Review: Theory of Women in Religions, by Catherine Wessinger

Abstract

One could do sufficient justice to Catherine Wessinger’s Theory of Women in Religions by approaching it primarily as a textbook that offers a wide-ranging introduction to the subject at hand. It is an excellent one—multi-disciplinary, informative about basics and subtleties, evocative, and provocative. I contend that its appeal extends also to those of us who have been involved with this subject matter for decades. It offers numerous entry points to both beginner and veteran for understanding the persistence of various forms of women’s perceived “otherness” in their religious communities and multiple efforts to combat that status. To the longtime student of these patterns and issues, Wessinger’s book offers the additional gift of countering the feelings of ennui (at best) that accompany the existential concern that, in regard to the status of women, the more things change the more they stay the same. Wessinger’s advice in the first chapter is compelling for scholars at varying levels of engagement: “always expect diversity in practice and belief within any given religious tradition” and, “there is always more that can be learned to enhance understanding” (21, italics in Wessinger).Wessinger opens the Introduction with the pivotal question, “Why study women in religions?” She responds to this query through eight extended examples of how women from different traditions and cultures experience limitations on their desires and capacities for ritual and institutional leadership and for the exercise of theological creativity. These limitations, she argues, are grounded in a relentlessly restrictive binary view of gender that holds that women and men are essentially and significantly different in their very humanity. Chapter 1 then discusses methodologies and key terms, delineating the multidisciplinary nature of this work (and this book), grounded in the history of religions approach. It is an approach that casts a wide net and includes the study and translations of texts, history, theology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and archaeology. I would argue that it includes literary studies, as well.In chapter 2, Wessinger elaborates on the “theory” of the chapter title: that patriarchal societies emerge and develop over time when gendered division of labor takes shape in ways that exclude women from control over the major “products” of their culture, whether agricultural, industrial or intellectual. This exclusion is typically reinforced in complex ways by the religious values of the society, giving rise to a variety of simultaneous and ongoing responses: acquiescence, often coupled with efforts to exercise authority indirectly; efforts at transformation; creation of new religious traditions; departure from a given tradition and, perhaps, from the arena of religion altogether. These strategies are not discrete but typically overlap within a given culture and, different as they are from each other, nonetheless draw strategically from the religious traditions themselves. The chapter puts forth a compelling and complex argument that emphasizes a long view and incorporates many variables of time and place. It relies on examples from the paleolithic to the contemporary and its arguments are grounded, particularly, in archaeology and anthropology. Further, this chapter includes a case against the “invasion theory” once held by Maria Gjmbutas and others that argues for the existence of once-peaceful matriarchal societies.Chapter 3 briefly explores psychological theories of gender roles and women’s self-esteem. In it Wessinger lays out the significance of the “inner work” that must accompany broad social and institutional changes if women are to be considered—and to consider themselves—fully and profoundly human and endowed with the capacities required to participate equally in all aspects of societies. Chapter 4 elaborates on eleven issues for women in religions, ranging from the theoretical to the practical. They include images of the divine, gender roles (including gender identity and fluidity), property rights, marriage and divorce, women as religious specialists, religious leadership, and ritual. The final category of the chapter addresses the concern of “women in religion today.” Wessinger refers to the paradoxical and simultaneous realities of the “gradual” decline of patriarchy in societies and religions as well as observable regressions in women’s status.In a conclusion that sums up the major themes and arguments of the book, Wessinger argues that we are living in a transitional age in regard to patriarchy’s decay and that this upending will require a long process. For those of us engaged in this transitional work, beginners or long-time participants, Wessinger’s work calls to mind a reflection attributed to Oscar Romero (but written by Ken Untener). It begins, “It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view” and concludes with the reminder that, “We are prophets of a future that is not our own.” In Theory of Women in Religions, Catherine Wessinger offers a framework of interpretation that demands we take a long view, cognizant of the reality that we are on a long journey. In doing so, she makes available multiple interpretive tools to use along the way.