We can't go on talking about it. I experience it. It's just what the discrepancy of you. People are going to want to know. Let me say something.
Hello and welcome to a very special edition of World Have Your Say, live from the Radio Theatre here at the BBC's Broadcasting House. Amongst me are 100 women gathered from across the world, part of the BBC's 100 Women series. And we're going to be talking about faith and feminism. It's an issue that comes up a lot on World Have You Say. We do discuss it and so many people want to discuss it all the more, which is why we're here today.
We've invited a group of six women here on stage with me who are representing their faiths and indeed none. And they will talk to us a little bit about those faiths. Also behind me... We have some of my colleagues from the BBC Language Services, BBC Hauser and BBC Brazil.
They're going to be tweeting in their own languages and involving their comments throughout the discussion. Shaima Khalil is with us as well. She is going to be bringing us all the social media as well.
Now, during the news, we had a vote here in the room about whether faith and feminism is indeed compatible. We'll be having another vote at the end of this discussion. So far, yes, 65%.
No is 35%. So... That's something to work with. Let's see if the people on the stage can convince you otherwise.
Maybe you'll change your mind throughout the next hour. Now, each of you we've invited you on, I'm not obviously expecting to speak on behalf of your faith or indeed none in Kate's case, but would you each introduce yourselves and then explain a little bit about your faith? Hi, I'm Bill Winder.
I'm from the Sikh faith, which is the fifth largest faith in the world. I'm a local magistrate and a councillor in my personal life, and a mother and grandmother. I'm Caroline, Caroline Farrow. I'm a Catholic.
commentator, columnist and writer and I'm mother of four children. Hi my name is Marina Pananen, I'm a convert to Islam, I'm a graduate of Cambridge University and I'm currently studying Islamic sciences and I'm a mother of one. I'm Rose Hudson-Wilkin, I am a mother of three children and one husband. We can all identify with that Rose. I am a chaplain to parliament, as well as a vicar in Hackney.
And I'm a Christian. I'm Rabbi Laura Jana Klausner, or Rabbi Laura. I am a rabbi in progressive Judaism, but here to explain Judaism in general. So, hi, I'm Kate Smirthwaite.
I'm a comedian and atheist activist and officially barren. So that's exciting. So everyone else said how many children they had. I just feel I should say none. None.
Still none. going strong with none. I'd like each of you just to explain a little bit about your faith briefly, if you would, what it means to you.
My faith, Sikhism, means that my first Guru Nanak He preached equality for men and women. To me, it means that I can do things which men are doing. It's a liberal faith. It also has, like Judaism, strictness at some level, but progressiveness in other levels.
So you'll find Sikhs who are baptized, who wear turbans and the 5Ks, but there are others who will not have achieved that level. To me it means that the books say everything about equality, caste, but when it comes to preaching it, sometimes the two are not compatible. So what happens at ground level, sometimes I feel, at faith level, women still have a bit far way to go to achieving equality in my faith. As a Roman Catholic, I'm a Christian and therefore my life is based around Christian principles and it can neatly be summarised, I think, by what Jesus said, which was, love your God with all your heart and soul and stemming on from that, love thy neighbour as thyself. As a Roman Catholic, I believe that I'm a member of the one apostolic church that was founded by Jesus Christ himself.
which he passed on to Peter, his apostle. And contrary to popular belief, Catholics don't base their beliefs purely on the Bible. We also believe in the magisterium, which is apostolic tradition, so what the apostles have passed down to us. So we're not scriptural fundamentalists.
We use the Bible, but we don't... Don't base our life on scripture alone. As a Muslim, I believe in God, which we in Arabic refer to as Allah. I also believe in prophethood.
So as a Muslim, I believe in the messengership of the prophets Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon him. And I believe that God revealed the final revelation to him in the form of the holy book, the Quran. In terms of the...
discussion about feminism and women, Islam preaches that men and women are equal in the sight of God, and I'm sure we'll get into the details of that. Oh, we will, don't you worry. As a Christian, I practice my Christian faith within the traditions of the Church of England, and within that tradition, we believe in scripture, tradition, and reason. And education is important because as a child growing up, we see very much a patriarchal interpretation of that faith.
And as you study and learn and read for yourself, then you see that there is actually a gap between the package that is sold to you or given to you and actually the real thing. So for me, Judaism is very broad, and the most important thing is about how you act. Much more than what you believe, faith changes from day to day in people's lives, particularly for Jews in a post-Holocaust world.
And I see my life as a Jew, as changing all the time, and the most important thing is that I believe that I'm here to change the world. That's how I would measure whether or not I've lived my life well. Have I impacted on the world is, for me, the Jewish question. Kate, would you consider yourself, as an atheist, whether that in itself is a faith? No, I don't consider it a faith.
I think I specifically don't have a faith. A faith is very much about choosing to believe things, and I don't choose to believe things. For me, there's a philosophical point. For me, if you believe in an all-powerful deity, for me, you can choose whether to follow that deity or whether to follow...
Your own rules, and to me that creates a dilemma that I think makes it impossible to genuinely subscribe 100% to feminism and at the same time subscribe to this deity. What if this deity says something to you that is incompatible with feminism? I think there's a philosophical problem there.
But to be honest, I'm not even all that interested in the philosophical problem. What I'm interested in is real women and real lives. And let's look at this practically.
