The Institute for Feminism and Religion was formally incorporated as a company in December 1995. Our aim is as follows:
Aim: Exploring a prophetic approach to feminism and religion, inclusive of many traditions and the emerging consciousness in Ireland.
Operating Process: The Institute provides opportunities for women to reclaim religion by engaging theoretically and experientially with the issues of feminist theology, ethics, spirituality, and ritual.
Founding Women: The Institute for Feminism and Religion was founded by a number of female scholars of theology, ethics, spirituality, and ritual, and religious women concerned at the dearth of opportunities available for the critical study of religion and the role it played in Irish political and social life. The founder members of the Institute met over a number of years to discuss how best to make this work available in Ireland. We wished to provide an independent space in which women could articulate their own concerns and subject to critical analysis the role religion played in contemporary Irish culture, in the fields of theology, ethics, ritual, and spirituality. Our concerns were several:
For historical reasons in Ireland, given the role of religion in the struggles towards nationalism, the charter of the National University of Ireland specifically prohibited the study of theology. The aim of this prohibition was to ensure that universities became critical places of scholarship and learning and that the confessional religious divides that had dominated Irish culture would find no place within Irish universities. The study of theology was, therefore, confined to denominational colleges and seminaries. No college or university offered an interdisciplinary study of religion appropriate to the modern age.
Since the foundation of the state, Ireland has effectively been deprived of a critical academic resource essential to the mental health of its people. In advanced democracies such critical approaches to the study of religion are fundamental to, and constitute the discipline. However, Ireland appears to have remained in a time warp where old religious and theological disputes are fought out on long since disputed intellectual territory, and with lethal political effects, especially in Northern Ireland.
Effectively this means that although throughout the rest of the academic world major strides had been made in the critical study of theology and religion this work was not available in Ireland. In the case of the major Irish religious denomination, Roman Catholicism, it also meant the exclusion of women from the study of theology at all levels. Women were allowed to study “religious education” in preparation for their roles as teachers, the curriculum for which was specified in advance by the denominations.
The last thirty years has seen major growth in the study of religion from a feminist perspective. This perspective has highlighted the role played by religion in the subordination of women. Those founding the IFR were concerned to make such insights available in Ireland in the following arenas:
Anthropological studies of religion cross culturally have thrown light on the sacred/profane and other forms of dualism in which women, almost universally, inhabit the subordinate realm. Feminist scholars interrogate various traditions asking why this is the case and what are the consequences for women today?
Critical biblical studies and hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) had highlighted the extent to which interpretations of the bible are socially situated, often serving the interests of the dominant powers. Feminist scholars have re-interpreted charter texts in all religions investigating and critiquing how and why such previous interpretations have so ably supported male domination,
Psychoanalytic studies of religion highlighted the deeply unconscious forces at play in religion, ones that often underpinned the continuing subordination of women. Feminist scholars, especially those working from the work of Melanie Klein, investigate the deep-seated psychic roots of negative attitudes toward women and their consequences for religious teaching and practice.
The critical study of philosophy demonstrated the consistent gender biases in all the major philosophical schools, biases that elevated spirit to the detriment of nature, and in the process denigrated women for their closeness to nature and their defective reasoning.
Sociological studies of religion exposed the false dualisms existing between culture and nature, the public and the private, thereby contributing enormously toward our understanding of male-domination in the microphysics of social organisation.
Recent post-modernist theory (theory that combines elements of all the above), and especially the post-modern theorists of religion, has highlighted the impact of representation (symbols, images, myths) on people’s consciousness and even on their physical and mental health.
Action rather than beliefs: For some theorists, the focus on religious beliefs (orthodoxy) is less important than religious actions (orthopraxis). In other words, the validity or health of any religious system must be subject to criteria of accountability involving basic human rights and social justice. Under these auspices, ritual practices, stories and myths are interrogated, not only for their truth status, but also for their ability to positively affect or inhibit human agency.
The second major reason for founding the Institute was that, in Ireland, given that any of the institutions teaching religion are clearly in denominational hands, and that teaching positions in such institutions are not open to competition or even advertisement, self-identified feminist theologians actively suffered discrimination in promotion and employment. Such women have been forced to emigrate or commute back and forth from Ireland, work in other fields, or be content with minimal subsistence on hourly contracts as they continued to develop professionally and work in their chosen profession.
Active discrimination against feminists: Worldwide, there is active discrimination against those women who consciously take the liberation of women as their starting point of interpretation. The Vatican documents against the ordination of women have presented serious challenges to the scholarly integrity of such women. Furthermore, in Roman Catholic institutions worldwide, those women (and men) who actively refused to accept the flawed reasoning behind such exclusion of women have been dismissed.
Silencing of critical voices: Given the precariousness of their situations or employment status, feminists in almost all religious institutions are effectively silenced and unable to participate intelligently in major contemporary ethical debates, especially regarding female reproductive choices.
