History of Feminist Theology

 Feminism:

            Feminism is the principle that women should have political, economic and social rights equal to those of men.  Feminist movement is the movement to win such rights for men.

            Feminism is a movement concerned with the dignity, rights and liberation of women and the implications of this for humanity.

Feminist Theology:

            Feminist Theology is a theology sharing the concerns of feminism, in Christianity especially focusing on the critique of the tradition as patriarchal and on reconceiving it in non-patriarchal terms.

            Hauge defines Feminist Theology as ‘reflection on the content and meaning of religion with particular regard to women’s status and situation, which recognizes the use and misuse of religion in the past and the present for the oppression of women and has as its aim to contribute to the liberation of women.

The origin and development of Feminist Theology:

                        Feminist Theology emerged in the USA, at the end of 1960s.  It is rooted primarily in Christian women’s experience of living under the pressure of patriarchal ideology and structures claimed to be the eternal will of God.  We can say this emerge as re-emergement and the ‘second wave of feminism’.  Its aim was to pursuit meaning, wholeness, and equality for women.  The first wave began in the late 1700s when as English woman, Mary Wollstone Craft, penned ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’.

                        In 1848, hundred American women gathered at New York and ratified a ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ regarding the basic natural rights of women.  After this, the women’s movement gained momentum over the next few decades as women witnessed doors opening to higher education and many professions. 

            In 1920, women in US finally obtained the right to vote.  By 1930, they attained education and removed the political, economic and educational barriers and stepped out into man’s world with passion and zeal.  But within one generation some women ceased to pursue professional ends and returned home to take up the profession of home maker and wife and their equality became dormant and French Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir says, that they were trapped into a restrictive role of ‘kuche, kirche, and kinder’ i.e., kitchen, church and children.  According to De, women were to exist solely for the convenience and pleasure of men.  Women were imprisoned by the roles of mother, wife and sweetheart.  Therefore, she maintained that all forms of socialism, wresting woman away from the family, favor her liberation.  So again Feminism has drawn attention to crucial problems that exist for women in society and in the church.  Thus the development of feminism can be traced quite clearly and comprehensively up until the mid 1970s.

Locating Feminist Theology:

The liberation theology movement was partly inspired by the second Vatican council and the 1967 Papal Encyclical Populorum Progressio. Its leading exponents include Gutierrez, Leonardo, Boff of Brazil and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay. By the virtue of the book ‘A Theology Liberation’; Gutierrez became the acknowledged leader of the liberation theology movement and called as the father of Liberation Theology.