This week’s Women’s Conference 2008, chaired by California First Lady, Maria Shriver, bills itself as “the largest and most dynamic gathering of women in the nation”. And while the annual event will see more than 10,000 participants, the claim is not beyond dispute. My guess is that many other groups, especially religious ones, would lay claim to that designation. But that just highlights the question of whether or not religions empower women the way the organizers of WC 2008 claim that their conference does. The answer is not a simple yes or no.

All religions can empower women, and all have empowered women at various times. They can also disempower women and have done so many times. The issue is less about religion and more about those who call themselves religious. Religion is like a fire: it can heat your home or burn it down. The issue is how those who have it use it….and what we mean by empowerment.
If empowerment is understood as providing men and women with equal status, then the answer both historically and often at present is no, religion does not empower women. But if empowerment is understood as providing women with a greater sense of themselves, their capacity and their significance in the world, then the answer is yes, religion empowers women. Just ask those who call themselves religious. Even if some of us can not imagine how that works for millions of women around the world, their voices deserve to be heard and respected.

Based on the response to similar questions when asked in person, it seems that too often we confuse being empowered with allowing people to reach the conclusions we want them to reach. And however benevolent our motives, or however correct our conclusions may be, that is actually a disempowering understanding of empowerment.

Rather than ask about empowerment, I would suggest that we ask if the faiths we follow create options for all those who follow them or if they insist that there is only one way to be faithful to the tradition. The real issue is choices and whether or not one has the opportunity to make them.
The fact that some will choose to have fewer choices should not be considered a less powerful or empowering choice. Those of us, who feel commanded by the God/Goddess/Gods in whom we believe, and have surrendered some of our daily choice-making to Him/Her’s/them, go through life feeling empowered in precisely that way.
Frankly, I am more troubled by the fact that Women’s Conference 2008 saw fit to invite two Catholics, two Buddhists, and one Muslim for their religious roles but could not find any Protestants or Jews who were appropriate to this venue. I am not sure what it says about those who planned the conference of the traditions which were excluded, but it surely demands serious reflection by both. A topic for another time.