Institute as a critical voice: Given all the above factors, we formed the Institute for Feminism and Religion to offer women in Ireland access to critical thinking in the areas of theology, spirituality, liturgy and ethics, and to actively encourage women to articulate their own distinctive voice in these areas. We put on a number of trial courses and events, before formally incorporating in 1995.
Non-denominational and ecumenical: We make particular efforts to bridge the increasing gap between secular and non-secular society and to offer women disenfranchised from the dominant churches opportunities to reflect critically on the alternative means of honouring and developing their own perspectives.
Independent Space: One of our most important assets is our freedom to reflect critically on our own experience and we treasure and carefully guard our independence. However, such independence is maintained at serious cost: although in our early days we received some funding from religious orders (male and female), most of our funding has come through income generated from our own events.
Support Networks: These events have also served to develop small networks of women in various areas throughout Ireland who meet regularly for discussion and dialogue and to plan events in their local areas. Other women draw on the insights offered through the Institute, and continue to work in traditional parish structures, or to apply such insights in the context of their particular profession. Participants in our courses include teachers, social workers, students, homemakers, nurses, civil servants, psychotherapists, parish workers, artists, poets, and others engaged in various occupations.
Geographical Base: From the outset, we have taken the Island of Ireland as our working base. Women from all parts of Ireland have been represented on our Board and National Committee, and through our website and e-mail discussion list, we disseminate information and support women working, often in extreme isolation, throughout Europe and beyond.
Social and Religious Base: We have made every effort to be multi-cultural, ecumenical, and socially inclusive. We offer reduced rates and scholarships and actively encourage disadvantaged women to attend our events.
Constituency: In the seven years of our existence, several thousand women have been attracted to our courses and other events. However, since some have found our name (any one of the three nouns!) to be problematic, we are currently considering changing our name to better reflect our aims and operating processes. In particular, the word religion has proved to be a stumbling block for many women. This reflects the historical experience of women in Ireland given the tendency of religion to act as a tool of domination, and the historical and current exclusion of women from decision making, office-holding, or officiating at functions, especially in the dominant Irish religious tradition: the Roman Catholic Church.
Our work to date comprises courses offered on a twenty, ten or eight week basis: residential events; residential festivals; email discussion; website maintenance; networking; resourcing requests for information on the key areas, national and international;
Mercy Not Sacrifice: Toward an Irish Philosophia, Dublin, spring, 1996, twenty weeks
Toward an Irish Political Theology: Dublin, fall, 1996, spring, 1997, twenty weeks
Introduction to Feminist Spirituality: Exploring Life-giving Ways of Being Dublin, spring, 1997, ten weeks.
Celtic Spirituality: A Feminist Exploration: Dublin, spring, 1997, ten weeks.
Myth, Ritual and Symbol: Dublin, fall 1997 and spring 1998, twenty weeks.
Feminism and Religion: an Introduction: Dublin and Belfast, spring 1998, ten weeks.
Making a Difference: Discovering Feminist Ethics: Dublin, fall, 1998, ten weeks.
Our Bodies/ our Souls: Dublin, spring, 1999, ten weeks.
Faith of our Fathers/ Work of Our Mothers: Belfast, spring, 1999, ten weeks.
Irish Women's Wisdom: Dublin, fall, 1999, spring, 2000, twenty weeks.
Our aims in these courses are several:
¨ To provide a space where women can think freely and without censorship on the ethical, political, and spiritual concerns of our time
¨ to offer opportunities to women to reflect critically on their religious practices, spiritual commitments, and allegiances
¨ to offer women access to cutting-edge thinking in the broad area of feminist religious studies
¨ to empower and encourage women working in local communities to develop imaginative ways of gathering together to nurture one another’s intellectual development
Festival of Brigit: For the past seven years we have held the Festival of Brigit event, in Termonfeckin, Co. Louth, and in Esker Retreat Centre, Athenry, Co. Galway, and Stranmillis College, Belfast. These events have each attracted between 80-140 participants from all over Ireland and Celtic lands.
Solstice/Summer/Midwinter: Since 1994 we have held a celebration for Solstice /Midwinter/ Summer, each of which has been attended by up to 250 people from all over Ireland. These have been held in the Mercy International Centre in Baggot Street, Marino Institute for Education, Milltown Park, The Dominican College on Griffith Avenue, The Quaker Centre on Lisburn Road, Belfast, and the Drumallis Centre in Larne, Co. Antrim.
Celebrating The Ministry Of Women: We hold this event on Holy Thursdays to honour the roles that women have played in their various vocations, as nurses, teachers, mothers, religious, artists, and others.
Beltaine: Summer Fire: We have held this event twice in Milltown Park and in the new Catherine Macauley Centre in Herbert Street.
