The Women’s Research and Education Institute (WREI) is an independent public policy center with an ethnically and racially diverse board of directors and nearly 30 years of experience in the pursuit of women’s equality. It was originally established to provide data analysis for the women in Congress, but with time has become a respected center for nonprofit research. Among its researchers and associates are respected feminist scholars, and its publications include well-known research and reference tools. WREI’s mission is to identify issues affecting women and their roles in the family, workplace and public arena, as well as to inform and help shape the public policy debate on these issues.

Over the past decades, feminists have sought spiritual centers within and outside the traditional religious establishment. They have created new rituals, altered dogma and successfully changed the practices of many religious institutions. The results of these efforts are present in the inclusive language of worship, and the fact that women grace pulpits across religious and denominational lines in greater numbers than ever. Women’s visible presence in the practice of religion parallels women’s increased equality throughout society. The steadily growing percentage of women in the paid labor market has provided women with the wherewithal to make independent choices that further erase the limits of their historically gendered roles. Nonetheless, equality remains elusive. Perhaps the greatest locus of inequality for women is within the family. To a significant degree, the historical definition of a “good” woman has been tied to her successful fulfillment of familial obligations. Daughter, wife and mother have been the multifaceted roles that religious dogma has shaped, tradition upheld and law affirmed. The “good” woman is at the nexus of society’s public and private spheres.