Religion and Women Equality

Origin :

http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com/2009/06/24/religion-vs-gender-equality-feminism/

 Purpose :

 This source talks about how religion had come across women in general and how it had to do with women equality. The source gives us a sense of how religion had affect women equality , or their life in general.

Value : The value of this source is that this source cited its information from many other sources, as well as the opinion of many people that was writing about this topic of religion and women equality. It also had many imagery in which we can understand as well as learn better. " A picture means a thousand word"

Limitation : 

Though the source gives us a lot of useful information, it limited us to know about religion and women equality, by only focus on one religion point of view, which is Hinduism. There are many women who follow this religion, but there are also many women who followed Christianity or Buddhism, ect. Therefore, there is an bias toward one religion point of view. Moreover, the writer is a women, she can be a bias to this article, and there might be a slight chance in which she can exaggerate information.

Analysis:

In the source , it showed a very ionic example of religion and women equality that women, wearing burqas were not welcome in France. Burqas is the item that a lot of women that followed Hinduism wear. In the context of the source, it is more to it , that women were denied and not welcome. The author states that there is more of a sign of women's subservience rather than religion. Religion, is just an excuses for them to be unreasonable.

The author intentionally include Hinduism as her related articles. However, the  referencing articles on Hinduism and gender equality or feminism is difficult for three reasons. First of all, the global discussion has centered on Islam and the English speaking Internet population is largely Christian. Secondly, Hinduism is unique, and has a flexible and diverse interpretations. Other religions are sort of intentionally planned so as to offer multiple contradictory interpretation. Hinduism wins the others religion by claiming to be all inclusive, and that it means, no discrimination against gender what so ever. The author made an argument that :" Devout religious folks from other religions do argue that the oppression of women is a misinterpretation and misuse of their true religion. But Hindus can't be surpassed in this respect, not only are there multiple contradictory interpretations of Hinduism, even these contradictions can be claimed to be embraced by it. I think it would be a safe bet to to say that for every principle supposedly propounded by Hinduism, a contradictory principle can be found within Hinduism. People would not call me a mathematician if I did not follow mathematics, but they will call me a Hindu even if I did not follow it."  Third, the author said that for a religion that had existed for many centuries, it must be becoming more and more flexible and evolving and because of that, it is hard to differentiate religious practices from social customs and traditions. Many people judge Hindu women on how they dressed , and just blindly assume that she is Hindu because she looks like one.

The author herself, is an atheists. She thinks that religion has been used as an instrument of gender equality, specifically , in the oppression of women. Removing religion from the picture removes religious and theological justifications for patriarchy. In the absence of religion, men will find other ways to oppress women, hence that religion as much is not an obstacle. However, religion is not the only reason, of course there will be many other factors which contribute to gender inequality.