The Wisdom and Brokenness of Earth, Body and Spirit. Samhain, 2000, Kilnamanagh, Tallaght, Dublin
Our aims in these festival events are several:
¨ to recuperate elements from early Celtic cultural traditions, and to develop some new ones with a view to developing an authentic Irish feminist spirituality
¨ to recuperate life-giving spiritual and natural symbols, in contrast to nature and earth denigrating religious practices of patriarchal institutions
¨ to offer training and empowerment to women in organising such events
¨ to offer women the experience of participating in ritual and artistic occasions and presided over by women
¨ to offer imaginative and creative means of accessing women’s creativity
¨ to nourish and renew women’s commitment to personal and political liberation
¨ to provide a focus for artists to develop life-giving symbols
Celebrating spring: Belfast, fall, 1997. This one-day event was held to offer an opportunity to women from across the traditions in Northern Ireland to come together to celebrate the arrival of the new springtime of peace and regeneration.
Our Catholic and Protestant Foresisters: Belfast, fall, 1997. Forty women attended this event that provided an opportunity to discuss the positive and negative aspects of our traditions and to plan for further work in the North of Ireland.
Back to Beginnings: This event was held at Bellinteer, Co. Meath, and was an opportunity to renew our spiritual resources within the context of Buddhist spirituality.
In responding to the invitation from the Department of Equality Justice, and Law Reform to contribute to the National Plan for Women (2001-2005), and given the historical role of religion in Ireland, our contention is that this present submission must take its inspiration not only from the Beijing Declaration but also from the special role given to religion in the Irish Constitution.
The introduction to the Irish Constitution reads as follows:
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred.
We the people of Éire.
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,
And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,
Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
From the foregoing it is clear that the area of our brief, religion, underpins the whole Irish Constitution, and all activities that take place under its governance. However, the language and ethos of the Constitution as it is presently presented shows no awareness of the vast contribution made by feminist scholars of religion toward a critical appraisal of the role of exclusive divine language, and the effect of such language for female agency. While major religious traditions have changed such language to reflect contemporary thinking and practice, and especially to reflect appreciation for the women within various traditions, the underlying assumptions in the religious underpinnings of the Irish Constitution remain unchallenged. In particular, the role of mothers through centuries of trial goes unacknowledged.
These facts contain major implications for several articles in the Constitution.
Article 40: Laws regulating the manner in which the right of forming associations and unions and the right of free assembly may be exercised shall contain no political, religious, or class discrimination.
While such sentiments may hold in law, in actual fact, the hegemony enjoyed by male dominated religious traditions in Ireland has effectively discriminated against women.
Article 41.2.1. …the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved
41.2.2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.
This article underpins the dominant philosophical and ethical dualisms between the private and the common good, a dualism heavily critiqued by feminist ethicists, whose critique is not reflected in legislative policy.
Article 42: The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
Article 42.3.2. The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.
Article 43.4.2. The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.
Article 44. 1 The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion.
Article 44.2. The State guarantees not to endow any religion
Article 45.1 The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the whole people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life.
Despite the above sentiments, the State, by failing to provide any independent fora for the critical study of religion and ethics, has effectively failed in its aspiration and duty to provide for the moral education of its citizens. This has had widespread repercussions:
Ethics: Historically denied access to critical education in ethics or theology, women have been dependent for such resources on the dominant traditions to whose deliberations on such matters (including matters specifically pertaining to female reproduction) they have not been invited and have had no part to play.
Role Models: Throughout the history of the Irish state, until fairly recently, Irish women have been deprived of effective and empowering role models in public, religious or ethical life.
Symbols: Religious, and artistic representations of women have been those that supported male superiority and dominance in the religious realm.
Myths: The stories, myths, and religious texts available to women have largely supported male dominance and female subordination.
Rituals: Precluded from ordination in the major religious traditions, women have been excluded from ritual participation even on formal and formative State occasions.
Theology: Given the specific prohibitions on the study of theology in the major universities, women have effectively been dependent on male interpretations of the major religious traditions available to them in church. In such traditions, women’s subordination is often divinely ordained, and religiously guaranteed.
The monopolies effectively enjoyed by the dominant religious traditions have left the Irish state poorly equipped to make the necessary transition to a post-religious age.
Ethical vacuum: The accelerated demise of a religious world-view has effectively shattered the traditional religious bases for ethical judgement. The failure of the Irish state to provide for non-denominational religious education has radically affected the ability of Irish citizens to access an intelligent, formal critical reasoning ability in the field of ethics. An ethical vacuum has been created with potentially serious consequences for women. The current proposed referendum¾one that leaves untouched the fact that over six thousand Irish women annually travel to England for abortions¾betrays the historical and continuing moral failure of the Irish state to take responsibility for its own citizens.
Multi-culturalism: While Ireland has rapidly become a multi-cultural society in the last ten years, only very recently has a curriculum been developed to take account of the variety of religious traditions now represented in Ireland. However, while such a curriculum might represent the existing religious traditions, it does not reflect the last thirty years of female scholarship critiquing such traditions for their ability to effect structures, myths, symbols, and practices of domination, especially toward women.
