Gender Justice

From an AP story of the same title:

The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job _ outside of the church. The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years. The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman. "I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

This, IMO, is a major weakness of the traditional view of "women's roles" commonly held by members of the church of Christ and others. The Rev. has spelled it out. Apparently, in his opinion, there are two distinct sets of rules governing how Christians should interact with one another: one set that governs "secular" or "outside the church" activities and another that governs "spiritual" or "inside the church" activities. This duality is not something that I see supported in scripture. If you hold the extremely restrictive view of the role of women (as, admittedly, you might reasonably do based on a certain interpretation of passages like the one quoted above..I don't pretend that the case is a slam dunk for either extreme), then IMO you must apply the same principle to other interactions between Christian men and women "outside the church" if you are to maintain consistency (as some do). On the other hand, if you are unwilling to apply those same principles "outside the church," maybe you should ask yourself why and re-examine your view of what should go on "inside the church." Or at least justify why Biblical principles regarding the role of women apply only "inside the church."

From an article titled "Historic Vote: Women Hit the Polls in Kuwait" by Diana Elias on abcnews.com:

Women in this conservative oil-rich emirate voted in parliamentary elections for the first time Thursday, a vote that also inspired surprisingly vocal calls for reform and criticism of the ruling family The polls marked a new stage in the U.S. ally's tentative moves toward greater democracy and not just because of the entry of women. The election brought unprecedented political activism in a country where the ruling family has strong influence over politics, with conservative Islamists joining liberals in demanding electoral reform and protesting corruption. Women, who won the right to vote and run for office last year, went to separate polling stations from men, choosing among 252 candidates competing for 50 parliamentary seats. Twenty-eight candidates were women.

From a NY Times article of the same title by Neela Banerjee:

The Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada as its presiding bishop on Sunday, making her the first woman to lead a church in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Many Episcopalians gathered here for the church's triennial general convention cheered the largely unexpected choice of Bishop Jefferts Schori, 52, the lone woman and one of the youngest of the seven candidates for the job. Her election was a milestone for the Episcopal Church, which began ordaining women only in 1976. She takes on her new responsibilities at a particularly fraught moment in the history of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest church body, with 77 million members. She was elected to succeed Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who will retire in November when his nine-year term ends. At the last general convention, in 2003, the church consented to the election of an openly gay man, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. The decision deeply offended some Episcopalians in the United States and many Anglican primates abroad, who saw it as blatant disregard of Scripture. Since then, some United States congregations have left the Episcopal Church, and primates overseas have threatened schism. Bishop Jefferts Schori supported Bishop Robinson's election in 2003, and the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada permits the blessing of same-sex unions. Moreover, that Bishop Jefferts Schori is a woman could further strain relations with three dioceses in the United States and many Anglican provinces that refuse to ordain women as priests and bishops, critics of the vote said Sunday.

From a NY Times article of the same title by Helena Andrews:

Muslim women do not think they are conditioned to accept second-class status or view themselves as oppressed, according to a survey released Tuesday by The Gallup Organization. According to the poll, conducted in 2005, a strong majority of Muslim women believe they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. In more than 8,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in eight predominantly Muslim countries, the survey found that many women in the Muslim world did not see sex issues as a priority because other issues were more pressing. When asked what they resented most about their own societies, a majority of Muslim women polled said that a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption were their main concerns. The hijab, or head scarf, and burqa, the garment covering face and body, seen by some Westerners as tools of oppression, were never mentioned in the women's answers to the open-ended questions, the poll analysts said... The most frequent response to the question, "What do you admire least about the West?" was the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the "Hollywood image" that is regarded as degrading to women.

From an article of the same title by Khozem Merchant of the Financial Times and printed in the LA Times:

Tahseen Bano's family was reluctant even to let her attend the free information technology classes designed to improve the career opportunities of women in Kanpur, India's leather-goods capital. So it is no surprise that her parents have now blocked progression to a job in the poor northern city. It seems technology may have met its match here: Social conservatism is denying women the chance to put their newly acquired computer literacy to use. Bano's frustration is shared by Datamation, a Delhi-based nonprofit group that runs the Kanpur project with funds from Microsoft Corp. "We try to empower women with skills to improve their chance of getting jobs. But conservatism is not a battle fought overnight. We are encountering the limitations of technology," said coordinator Ujjwala Subhedar... With funding of $100,000 from Microsoft, Datamation turned to Kanpur's best-known asset, the Indian Institute of Technology. What emerged was software for chikan embroidery incorporating a technique allowing users to retrieve designs from a database. The response from potential recruits among young, unemployed adults with little formal education was poor. Datamation's recruiters knocked on hundreds of doors in Kanpur's ancient alleyways but found that parents were loath to let their daughters out in public. Some relented and saw their daughters take to the technology with ease, and the effect on their self-esteem was profound. But what followed was a let-down. Bano's parents, among many others, banned unmarried daughters from taking on full-time design roles, which involved interacting with buyers, designers, shopkeepers and so on.