Feminism

Abstract

"My principal concern in the debate is to stress that the essential differences between women and men, physical, psychological, temperamental, emotional and in terms of gifts and capabilities tend to be overlooked in the desire to establish equality between the sexes in the light of male domination and exploitation over the centuries. We need to insist that these differences are complementary and in no way justify the domination of one sex by the other. I believe that this conviction about the equality of men and women before God is an inescapable inference from the attitude of Jesus towards women which broke with the conventions of the time and pointed the way to a liberated role for women in society. Throughout the centuries this has been obscured by the patriarchal culture of male domination to which the Church has largely succumbed. The issue has now come to the sharpest"