In the light of the above history of women under the Irish Constitution, the exclusion of religion as a category from the Beijing Declaration was a matter of some concern to us as we proceeded toward making a contribution to the National Draft Plan for Women. For that reason, we consulted with colleagues in Ireland and abroad, some of whom were present in Beijing, on the underlying reasoning behind such exclusion. The following are some of the conclusions:
UN Involvement of progressive church groups: The World Council of Churches (Geneva based), and The World Conference on Religion and Peace (New York based), and World Faiths Development Dialogue all have strong links with the UN, but except for the last one mentioned, are not specifically concerned with religious issues, but with general issues of social and economic justice.
Active involvement of women of faith in all areas: Several women attested to the fact that many women involved in such areas as violence, education, the girl-child, economics, etc. were women of faith who explicitly derived their commitment from their understanding of and ethical commitment to feminist religious, ethical, and spiritual practices. Such commitment nourished and sustained their involvement regardless of whether or not they explicitly made reference to religion throughout their submissions.
Tacit agreement that religion should not become an explicit category: Despite their own religious and spiritual commitments, many women activists explicitly welcomed the fact that religion was not a category in the Beijing Platform for Action. They cited several reasons:
1. Separation of church and state: Some women came from political traditions that separated church and state, and were acutely aware of the dangers attendant upon such lack of separation, especially for women.
2. Lack of agreement: Some respondents spoke of their unease at being represented by single-issue groups that did not represent what they considered to be the complexity of procreative ethics for them.
3. Active involvement at Beijing of religious groups opposed to women’s liberation: Before, during, and after Beijing certain religious groups attempted to claim to represent women. One respondent said that the most active religious groups from the U. S. were the right wing conservatives, many of them Catholics. The female leader of the Vatican delegation to Beijing informed one respondent that her agenda was created from above. In other words, she represented the Vatican rather than Catholic women in general.
4. Role of Vatican: The Vatican functions as an independent state, and joined with states such as Iran, Libya, Guatemala, and Saudi Arabia where democracy is seriously compromised, or discrimination against women is constitutionally endorsed. Pope John Paul II referred to the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo as the work of the devil. The Vatican has refused to sign the UN Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women, and yet it used its position as a state to attempt to impose its ethical views on female reproduction on women worldwide. Some respondents referred to such tactics as demonization, intimidation, and exclusion.
In response to such tactics, a group known as See Change has been established specifically to prevent states such as the Vatican using their political status to prevent action for women in the broader global field. In addition, faced with the threat that such fundamentalism poses to female liberation, a group has formed in London, Women Against Fundamentalism that studies and challenges the effect of such fundamentalism around the world.
5. The multi-variant ways in which governments approach religion: Given the complexity and variability of church-state relations, even those working from a religious base decided that it would be just too hard to aim at any consensus.
6. Claims that religious beliefs took precedence over human rights: This question was raised in the context of a discussion on the question as to whether national sovereignty should take precedence over human rights. One respondent asked: What happens when a country under the guise of religious beliefs violates the person and the life of women? Horrendous violations occur as part of religious rituals in those countries where government and religion are one. To avoid such dilemmas, the final draft of the declaration used language that reflected the assumption that human rights took precedence over national sovereignty and that no country had the right to violate women's human rights as part of their religious beliefs.
The U.N. categorization of religion as a sub-group of culture: Given all these difficulties, one respondent suggested that to avoid the above dilemmas the UN has historically used the word culture almost as a euphemism for religion. The focus on culture has several advantages:
religion, rather than on beliefs.
Study of role of religion: Several respondents claimed that our efforts to systematize the effects of religion were crucial, and that our call for expanded study of the role of religion in world policy-making was both timely and welcome.
Preparing to contribute toward the National Draft Plan for Women has offered us an invaluable opportunity to reflect critically on our work to date. We consulted those on our mailing list (1,500) and other associated organisations. We sent out a questionnaire and invited people to respond to our questions and to comment further and many of our respondents did so. Given the time frame available, we had an excellent response.
Given the nature of our work, our compilation of the results will not be quantitative. Our intention is to provide an overall impression of the responses under the various categories. We will summarise the responses generally. Responses that pertain especially to any of our four focus points ¾ theology, ritual, ethics, or spirituality¾ will be recorded under those headings. The questionnaire was as follows:
Questionnaire: Draft Plan for Women 2001-2005.
Submission from Institute for Feminism and Religion
We are asking you to prioritise the value you attach to the work of the Institute for Feminism and Religion by marking each category on a scale of one to five (five is the highest value). If there are missing areas, insert them yourselves, together with any other comments that might be helpful. Do not feel confined to one sheet of paper.
