Suggestions for Uni assigttnment regarding women and religion.

[Torchwood]

Hi. One of the modules I have this year at Uni is Women, Men and Religion with an assignment due at the end of Feb. However I'm not really keen on the choices of questions for the assignment so am trying to come up with another idea which I have to do by Tuesday. I'm also studding Buddhism at the moment which I find interesting and I also have an interest in other areas such as Wicca or African religion. So what I'm looking for is some suggestions to help formulate a question I can do for my assignment. I will post the questions given for the assignment as well as the criteria so it may give an idea of what I'm looking for. Thanks.

1.Why, if at all, does women’s ordination matter? Answer with reference to the debate on the ordination of women in the Catholic and/or Protestant churches. (If you refer to both traditions, be careful to distinguish between them.)

2. Outline and evaluate the traditional Protestant view of the role of women exemplified in Werner Neuer's Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective. Your answer should also refer to other reading you have done for the module,

3. "Hundreds of feminists have tried all kinds of strategies for filling the idea of menstruation with positive significance. But it remains a kind of excretion, the liquefaction of abjection." (Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman, 1999) Is Greer right? Answer with reference to the literature.

4. Traditional apologists for Western religion often refer to women's role and status in the religion as "equal but different". What does this phrase mean? Does it allow for the genuine equality of women? Answer with reference to the Christian theological tradition’s teaching on women.

5. Outline and evaluate the key claims and arguments underpinning Islamic feminism. Your essay should focus on the writings of one Islamic feminist scholar.


11. Assessment criteria

Students’ work should demonstrate

• Knowledge of religious feminist criticism of religious teaching about women in the three Abrahamic traditions.
• An ability to use gender as a category of analysis and the religious knowledge of the diversity and ambiguity within the teachings and practices of each tradition
• Knowledge of the diversity of feminist perspectives on religion An ability to write in good clear, accurate prose

[Baile]

Hi Torchwood, those questions all sound pretty interesting to me actually, heh. My pet peeve: Why "God the Father?" It makes sense as far as religion goes given its history as a male-dominated and controlled institution. But I notice even informed spiritualists use the masculine when discussing God. I really don't understand how any enlightened individual can, given how sexist it is. Let alone how nonsensical: as if the source of all creation could be catagorized in such banal and mundane human terms.

[Albalida]

Unfortunately, the ordination of women is very much restricted in traditional Buddhism as well. As eager as the tenets are to dispel illusion, the patriarchal aspect isn't one that has been very thoroughly examined and dismantled, and it remains very much attached to the practice. It can be difficult to be a bhikkuni, the Dalai Lama can't/won't reincarnate as a woman and be recognized as the Dalai Lama...

As for "equal but different", the differences may be fairly reinforced if the identified representatives of each group have equal say in whether they'll be divided or not. If it's women who initiate the "girls only nunnery" as men reinforce "boys only monastery", then fine. But if it's monks saying, "All of you nuns go away somewhere else, because you're too much temptation" then that's not equality, because the opportunity to choose wasn't equally afforded to both.

Basically, are these gender roles set out in a way that LETS people fulfill those roles... or MAKES/forces people to fulfill those roles?

[Torchwood]

Thanks for the help. I decided in the end however to look at how religion's views towards women later influenced the witch hunts.

[norseman]

Careful, Torchwood. There is a lot of myth and misdirection mixed up in the witch hunts.