The document discusses the complex and changing relationship between women and religion over time. It notes that early goddess worship reflected the view of women as creators of life. However, religions became increasingly patriarchal and portrayed women's roles as subordinate to men. Women were seen as sources of impurity and subject to various restrictions. Some rights existed but status was generally dependent on male guardians. Modern trends include women entering the clergy in some faiths and feminist movements challenging patriarchal interpretations of religion.

1. @ Hasan Shafie 1

2.  Complicated and a delicate relationship.
 Changed over the period
 Provides some clue to ancient society and he
processes of transformation
 From Goddess, deities to subordinate
 Reflects social perspectives and vice versa
@ Hasan Shafie 2

3.  Purity and pollution
 Taboo –’women polluted’
 Sources of sin –’original sin’
 Menstrual blood and post-delivery bloods
 Confinements because of pregnancy and
childcare
 Agriculture –’Historical defeat of women’
@ Hasan Shafie 3

4.  Virginity and chastity are highly prized
 Women are the carriers of social and religious
purity
 In most religions women are treated as
subjugated who are to be in the custody of men
(father/brother, husband)
 Obedience and loyalty are crucial values
 Related with the transformation of society
@ Hasan Shafie 4

5.  In Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and
Islam)
 - God is a He
 No female prophet or religious leader
 Regular performers of rituals
 - Major duty is to satisfy and serve the husband
 Social position is subordinate
 Covering is also important
 -Mother is important (especially for the Jews
and Muslims)
@ Hasan Shafie 5

6.  There are some rights of property, marriage
and divorce
 Some recent trends approves clergy but never
the top position
@ Hasan Shafie 6

7.  Dependent on father, husband and son in
chidlhood, youth and old age
 Chastity and purity are important –remember
Agni Pareeksha ?
 Some rights streedhan including dowry and
maintenance
 Widowhood and Sati
 Female goddesses – Shakti, Lakshmi, Parvati
(Durga) and Kali
@ Hasan Shafie 7

8.  Buddha permitted women to be monk (Khema,
Bhadra, Nilotpalbarna and later Sanghamitra)
 Misogynist in general
 No female leaders
@ Hasan Shafie 8

9. @ Hasan Shafie 9
diverse representations of the creatrix goddess of fertility, sculptures and wall
paintings of animals.
consistent with the worship of the female as generator of the continued line of
living existence.
As the earth mother, nurtures all living things.
women were collecting and recognising a wide variety of plants, talking more
and socializing, forming the foundation skills that underpinned the birth of
civilization.
In the world view of the goddess, creation and destruction are integral
components of the cyclic round from birth to death, from full season to lean
season, represented in particular in the lunar phases which are coupled with
the menstrual cycle, as illustrated in the Venus of Laussel.

10. @ Hasan Shafie 10

11. § Fertility-giver: pregnant nude
§ Birth-giver: naturalistic birth-giving pose
§ Life-giver/Protectress: bird-woman with breasts
and protuding buttocks
§ Nurturer/Mother: mother and child
§ Death-wielder: stiff nude, “bone”
§ Symbols: vulvas, triangles, breasts, chevrons, zig-
zags, meanders, cupmarks, spirals

12. Cyclades: Greece
Tell Azmak, Bulgaria
Jomon, Japan

14. Malta Çatalhöyük

16. Vinca,
Yugoslavia

17. Southeast Asian peninsula
Vinca, Yugoslavia
Often in animal
form or with
animal masks:
bird, bear, lizard,
etc.

18. Southeast Asian peninsula

19. Sparta
Sardinia
Krasno, Bulgaria
Jomon, Japan

20. Southeast Asia
Crete

23. Bulgarian goddess :
masked and pregnant,
decorated with lozenges,
lines and swirls

25. c. 10,000 BC Europe, Negev
Desert

26.  The goddess represents the sovereignty of the land.
 Marriage of the king and the goddess ensures the
fertility of the land.
 Kings held power only by virtue of their association
with a continuing female line, which is thus immortal
both by childbirth and by genealogy, while the male
remains transient and mortal likewise on both counts.
 Traditions of transient sacred kingships interrupted by
human sacrifice are an expression of this motif.
 Immortal earth goddess -- Dying and resurrected
vegetation god-king

28. The descent into the Underworld

29. The death of Dumuzzi

30. The new King dispatches the old in the presence of the Goddess
Sumer 2300 BC

31.  Hinduism –in early Vedas female deities were
not important
 Later came the mythological figures –
Draupadi, Kunti, Tara , Mododari, Ahalya
 Reincarnation of local deities –Shakti,
Parvati/Uma,
 Female scholars –Gargi, Maitreyi
 Courtesan (Amrapali)
 Nuns in Buddhism
@ Hasan Shafie 31

32.  In Mesopotamia, Ishtar –fertility , love and war
 In Greece, Artemis, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite
 Mary and Mary Magdalena
 Mythologies made women as cause of sin and
war
@ Hasan Shafie 32

33.  Sati immolation
 Witch hunting
 Women dying as the clergys became strong
@ Hasan Shafie 33

34.  State religion division
 Rise of fundamentalism
 Feminist movements and religious feminism
@ Hasan Shafie 34