Women and Religion in the News
| Ban women wearing the burka from benefits and public transport, demands French government spokesman
01/20/2010
Women who wear the burka in France should be banned from using public transport or receiving state handouts, a government spokesman has said.
The call came just one day after the head of President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, the UMP, said that Muslim women wearing full face veils should not be granted French nationality.
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| Politics of Burka and Niqab Heat Up in Canada
11/19/2009
The Muslim Canadian Congress is lobbying to ban the burka and niqab, but authorities say apparel is a matter of individual expression. Young women who have adopted the clothes say they like the modest attire.
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| Roeder Confesses to Tiller Killing
11/19/2009
Scott Roeder, the alleged murderer of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, MD, confessed to the killing in an interview yesterday. Roeder spoke to the Associated Press by phone from the Sedgwick County Jail in Kansas, explaining his plans to pursue a "necessity defense" when his trial commences in January. Roeder faces a first degree murder charge and two counts of aggravated assault.
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| Militants in Somalia Targeting Women Without Veils or Socks
11/18/2009
Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia are allegedly rounding up and beating women who are not wearing veils or socks. In total, over 130 people have been detained in the past three days for violating Al-Shabaab's interpretation of sharia law, according to CNN.
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| Dorothy Day: Giving Proof that the Gospel Can Be Lived
11/18/2009
Dorothy Day was an anarchist and a pacifist who was arrested multiple times throughout her life (the last time when she was in her 70s). The FBI had a 500 page file on her, and J. Edgar Hoover hoped to see her arrested for sedition.
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| When Will the Slander End?
11/18/2009
A few weeks ago I officiated at a wedding. The bride was a giyyoret (a convert to Judaism), and the couple had requested that the honor of reading the ketuba under the chuppah be given to the bride’s teacher. Her teacher was truly her rebbe muvhak, the teacher from whom she had learned the great majority of her Torah knowledge, and from whom she had learned how to practice Judaism. Naturally I agreed, and we proceeded accordingly.
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| Karen Armstrong Wants YOU to Teach Compassion
11/18/2009
We may look different, sound different, follow differing doctrines and dogmas, or none at all, but compassion is at the core of the major faiths and ethic systems of our world. The Golden Rule, or some form of it, is found in every major religion and in almost all if not every country on our planet. Karen Armstrong is counting on this unifying ideology to bring together individuals and communities this Friday for the launch of the Charter for Compassion.
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| The 'aguna' - a statistic or a real problem?
11/16/2009
If the most powerful component of domestic abuse is the issue of control, then the ultimate component of the control issue in Jewish marriages is get-refusal. In a case of an abusive relationship, the woman in keeping with Jewish tradition, who has finally come to the decision that she must dissolve her marriage, can become the victim of continued abuse by her husband's refusal to grant her a Jewish divorce [get].
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| German Lutheran Church Elects First Woman Leader
11/16/2009
The German Lutheran Church elected Margot Kaessmann to be Chairperson, the church's highest position, Wednesday. Kaessmann will be the first woman and the youngest person in history to hold this position.
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| WISE Muslim Women Standing Up
10/28/2009
"Why don't moderate Muslims stand up and say something?" I've been asked frequently on my book tour in the last year. My response is, "We are, but not everyone is listening." Our media, for example, prefers to feature oppressed Muslim women, rather than the thousands of Muslim women advocating social justice or running for public office or promoting women's rights.
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The Sister Fund in the News
| “Troublemaker” Women Honored, Receive Ivy
06/05/2009
What sort of religious institution honors a “run-like-hell Catholic” and the first Asian-American woman rabbi, among others?
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| Kompalya Thunderbird Interviews Kanyere Eaton and Linda Kay Klein
03/26/2009
The Sister Fund's executive director, Kanyere Eaton, and director of research and communications, Linda Kay Klein, discuss women, religion and justice on Public Radio Network. To listen to the interview, click here.
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| Faith Is Not the Enemy of Feminism
03/25/2009
A new report identifies three areas where women's empowerment and religion are linked: activism, scholarship, and popular culture.
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| Black Girls in New York City
03/09/2009
At the top of 2009, an exciting new report, "Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience," was released by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), with support from The Sister Fund. The following is a sampling of press on the report.
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| Small Scope, Big Voice: The Value of Communications at a Small Foundation
11/25/2008
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