Europe | U.K. | Courts

U.K. Court of Appeal Overturns Ruling Ordering Mentally Disabled Woman to Have Abortion

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A British appeals court on Monday overturned a lower court’s order that a mentally disabled woman undergo an abortion. The earlier ruling had prompted an outcry from the Roman Catholic Church and abortion opponents. The three judges on the Court of Appeal didn’t explain why they ruled against proceeding with the abortion and said they would give their reasons at a later date. The lower court ruled Friday that the woman, who is in her 20s and 22 weeks pregnant, didn’t understand the challenges of caring for a child and wouldn’t be able to meet them. That court, known as the Cour
Asia | Thailand | Religion

Thailand’s top female monk hacked the system to bring women into the fold

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Dhammananda, a 72-year-old Thai woman, is forbidden from hugging her sons. She’s never been able to chase her giggling grandchildren around the room. Both acts are forbidden by the strict Buddhist precepts that monks must follow. Dhammananda is a self-described “rare species.” She’s a monk. She’s also a mom. And in the eyes of her homeland’s Buddhist establishment, she’s a feminist insurgent. Each day, she and her female disciples wear the same clothing: flowing robes the color of ripe mangoes. Their heads are shorn down to stubble. Their possessions are limited to flip flo
North America | United States | Religion

First Woman Orthodox ‘Rabbi’ Is Hired by Synagogue

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The first graduate of Yeshivat Maharat to take the title “rabbi” said she has been hired by an unnamed American Orthodox synagogue. Lila Kagedan, who was ordained this summer by the seminary created by Open Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss to train Orthodox female clergy, told the London-based Jewish Chronicle this week that she was recruited to join the staff of a congregation she declined to name. Graduates of the New York seminary have so far eschewed taking the title rabbi, though the school is explicit that its mission is to train female Orthodox “clergy.” Most have taken on the tit
International | History

Global Catholic Network founder Mother Angelica has died

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Mother Mary Angelica, a folksy Roman Catholic nun who used a monastery garage to begin a television ministry that grew into a global religious media empire, has died. She was 92. Known to millions of viewers simply as "Mother Angelica," the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network died Easter Sunday at the rural monastery where she lived about 45 miles north of Birmingham, according to EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw. With only $200, the nun began broadcasting a religious talk show from a TV studio put together in the monastery garage in suburban Birming
Asia | Tibet | Religion

Tibetan Buddhist nuns take up feminism and seek equal status with monks

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Change is in the air at world’s biggest Tibetan Buddhist academy, in China’s Sichuan province, as nuns stand up for themselves and for Tibetan women as a whole. Monks appear split on their demands Religiously devoted and with a shaved head and flowing burgundy robes, Xinde Shijiamouni has all the trappings of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. But her serenity is troubled because, as a nun, she cannot reach the same clerical status as a man. In the harsh terrain and relative isolation of western China, Tibetan culture has long been patriarchal. Now more than 100 nuns
Europe | Denmark | Religion

Denmark is opening its first female-led mosque

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Mosques are “male-dominated and patriarchal places, where a man is at the speaking platform, a man leads prayer, a man is in focus and dominant”, says Sherin Khankan, an academic and one of four female imams in Denmark. It is for this reason that she has set up Copenhagen’s first female-led mosque, a “feminist project” designed to facilitate worship “on women’s terms.” Having come up with the idea more than a year ago, Khankan – who has a Muslim Syrian father and a Christian Finnish mother – is determined to broaden Islam’s appeal to her fellow countrywomen. “I have
Middle East | Israel | Religion

Historic deal allows men and women to pray together at Western Wall

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A battle lasting more than a quarter of a century over the Western Wall, the religious site revered by Jews all over the world, has resulted in a historic deal to create a space where men and women are permitted to pray together in equality. On Sunday, the Israeli government approved the creation of a permanent and official separate area for mixed gender praying at the site in Jerusalem’s Old City. Liberal and reform Jews hailed the move as a victory for Jews everywhere. Women of the Wall has campaigned for equal prayer rights at the Western Wall for the past 27 years, holding monthly
South Asia | India | Activism