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1. How has the work of the Institute (or similar related organisations) affected your commitment or ability to act toward any of the twelve areas outlined in the Beijing Platform? Please specify. |
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2. How might the Institute advance the ideals in the Beijing Platform for Action in the future? |
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3. If the Institute did not exist, what gaps would exist in Irish cultural, educational, or spiritual life?
a. Women’s ritual leadership/ and empowering images of women in story, symbol and representation on ceremonial occasions b. Women’s perspectives in ethical decision-making c. Feminist education in theology and religion d. Feminist spirituality, or practices, supporting, encouraging, and nourishing our commitment e. Feminist leadership-training |
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4. What role does, or might the Institute play in the future, holding the ground for women’s consciousness today? a. Providing positive role formation or education, religious freedom, or independent space to think, or imagine b. Women’s development, growth programmes c. Empowering rituals, to strengthen and foster commitment d. Raising consciousness regarding earth based spiritualities and/or global struggles of women throughout the globe |
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 |
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5. Please prioritise, as you see it, the value of the Institute to date at the following levels Individual Family Locally Nationally Internationally |
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 |
Feel free to add comments, add extra pages, or write on the back.
Our responses will be under two headings. Number one will be the response from respondents on what they valued in our work to date. Number two will be the suggestions made as to the form our work will take in the future. In several cases we have merged the headings provided by Beijing to respond in a composite way within our own terms of understanding. For instance, our response to numbers one and two on education and poverty is a joint response to those headings.
Preamble: Some respondents raised the question of equality. They felt that the word equal implied that the current organisation of patriarchal ideas, structures, politics, and theologies were normative. On the contrary, respondents argued that such norms had been created in situations where women were actively excluded (universities and churches).
Many assumptions regarding work, nature, justice, politics, religion, philosophy, and spirituality must now actively be challenged in the light of women’s raised consciousness. This work has only begun in recent years and so the concept of equality used by the Department must be provisional, and kept actively under review. Otherwise, not only will women’s voices again be drowned, but also the experiences of men, struggling for liberation within such a distorted organisation of culture and labour, will also be disregarded.
1. The Institute has always been committed to including participants from all socio-economic backgrounds. We have made scholarships available and have offered free admission to events where appropriate.
Theology: Respondents noted that the theological approach of the Institute played a vital part in all aspects of the Beijing agenda. Through Feminist Theology the exclusively male interpretations of our cultural and religious traditions and their effects have been challenged.
Methodologies: Many respondents expressed their appreciation for both the content and the adult methods used in our events.
Further Education: Several respondents mentioned that the work of the Institute had encouraged them to pursue further education in various disciplines and professions.
Resources: Courses taken with the Institute and the generous amounts of literature distributed have given the vocabulary and language required for women to express themselves and to access other information. Several respondents mentioned their appreciation for the volume of resources made available to them at our courses or festivals. (We make a point of compiling resource packets of material of materials not readily available, for ongoing discussion, and festival planning.
International Links and Opportunities: Our links with international organisations were especially appreciated. We have established links with the Grail (an international organisation of lay women) and especially with the Women’s Task Force of the Grail in the U.S.A. We have facilitated internships over the past six years in which Irish women have gone to Grailville, Ohio, for periods of up to two years engaging in programmes such as “Woman-Defined Theologies”, “Deepening Spiritual Awareness”, and working in the organic gardens. In return for a minimal contribution to administration, interns are offered room and board and monthly stipend.
Those who have availed of such opportunities in the past have gone on to various ministries or have engaged in further training. A Mercy sister is currently in Rwanda; one intern has just finished a theology degree; one is embarking on a law degree with a view to representing the disadvantaged; another has begun a degree in theology, while a further intern is training for development work in Africa.
Future role of the Institute
2. In the light of the above critique of the notion of equality, respondents felt that genuine equal status for women might involve the radical critique of the unequal distribution of wealth (within and outside of Ireland), rather than simply endorsing or capitulating to an economic system predicated on the rugged individualism typical of the capitalist psyche. Therefore, to achieve true equality, the Institute should actively seek imaginative ways of accessing those aspects of female desire that are not simply functional to the needs of advanced capitalism.
Several respondents requested that together with the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform must actively seek out and fund opportunities for further on-going education at national level. These opportunities should be aimed especially toward those women who, for family or professional reasons, are unable to avail of the several one-year Women’s Studies options in the major universities.
In order that women come to take their rightful place in the social and political worlds, and that female participation be active rather than reactive, the work of developing critical consciousness and life-long learning for women must be continual and supported by the Department. Education is, therefore, at the core of the Institute’s activities and will be central to any future role.
The following areas were key:
Ethics: Respondents that the word ethics effectively underpins all the categories outlined in the summary document. Through feminist ethics women are enabled to further question patriarchal systems prevalent in both ecclesiastical and governmental structures.
Ethical Globalization: The Institute has links with several groups working on globalization and should have a particular role to play in raising awareness and developing the concept: ethical globalization.
In particular, we would aim to be in dialogue with groups such as Swedish feminist ethicists who are developing the concept of irreducible basic human needs. In other words, rather than aiming, as typical patriarchal ethics do, for universally applicable norms and tenets that often contain hidden colonial or ethnic assumptions, they start from the question what are the basic human needs that must be fulfilled and without which none of us can be called human? This allows us to focus on the micro structures of human communities and places the responsibility for developing ethical awareness clearly at local level, rather than from within religious systems that no longer carry any weight or agreement in particular situations.
