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Monotheistic Religions

Decent Essays

On Tuesday, April 24th, I attended the Religion and Gender Equality: An Interfaith Discussion Panel. This discussion revolved around how the prominent monotheistic religions relate to gender equality. The panel consisted of experts on Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Dr. Susan Weiss-Greenberg, the executive director of JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance), spoke about Judaism. Professor Karina Martin Hogan, an associate professor at Fordham University, spoke about Christianity. And Suzy Ismail, the founder of Cornerstone (a faith-based communication counseling center that focuses on youth, identity, and relationship rebuilding), spoke about Islam. These three women all talked about how their respective religions treat women and how women are …show more content…

Weiss-Greenberg started the discussion off talking about her upbringing, being an Orthodox Jew and talked about how changes in Judaism have taken place over recent years that have granted women a larger role. For instance, she talked to the audience about how women are able to be rabbis now and how women have started to garner more of a leadership role in the rituals that take place within the religion. However, Weiss-Greenberg explained to us that there are definitely injustices that still take place within Judaism. For instance, according to Jewish law men and women have to go through ceremony to get divorced, a lot of times women end up being stuck their marriages because of the many loopholes that get exploited. Professor Karina Martin Hogan talked to us about her experiences with the Roman Catholic church. She explained to us that she was raised Roman Catholic but is now a member of the Episcopalian church. Her reasoning was because she felt that the Catholic Church did not treat women equal to men. The primary example being women can’t be ordained priests. She talked to us about how she believes that when women are able to take larger roles in Church, it will lead to greater protection of children in our

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