Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Christianity and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting patriarchal (male-dominated) imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, studying images of women in the religions' sacred texts, and matriarchal religion.
Mary Daly was an American radical feminist philosopher and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years. Once a practicing Roman Catholic, she had disavowed Christianity by the early 1970s. Daly retired from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.
Women as theological figures have played a significant role in the development of various religions and religious hierarchies.
Margaret Daphne Hampson is an English theologian. Educated at Oxford and at Harvard, she held a personal Chair in "Post-Christian Thought" at the University of St Andrews. Hampson's distinctive theological position has both gained her notoriety and been widely influential. Holding that Christianity is neither true nor moral, she believes the overcoming of patriarchal religion to be fundamental to human emancipation. As a theologian Hampson has always held to a "realist" position, in which the understanding of "that which is God" is based in human religious experience.
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is a Romanian-born German, Roman Catholic feminist theologian, who is currently the Krister Stendahl Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School.
Christian feminism is a school of Christian theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. Christian feminists argue that contributions by women, and an acknowledgment of women's value, are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. Christian feminists believe that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex and race, but created all humans to exist in harmony and equality, regardless of race or gender. Christian feminists generally advocate for anti-essentialism as a part of their belief system, acknowledging that gender identities do not mandate a certain set of personality traits. Their major issues include the ordination of women, biblical equality in marriage, recognition of equal spiritual and moral abilities, abortion rights, integration of gender neutral pronouns within readings of the Bible, and the search for a feminine or gender-transcendent divine. Christian feminists often draw on the teachings of other religions and ideologies in addition to biblical evidence, and other Christian based texts throughout history that advocate for women's rights.
Rosemary Radford Ruether was an American feminist scholar and Roman Catholic theologian known for her significant contributions to the fields of feminist theology and ecofeminist theology. Her teaching and her writings helped establish these areas of theology as distinct fields of study; she is recognized as one of the first scholars to bring women's perspectives on Christian theology into mainstream academic discourse. She was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and her own work was influenced by liberation and black theologies. She taught at Howard University for ten years, and later at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Over the course of her career, she wrote on a wide range of topics, including antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the intersection of feminism and Christianity, and the climate crisis.
Sarah Anne Coakley is an English Anglican priest, systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with interdisciplinary interests. She is an honorary professor at the Logos Institute, the University of St Andrews, after she stepped down as Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity (2007–2018) at the University of Cambridge. She is also a visiting professorial fellow at the Australian Catholic University, both in Melbourne and Rome.
Margaret A. Farley is an American religious sister and a member of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy. She was Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School, where she taught Christian ethics from 1971 to 2007. Farley is the first woman appointed to serve full-time on the Yale School board, along with Henri Nouwen as its first Catholic faculty members. She is a past president of Catholic Theological Society of America.
Sister Anne Carr was a Catholic nun, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an activist, and feminist theologian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she was the first female permanent member of the faculty. She was well known for her beliefs regarding feminism and seen as an advocate for women's rights. Carr specialized in feminism theology regarding Catholic thought and during her lifetime she wrote ground breaking books which examined feminism and Christianity.
Riffat Hassan is a Pakistani-American theologian and a leading Islamic feminist scholar of the Qur'an.
Elizabeth A. Johnson is a Roman Catholic feminist theologian. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Theology at Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York City and a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood. The National Catholic Reporter has called Johnson "one of the country's most prominent and respected theologians."
Mary E. Hunt is an American feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, US. A Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to social justice concerns.
"A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion", alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984, in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Its publication brought to a head the conflict between the Vatican and those American Catholics who were pro-choice. The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement.
Jane Dewar Schaberg (1938–2012) was an American biblical scholar who served as Professor of Religious Studies and of Women's Studies at the University of Detroit Mercy from 1977 through 2009.
Mary Ann Beavis is a professor emerita, St. Thomas More College, the University of Saskatchewan. She co-founded the peer-reviewed academic journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, together with Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in 2021.
Ursula King is a German theologian and scholar of religion, who specialises in gender and religion, feminist theology, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Philomena Njeri Mwaura is a Kenyan theologian who is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Kenyatta University. She has written in the areas of African theology and mission.
Teresia Mbari Hinga was a Kenyan Christian feminist theologian and a professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in California. She was a founding member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.
Elizabeth Farians, an early member the National Organization of Women, was a religious studies scholar and a longtime activist for the Equal Rights Amendment. Farians is considered the first Catholic feminist to organize public protests and for over forty years she led a public fight against discrimination in religion.