Institute events: Respondents requested that we continue our weekly series, our festival events, and workshops on various aspects of women’s leadership.
Critical Consciousness: Respondents were anxious that we continue to organise events that raised critical consciousness as well as providing information as to current developments and trends in our fields of concentration.
Life-long Learning: The last thirty years has seen phenomenal growth in women’s studies and feminist theory. Most of this work is not reflected in the dominant third-level curricula. Furthermore, many professional women will have graduated many years ago and not been exposed to feminist critique even in their own professional areas.
1. Respondents noted that they derived heightened sense of selves and important spiritual nourishment from the various series we have held, and urged that we encourage the development of women-centred rituals, and stories. Women commented that they had derived the confidence to conduct their own rituals related to home, life-transitions, and in their professional work as therapists
The question of countering all forms of violence against women has been crucial to the work of the Institute, especially through our fostering cross-cultural links in Northern and Southern Ireland, and in developing positive images of peacemaking in our Brigit festivals.
2. Some women asked for more training in conflict resolution and non-violent action.
Respondents asked that in our critical education work we expose the priority given to arms over education. Furthermore, since armaments are produced in Ireland, that we play our part in exposing the role of such armaments in the economy and the locations where such arms are produced.
The Director of the Institute, Dr. Mary Condren, is currently working on her next book: a feminist critique of the structures of war and violence endemic in patriarchal relationships, and the role of the concepts and structures of sacrifice and self-sacrifice. This work has been developed through several Institute courses, for instance, those of political theology, and on the development of a Feminist Philosophia: Mercy Not Sacrifice.
The location for this critique is in Ireland, and the completed book should offer a significant critique of the role of certain religious doctrines in perpetuating violence and abuse against women and children, and the role of sacrifice in generating the symbolic capital that enables the war system.
The next part of this work will be a critique of the role of self-sacrifice, endorsed by religious doctrine, in maintaining unequal relationships among women and men. Central to this will be a critique of the relationships of co-dependency and erotic domination¾crucial factors in hindering the development of equality.
Apart from our ethical concerns regarding the just distribution of wealth, nationally and internationally, this is not a specific focus of our work.
1. Empowerment: Respondents noted that The IFR has inspired and enabled us to develop, train and educate ourselves, as well assist other women to do the same. Some noted that it had encouraged them to join and support organisation such as the Women’s Coalition Party in N. Ireland that has and continues to make such a significant contribution to N. Ireland politics.
Inclusive Structures: Others noted that the Institute had made a very real contribution to women’s leadership and empowerment in that it modelled inclusive structures of decision making, especially in planning events. The Institute has provided an empowering model of decision- making and models of excellence and creativity in imaginative adult education. It has fostered personal confidence and ability.
Participating in events has raised awareness of the interconnections between politics, religion, ritual, and ethics. It has made women very conscious of how the existing systems within society and religion do not recognize, affirm or represent the rights, needs and aspirations of women but rather inhibit their inclusion.
Resistance: Some women responded that the support of the Institute encouraged and enabled them to question and actively resist sexist attitudes and patriarchal structures. These included political parties, local churches, and families. Women from Northern Ireland were especially appreciative of the forum for critique, often not available in their own churches, given their contested situations.
Raising Consciousness: Many women, especially those relatively isolated in rural areas, commented on the role of the Institute in confirming their spiritual and feminist awareness. Others commented that their empowerment through the Institute enabled them to take a more active role in parish life, confident of their ability to question whatever they found problematic through writing to national and regional newspapers on ethical issues.
However, respondents had particular concerns regarding this category, especially in view of the role of religion in the Irish Constitution and the virtual immunity offered to religious organisations and churches with regard to Equality Legislation. This takes several forms.
Government funding discriminatory: Despite their history of discriminating against women, and without much evidence of change in structures of decision-making or re-education with regard to women’s issues, many religious and theological institutions now receive significant indirect funding from the Irish government for various educational programmes and social services. Their existing staff structures remain untouched, and their current employment practices are not open to scrutiny. Positions are often not openly advertised, and offered to candidates who might not have succeeded in a professional competition.
Even where lay-women do succeed in gaining employment, their payments are hourly, derisory, and unreflective of the current cost of living. They have no security of tenure, or holiday entitlements. Such institutions often protest that payments are made equally to all staff (lay and religious) and that they simply cannot afford to pay realistic rates. However, religious persons working in such institutions are subsidised by their congregations, and not dependent on the payments offered to meet their living expenses.
Women Pastoral Ministers: While not until the late ‘Sixties were some selected women religious allowed to study theology at Maynooth, several institutions formerly closed to female participation at any level are now engaged in programmes of Pastoral Ministry. Only in the ‘Nineties, with the rapid decline in male admissions to seminaries, were institutions such as the Milltown Park, All Hallows College, Maynooth, Carlow College open to admitting women for the study of theology and pastoral ministry.