Muslim and Hindu Women in India Are Both Protesting to Be Allowed into Places of Worship

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Yesterday in Mumbai, a group of Muslim women gathered at the Haji Ali mosque to protest its practice of excluding females from its mausoleum. The action is part of a growing movement across India for women to gain access to places of worship that, while small in number, continue to be for men only. A much larger protest took place Tuesday in western India, where hundreds of Hindu women marched to the temple Shani Shingnapur intending to force their way in, using helicopters if necessary. Several members of the group Bhumata Ranragini Brigade, led by activist Trupti Desai were prevented by p
Middle East | Israel | Law

Israel’s AG Says Women Can Apply to Be Head of Rabbinical Courts

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Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has overruled the position of Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi in order to allow women to apply for the position of director general of the country’s rabbinical courts. Weinstein was ruling on a petition by Mavoi Satum and WIZO-Na’amat demanding that women be given a “substantial opportunity” to contend for the post. The rabbinical courts have been without a director general since 2010, when Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan stepped down after 21 years. The courts’ legal adviser Shimon Yaakobi is acting director general. Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has
North America | United States | Religion

Can Orthodox Jewish women be rabbis?

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Jewish women in the US have been getting ordained as rabbis going back to the 1970s. But that's not the case for Orthodox Jewish women. Everyone knows that Orthodox women can’t be rabbis, or so the saying goes. But the cliché is becoming less true. More Orthodox women are undertaking the same kind of religious study and training for rabbinical ordination that was once reserved exclusively for men. And one Orthodox woman based in the US even calls herself a rabbi. “I really am a rabbi,” Lila Kagedan says with a smile. The 35-year-old is a recent graduate of Yehsivat M
International | Religion

What the Koran really says about women

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When Middle East correspondent Carla Power began studying the Koran with a conservative Islamic scholar, she wasn’t expecting to learn that it nowhere advocates the oppression of women - or that Islam has a rich history of forgotten female leaders. When I told a Muslim friend of mine that I was to be studying the Koran with a sheikh, she had one request. “Ask him,”she said, “why Muslim men treat women so badly.” When I did, he said it was because men weren’t reading the Koran properly. All too often, people read the Koran selectively, the Sheikh explained, taking phrases o
International | Religion

Women’s right to maternity leave must be protected, pope says

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Businesses are called to promote harmony between work and family for their employees, especially for women with children or who are starting families, Pope Francis said. The pope said that many times, women who announce their pregnancy are fired from their positions, when instead they "must be protected and helped in this dual task: the right to work and the right to motherhood." "The challenge is to protect their right to a job that is given full recognition while at the same time safeguarding their vocation to motherhood and their presence in the family," the pope said Oct. 31 in an au
South Asia | India | Law

Court: Gender bias in Muslim personal law is unconstitutional

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India’s Supreme Court wants to amend the Islamic personal law that governs Muslims in the country and remove provisions in it that are biased against women. The Court says that some parts of the law are unconstitutional because they are discriminating on the basis of sex. The Islamic personal law allows polygamy and the triple talaq system (which permits the man to immediately and unilaterally divorce his wife.)  Women are also discriminated against in succession and inheritance of property. India has separate personal laws for each religion that govern marriage, succession, adoption
North America | United States | Religion

A Female Rabbi? Just Don’t Call Her That

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Is what you tell the rabbi’s wife a secret that she can’t be required to reveal in court? The Haredi Jewish newspaper Yated Ne’eman has reported on a fascinating decision by a judge in Portland, Oregon, holding that the answer is yes. The twist is that the women who successfully asserted the privilege were members of a branch of Orthodox Judaism known as “yeshivish,” which staunchly denies that women can be rabbis or even rabbinic advisers. Their argument was that the rabbi’s wife is, practically speaking, a kind of adjunct clergywoman in whom female members of the community con