Can religion support feminism?
The "Lean In" social movement aims to empower women, but it may have a hard time in segregated religious circles
Topics: Religion Dispatches, Feminism, Facebook, women, Religion, Social News
Just about everyone is piling on Facebook-COO Sheryl Sandberg, who aims to launch not only Lean In the book on March 11 but a slickly-designed national Lean In movement to propel more ambitious women up the ladder.
“I always thought I’d run a social movement,” Sandberg has said.
“People come to a social movement from the bottom up, not the top down,” replied Maureen Dowd on Sunday. “Sandberg has co-opted the vocabulary and romance of a social movement not to sell a cause, but herself.”
Details, details, details.
I for one am not complaining that the Sandberg hype is helping rebuild feminist buzz. I like hearing those syllables—feminism—sounded out proudly to the world, especially by people who are making off like bandits with its benefits.
But I do wonder how Sandberg’s “Lean In” instructions would translate to the domain of the world’s most intransigent gender inequalities: religion.
Are you a Catholic woman who feels called to ordination? Find a powerful enough sponsor up the food chain and… oh, wait. All the people up the food chain look like this.
Joanna Brooks, named one of “50 Politicos to Watch,” is the author of The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith and a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches. More Joanna Brooks.
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