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Name

Women and Religion

Name

08/25/2021

New Religions

Quote:

“… Their ideas fed into the stream that became the “New Age” movement, the term used by Alice Bailey (1880-1949), leader of the Arcane School. Despite the leading roles of women in such movements, the Arcane School often uses male-oriented language, such as “men” for “people” (Fisher 282).

“…Over time; religious movements come and go. Relatively few have become global movements with millions of followers. In the past few centuries, many spiritual messengers have appeared; some have developed a large and sustained following. Women’s status within these organizations varies considerably, but some have room for them in leadership positions and have enhanced appreciation of women…” (Fisher 270).

Questions:

The two quotes from the text reveal the place of women in religious movements. Does the author imply that even though women were accorded high positions in religious movements, they were still religious chauvinism? Did these movements end the oppression of women by religion?

Reflection:

Upon reading Chapter Nine on “Women in Western Spirituality Movements”, I gained a more transparent comprehension concerning how different religions perceive women in leadership positions. Fisher highlights how different religions are opinionated about women leading in religious places or movements. I was intrigued by the idea that Muslim women were not allowed to hold a position in the mosques' authority and that some mosques do not allow women to pray inside (Fisher 258). I am quite conflicted by this idea because I fail to comprehend how this is religiously appropriate. It paints the religious system as being chauvinistic.

However, when women started holding authoritative positions in spiritual movements, the oppression of women by religion was minimized. For instance, some of these movements created room for women to be appointed as leaders (Fisher 270). Being a female, I feel like these movements were phenomenal in stopping women from being oppressed by religions because they somewhat embraced and demonstrated equality. This is evident when Bahiyyih Khanum was given the name ‘The Greatest Holy Leaf’ due to her excellent leadership roles. Therefore, I believe that spirituality movements marked the diminishment of religious oppression of women because they appreciated women by allowing them to be in leadership positions.

Work Cited

Fisher, Mary Pat. Women in religion. Pearson Longman, 2007.