Abstract

Assuming that all cultures have gender roles, religion affects women differently than men. What have Catholic women’s religious lives, roles, and images been like? Although all women share a common experience of being women, differences of class, race, religion, culture, and sexual orientation separate them, and therefore taking into account women’s experiences and views can be a difficult task in complex religious contexts. Religious practices have different significance to men and women and their engagement is different. In foraging and horticultural societies, women and men have more egalitarian and complementary roles and women play significant roles in religion – while in agrarian societies the situation is quite different. Large denominations such as Roman Catholicism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Orthodox Judaism are strongly against the ordination of women to sacramental ministry. Catholic women are left with a God with whom they cannot identify and who cannot identify with them