religions as well as a freedom from androcentrism. Gross not only evaluates past and present but also explores possibilities for future development in the areas of Woman-Church, ecological awareness, affirmation of embodiment and finitude, and affirmation of relationship and community. An outstanding book; highly recommended for all libraries.Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.

Library Journal