Women qualified in such institutions (feminist or not) have major difficulty finding positions. Positions are often the gift of the local parish priest, and not subject to transparent criteria. Those positions offered are often part-time, poorly paid, insecure, and un-pensioned. Reliance on good will often places such women in invidious positions, bereft of the authority of role, and utterly dependent on good personal relations for their continuing viability. No professional organisation or union represents such women who have no form of redress when contracts are prematurely terminated often when their consciousness is raised and they request formal status.
Very often retired religious women take on the role of parish sister, which, while offering some semblance of female participation, lacks any professional structure or remuneration. Many of these women receive subsidies from their religious congregations. As inexpensive options for local parishes, they further undermine the establishment of a professional structure for other women.
The question of professionalism: Even though they fail to fulfil the minimal requirements for equality of women, many of these parishes are now receiving significant funding through various government departments. Persons appointed through this form of funding are often not subject to professional accreditation by reputable bodies. The present ad hoc measures taken by Government Departments in relation to parish structures leaves communities open to potential widespread un-professionalism and potential abuse. Furthermore, in the light of the continuing fall in numbers for priestly vocations, and the imminent demise or radical diminishment of clerical leadership, the government is failing to take seriously or provide for professional structures of pastoral community care.
2. The Institute has provided a forum where some of these grievances can be aired, but while religious institutions still enjoy immunity from equality legislation, the Institute is not in any position to take action. Furthermore, consciousness among such women must be sufficiently raised to enable them to become active agents in their own liberation.
Preamble: Some respondents pointed that whereas religion is specifically mentioned in the area “Decision making” thereafter it is categorically ignored. As previously noted, culture is often used in the U.N. as a euphemism for religion. In this sense, the concept of cultural labour could be said to characterise the work of the Institute and to fall under the general category of Media. Together with education, this is the area of activity where the Institute could be said to be able to make its greatest contribution toward achieving the ideals espoused at Beijing.
Contemporary media today fulfil the role once played by institutional religion, that of shaping images, symbols, and cultural memories. Unlike religions, however, which operated (however imperfectly) under the auspices of ethical imperatives, contemporary media owe no such allegiances, and operate almost entirely through the economic system. This has several implications:
Forming and shaping cultural memory: Whereas previously, cultural memories were formed over many years of tried and tested norms, now cultural memories are shaped instantly and usually in the service of economics. Peer pressure and norms of conspicuous consumption, while always active, now, through advanced media, play an inordinate role in shaping cultural consciousness and memory.
Psychic Domination: Whereas the structures of beliefs, theologies, and philosophies on which the subordination of women has rested has now been firmly exposed, such exposure has corresponded with the rise of new means of psychic domination through the proliferation of myths, images, symbols, and other representations of women, subtly enforcing subordination and psychic domination.
1. Respondents noted that religion is the place where society conserves its oldest and deepest messages about the meaning of life, the earth and the roles of people in society. These messages often hold within them many negative messages about the role and the worth of women. The work of the Institute has helped bring these hidden beliefs to light and allow them to be examined. In its very brief, the work of the Institute tackles the belief structures that have allowed discrimination against women in the first place.
Religion has also played a major role in scapegoating women. People’s acting of myths and shibboleth is in deference to a flawed concept of the sacred, the holy, the human. Women have suffered and will continue to suffer because the labyrinth that religion is part of is hugely complex and encompasses everything to do with life and death.
The IFR has heightened awareness regarding the power of language to include and exclude and the consequent effects on systems within society and religion.
The practical example of our Board members as women in the public eye has also contributed to a fair and balanced and non-stereotypical presentation of women dealing realistically with the Media in the real world. Sound role models have been provided for younger women who wish to use their talents in this area.
The Institute enables a deep understanding of cultural and religious roots and continually re-creates culture in a way that is aware, consensual, imaginative, and which touches people deeply in their emotions and spirits as well as their minds. Change at that deep level within individuals and societies is needed for women’s real empowerment.
Through feminist spirituality and ritual the Institute assists women in becoming more open to creative responses to the issues highlighted at Beijing. Respondents noted the effect of their involvement in the Institute in their overall emotional and psychological health. This referred especially to our networking with like-minded people, and broadening the spectrum of spirituality from that available now in churches which women found to be dispiriting, dominating, and alienating to contemporary women.
While some women deeply valued their roots in Catholic or Christian traditions, they especially welcomed the work of the Institute in reclaiming those traditions from the one-sided interpretations and practices available within the churches.
The respondents noted that no other forum in Ireland exists in which women can explore that which touches deepest in women’s identity and spirituality. The IFR was, for some, a beacon.
2. Cultural capital: Through our ritual events, such as Festivals of Brigit, we aim to continue to challenge the existing cultural capital and develop alternative symbols of empowerment for women. The future work of the Institute in the area of media/representation will consist in actively soliciting, developing and generating empowering and non-exploitative images of women to directly counter those generated in the interests of consumer capitalism.
