ABSTRACT
Until relatively recently, the role, status, and place of women within the historic world religions has been fairly noncontroversial. This is despite the fact that women, as half of the world’s population, make up considerably more than half of the devotees in most major religions. The point at which women’s place becomes an issue depends on the religion and, even more, on the culture within which the religion is operating. For the first few generations of a new religious tradition, while it is settling down and establishing and codifying its norms, women play quite a prominent part: think, for example of the Prophet’s wives and daughter in Islam and the preaching women in early Methodism and Quakerism. Once the early burst of innovation is over, when conservatism and consoli dation take the place of innovation and charisma, women tend to be relegated to the role of followers only. Typically, this is accompanied by an ideology which argues that women are fundamentally different from men, and part of this difference is their inherent inability to lead in the religious sphere. This relegation remains generally uncontested until the wider society begins to regard women as having equal rights
with men. For most world religions, this creates immediate and obvious tensions, as this is not how sacred texts and accrued traditions relating to women are understood.
