Feminist Theology

Brief history of feminist theologies

As far as the history of feminist theology is concerned, there have been many women who, through the centuries, protested their inferiority and made important contributions to different fields of knowledge, culture or politics, women who feminist historiography is recovering and rescuing from oblivion. Despite the prevailing misogyny, women searched for and found ways to express their creativity, invented ways of life, often clandestinely, and strove to conquer spaces that would allow them to develop their talents beyond their biological destiny. Some even paid with their lives for the occupation of areas prohibited to them. Therefore, it is possible to trace traces of what could be called proto-feminisms, both theoretical and practical. However, one cannot speak of true feminism and incipient feminist theology until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, respectively.

In the mid-19th century, the United States became the center of feminism, due to the birth of the suffrage movement. Suffrage was an important demand, but it was part of a broader struggle through which women sought a more just society, including their own liberation. Before their rights, women began by advocating for abolitionism and, in doing so, became aware of their own oppression. The Seneca Falls convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott in 1848, was the beginning of a whole social movement for the emancipation of women. These women combined political action with theological reflection, which took shape in the publication of The Women's Bible, by Elisabeth Cady Stanton, published in 1895 and 1898. This work was a first step in women's appropriation of their right to critical thinking and creative and liberating speech. They defended that the equality of the sexes in the image of God, translated into social equality, was the original will of God. Therefore, sexism was interpreted as a sin against women and against God, because it distorts the divine will for its creation.

This was born in the 1960s in the United States and in Europe in the form of various theologies that encompass various theological disciplines and use various theological methods or approaches, depending on the different biographical and intellectual trajectories of the authors. Thus, feminist theology, from its beginnings, bears the mark of plurality. However, there are common denominators in these theologians: their inclusive, critical and creative approach, their gender perspective, and that they were all white, middle-class women. In addition, they start from two capital discoveries for theology: first, that what until now had been considered as "the universal human experience" was actually the experience and understanding of men about themselves, the world and God; second, that it is necessary to question the exclusive and excluding identification of God with the man, because, as Mary Daly affirmed, "if God is a man, then the man is God".

Regarding the North American context specifically, feminist theology arose from the confluence of two phenomena: the civil movements of the 1960s and the resurgence of the women's movement known as Third Wave Feminism, factors to which it joined the gradual access of Protestant women, since the mid-19th century, to theological education and ministry.

Interestingly, American Catholics, who had much more difficulty developing a career in their Church, have been more fruitful than Protestants in their theological developments, perhaps for two reasons: 1) the majority of Protestant women who received theological education in the last third of the 20th century, dedicated their efforts to pastoral ministry, and 2) the denial of the capacity of women to be legitimately ordained as priests stimulated theological research by Catholics and fueled their need to analyze the coherence and validity of the theological arguments for this denial.

Despite the difficulties in the respective churches, feminist theology is established today in the North American academic sphere. Among other things, there are a large number of Theology faculties of different denominations, which have been fundamental for the theological education of women and for the development of their professional careers in theology.

Regarding Europe, feminist theological awareness also began to develop from 1960, through the work of several pioneering theologians who addressed issues such as the need to change ecclesiastical laws, sexual morality and human values. They critically analyzed the experience of women, postulated the need for a new terminology, criticized patriarchal ideology and the patriarchalization of God, and investigated the place of women in the Christian tradition.

Beginning in 1975, International Women's Year, interest turned to theological anthropology, eco-feminism, political theology, systematic theology, theological method, and feminist spirituality.

In this period, fundamental associations for the development of feminist theology in Europe were founded as Women and Men in the Church, the European Society of Women Researchers in Theology and the Ecumenical Forum of Christian Women of Europe. All of them hold regular meetings and have publications with their research. Two European Synods of Women have also been held, in 1996 and 2003, very important for meeting, dialogue and the dissemination of feminist theology.

In southern Europe, we must highlight the creation in Spain of the movement Women and Theology, from the Col•lectiu de Dones en l'Esglesia, and of the Association of Spanish Theologians (ATE), which promote study days, annual meetings, courses and publications that have played a fundamental role in spreading feminist theology in Spain. The Feminist School of Theology of Andalusia (EFETA), founded in 2006, marks a milestone in the history of feminist theology, inside and outside Spain, as it is the first online school of feminist theology in the world and, for the moment, the only.

In the current phase of development of European feminist theologies, dialogue with gender studies has become important and is flourishing in many disciplines at the university level. The need for a new pluralism is felt, which implies lessening the dominance of Christian theology and emphasizing dialogue with Jewish, Muslim and other religious researchers. At the same time, European theologians are aware of racism in Europe and the legacy of European imperialism. Thus, the agenda of European feminist theology aims to strengthen a global solidarity between women that respects differences.