2. Media Training: Women commented that they would like to train in ways that combated the exploitative representation of people¾women, children and men¾in the media, especially in television and radio advertising.
Prophetic cultural de-construction: The Institute has taken as its aim developing a prophetic approach to religion. Traditionally, priests supported the status quo, but prophets were those who continually cried out for the sake of those alienated, and marginalized. The Institute has a positive role to play in the area of media in the following ways:
¨ Continuing to expose the anti-female beliefs embedded in our society and promoted by the media
¨ Developing actively ways of accessing the emotional intelligence of women as a form of active resistance to dominating imagery.
¨ Honouring and developing imaginative and intuitive forms of knowledge to enable women to resist the dominant social codes.
¨ Exploring sacred/profane, religion/culture, religion/mythology dualisms.
1. Respondents commented that Feminist Theology has made them conscious of the responsibility to care for the environment and its resources. Some respondents commented that the Institute had challenged the patriarchal view of nature and humankind’s role in the planet, and had enabled them to work toward sustainable forms of development that respected the cycles of the earth. The work of the Institute has enlarged their vision about the inter-connectedness of all that exists within the universe.
2. True equality must respect the seasons of nature and the rhythms and demands of women’s lives, and women’s way of knowing and working. The work of the Institute in this area is covered in previous sections.
1. Transition rituals: Some respondents noted the role the Institute had played in enabling them to develop rituals for their young girl children to enhance their sense of selves at crucial moments in their lifecycles. In our Brigit festivals, for instance, we actively develop the stages of woman as Virgin, Mother and Crone. By focussing on such ancient imagery of women’s lifecycles and relating them to the Brigit traditions, we actively recuperate empowering symbols for girl children and heighten their awareness and consciousness of their specific roles as nurturers of the next generation.
2. Raising consciousness of young girls as to their feminist spiritual dimension; holistic “woman-sense”, fermenting all aspects of her life, both private and public.
Respondents suggested that the Institute could play a role by continuing to develop our Brigit traditions to recover active, empowering images of women. In particular, they appreciated the symbols we have recuperated from these traditions of female integrity. They urged that we continue to make such symbols available to schools and local communities.
Enslavement of girl children: Respondents noted that we are all complicit in the economic enslavement of women and young girls of primary school age in developing countries who work in sweatshops for a pittance so that we can have cheap clothing and footwear.
¨ Promoting products that pay a fair price
¨ Pressuring politicians and NGO’s to ensure that all children, especially girl children, get free, basic education.
We wish to thank the Department of Equality, Justice and Law Reform for the opportunity to undertake this evaluation of the role of the Institute for Feminism and Religion and its particular contribution toward promoting the areas of concern in Beijing. At this point in time there are several specific areas that we as an Institute would recommend needs particular focus, and some specific proposals we would like to make.
The last thirty years has seen major developments taking place regarding the status of women in Ireland. While much of this is positive, reviewing the history of women in Christianity, and also reviewing what happens to women in times of war, economic pressure, or cultural reforms leading to vicious forms of fundamentalism, we in the IFR have particular concerns with regard to the following:
¨ that we can never take women’s liberation for granted. History has shown us countless times that such liberation, if not functional for particular regimes, can easily be undermined. Since religion can play a mystifying and particular role in undermining women’s liberation, our joint work must be that of holding the ground for what has already been achieved, and critically deconstructing the forms that such liberation takes.
Many women now working in groups, local communities, women’s shelters and other areas seldom have the opportunity to become up to date on current developments in feminist thought. They often lack the money, time, child-minding facilities.
The major universities often hold events, but these are often specifically geared toward women in various academic programmes, or undergoing research. In addition, the conference facilities are often formal and not amenable to democratic forms of education, networking, or empowerment.
Ireland has benefited greatly from the body of feminist theory supporting the liberation of women developed internationally. However, we also have to make our own contribution to that development, based on the specifics of the Irish situation. In particular, our status as a post-colonised island, the deep relationship that exists between religion and nationalism, and our reflections on the interplay between violence and religion on this Island should offer a basis for the development of a specifically Irish body of feminist theory.
Over the past eight years, the IFR has gained valuable experience in developing courses and events fairly unique. We actively seek for ways to do the following:
¨ to draw on women’s imaginative and creative forms of intelligence
¨ nurture friendships and community
¨ foster and strengthen commitment to personal and political liberation.
Respondents to our questionnaire from all over Ireland were enthusiastic about the possibility of our organising summer schools especially for women isolated throughout Ireland, and those unable to come to our Dublin courses.
While there are dozens of summer schools in Ireland held under the names of male literary figures, with the exception of the Kate O’Brien event, no such schools are held in Ireland. The Institute regularly receives request from within and outside Ireland for such events, especially from women in the Irish Diaspora.
Recommendation One: We recommend that the Department actively seek out opportunities to fund such events in the future.