In the 1980s, the appearance of the theological voices of women from the margins warned of another danger: that of identifying the particular experience of a group of women with that of women in general. African and African American, Latina and Latin American, Asian, Native American, and indigenous women from other continents have questioned whether white Euro-American women are sufficiently representative of the experience of all women. They consider that the domination of white women is a reflection of the domination of Western white culture over others, and have developed their own theological reflections, opening a new stage in feminist theology, which is enriched by perspectives from other cultural contexts. and is confronted with the complexity of oppressive relations, giving rise to various feminist theologies.

The womanist is Christian feminist theology crafted from the perspective of African-American women. Womanist theologians regard family and community as core values and identify with the struggles of the entire black community against oppression. They feel that they are continuing a long tradition of religious thought of black American women, whose voices they are trying to recover and that goes back to the abolitionists of the 19th century. They want to reframe theology, biblical studies, ethics, the sociology of religion, and ministry from the perspective and experience of black women. While acknowledging their debt to them, they criticize both the sexism of black liberation theologies produced by men, and the racism of feminist theologies of white women. Their concrete experience of oppression becomes the hermeneutic criterion for judging any theology and ethical theory. And although it is a theology in the making, its pioneers are delving into more complex theological issues and are bringing new perspectives to central themes such as Christology or evil, suffering or redemption.

Womanist theology starts from the faith experience of Latina women. For Hispanic women in the United States, ethnic prejudice and economic oppression add to the oppressive experience of sexism. From this perspective, mujerista theologians are those Hispanics who, from their theological reflection, combat this triple oppression and who have made a preferential option for Latina women and their liberation. Mujerista theology is considered a liberating praxis.

Its goal is the training of Latina women, their moral development and their awareness of the value and importance of what they are, think and do. Mujerista theologians value community to the point that their theology is often elaborated communally, in group work sessions.

Latin American feminist theologies emerge from women who joined the base communities and liberation theology, but who, from the 1980s, perceive the absence of a specific contribution of women in theological production liberation and begin to develop critical feminist theologies of liberation from the Latin American perspective. The objective of Latin American feminist theology is, in the words of María Pilar Aquino, "to encourage and accompany the initiatives and processes developed by women in order to transform the structures and theories that deny, limit or prevent full development and integrity and dignity of women in anthropological, political, social and religious terms”.

American feminist theology has dedicated especially to Biblical studies, emphasizing the aspects that escape an androcentric reading. Its theological and hermeneutical place is the poor woman. Theology, thus, remains linked to the praxis of liberation and the commitment to make visible the specificity of the situation and the experiences of poor women. As María Pilar Aquino herself says, historical reality "is the starting point and the arrival point of theology, and both are connected by the principle of transformation".

Asian feminist theologies, also born in the 1980s, have reflected on all areas of Christian theology: Biblical studies, God, Christology, the Church... In the Third World, and to date, Asian women theologians are the ones who have written the most, although his work is the least known of all. Given Asia's religious pluralism and the antiquity of its spiritual traditions, Asian feminist theologians work intensively in the field of interreligious and intercultural dialogue.

They are well aware that Christianity is a newcomer to the multiracial, multicultural and multireligious mosaic of Asian countries, many of which also suffer from the legacy of European, American and Japanese colonialism, strong militarism, exploitation by multinationals, the spread of AIDS and sexual exploitation, all aspects that deeply mark Asian feminist theologies.

In South Korea, for example, among the issues specifically addressed by feminist theologians are: the unification of the two Koreas, trafficking in women, sex tourism, and the demand for justice for Korean women who were forced into prostitution as slaves. sex for the Japanese army in World War II.

In any case, the negative conception of women and their sexuality is present in all Asian cultures and religions and is a common concern of all Asian theologies.

African feminist theologies were born in the late 80s, when a group called   was formedCircle of Committed African Women Theologians. From the beginning, they emphasized the specific social, economic and cultural context from which they speak, irrevocably marked by colonialism, poverty, neo-colonialism and the centuries-old voicelessness of African women in almost all spheres, including the theological. African women have come to the conclusion that their experiences are significantly different from those of other women, so they must break what has hitherto been an enforced silence and speak for themselves. And they insist that this right to speak for themselves is a necessary condition for their own emancipation.

The sources of their theology, understood as liberating praxis, as a commitment to justice, life and freedom in the face of oppression, are the traditions of Christian theology, but to them they add the experience of African women, African cultural history , and religions and their own sources of spirituality. The inculturation of Christianity in the multi-religious and multi-cultural context of Africa is one of the main concerns of African women theologians, along with cultural hermeneutics and biblical hermeneutics. They view community as a gift from God, but are critical of the latent sexism in their cultures and the role the Bible and certain biblical interpretations have played as a source of theologies oppressive to women.

This prophetic reading of the Bible puts them in conflict with their cultural and religious communities at the same time. Other topics of interest to African women theologians are Christology, theological anthropology and ecclesiology. And they draw attention to religion and culture as the facets that have the greatest impact on the lives of African women and in other areas of the life of their social communities.

In recent years, a black and indigenous Latin American feminist theology has also emerged.