Around the world there are thousands and millions of women who are denied the right to vote, the right to work. the right to do the job they want, who have their genitals mutilated, who are not allowed all kinds of basic freedoms. And when we challenge the people who've made these rules and we say, this isn't fair, why are you doing this? They don't say, it's my culture, they don't say it's tradition, they say, this is what God told me.
And so I think that we have to challenge religion if feminism and the opportunity for women's equality is to stand any chance at all. So, Kate, you consider yourself a feminist? Absolutely, yes, I consider myself a feminist and I don't have to compromise that by... by sort of tweaking that to fit with any religious requirements around me. I wonder each of you, would you...
I consider myself a feminist as well. And certainly within my faith, I believe and experience a God who made me and created me in his own image. And so I am just as valid and important and special as the man or anybody else out there.
And so I do not see it as being incompatible. Kate, before I come back to you, I just want to... to know from each of you whether just as a split of the panel does everyone consider themselves a feminist on on the stage yes and i think it's interesting because um kate's philosophical point is not about religion or faith per se but it's about perhaps individual interpretations of certain religions because i know as a christian and as a catholic christian certainly one of the tenets of catholic social teaching is we're really concerned with the poor and with the oppressed you And in today's society, and in society throughout millennia, the face of the poor and the oppressed is women, and it's women's human rights, it's women's inherent dignity, and therefore it's slightly unfair to say it's religion per se. I think it's individual cultures or individual interpretations.
Rather than using the broad brush of religion as oppression, I think you have to look at... I think perhaps you're not... necessarily focusing on the point I'm making.
If you, you know, I believe that women should have equal rights because I think that human rights are universal and I believe that... Based on my own, like, that comes from within me. That's not something that anybody else has told me.
I haven't had to wait to read a holy book to decide that. That's something that's come from me. But, you know, if you take your morality or your views on things like equality from an all-powerful deity, then you have to accept the possibility that deity might show up and say, actually, I want to do something that is discriminatory.
And either you're going to tell me that deity would never show up, in which case you're an atheist. or you're going to tell me that if that deity showed up, you would ignore them, and again, then you're not truly... Or you're going to say, I would do what the deity told me to.
And then, to my mind, you're not 100% a feminist. You might be doing some great work and all power to you, but I don't think you can 100% commit to one philosophy without the others. I can see in that screen, we've got a video which we're going to play in a moment, but I just want to be clear.
Would you say all six of you are feminists on this panel? I have worked all my life and followed a professional career as well. And so I would say that I am a feminist in that way here.
For myself, I think it very much depends on how you define feminism. Because as we heard earlier on in the conference, feminism isn't just one homogenous entity. There are different factions, different viewpoints within that. Now, if we're going to paint it with the broad brushstroke of, OK, feminism is the promotion of women's equality and women's issues, then that in itself is very much... compatible with Islam.
In Islam, women are equals in the sight of God with men. And in terms of trying to bring that into the practical aspects, I think one thing that we have to consider is that everybody comes from a different worldview and perspective. What equality means to me is not necessarily what equality means to you.
Equality to me does not mean being the same. And as we saw from the motherhood discussion before, I was actually quite... But it means being equal. Yes, being equal, but being equal doesn't mean the same. So, for example, the motherhood discussion, a man cannot have a child...
cannot give birth to a child. Therefore, I think that it's natural and I think it's healthy to take into consideration the differing natures and roles that men and women can play. And just because they're different doesn't mean that the equality is tarnished.
And the example that I would give to that was a very good example I was given, is that if you imagine an Olympic racing track and someone's about to take part in 1500 meters, people start off staggered because the actual lanes of the... the track are not equal, because if you're in the inside lane, it's going to be shorter, for example. So if someone doesn't understand the way that the track is organised, they might say, oh, but they're starting ahead of me.
That's not fair. But actually, if you look into it and you realise that there are differences between men and women, and ultimately, going back to the religious question, the spiritual question, at the end of the day, when I meet my Lord, I am on equal footing with men, then that's the thing we should be considering. I just want to quickly bring in this video, which has been uploaded.
If anyone wants to do that, it's worldhaveyoursay.com. you can upload your videos. This is from Mahadza, who's from Afghanistan, but is in the UK. Hi, my name is Mahadza Najumi, and I study politics at the University of Westminster. My question to you is whether you think that mainstream feminism in particular puts a monopoly on freedom by omitting the voice of those women who they don't class as real feminists.
Now a case study of this would be Femin, which are a sex positive organization originating from Ukraine, but they're now very global. And they believe that to be real feminists requires some form of nudity, and this is quite an oppressive form of freedom, which puts a monopoly on the term itself, and also has a very universalist approach, which... basically portrays women as this homogenous entity, not taking into account things like race and religion, for example. So do you feel excluded by feminists?
Yes, I certainly can do. I've had debates with feminists who've said, you're a Catholic, you can't be a feminist because of your beliefs on abortion, for example. And I think what's happened is the second wave of feminism in the 60s, you know, it concentrated on equal pay, equal rights in the workplace. It concentrated on all these... sort of micro issues but it forgot the macro issues which is what does it mean to be a woman what are the rights and responsibilities of a woman and and what are the things that women need to make them you know thrive and prosper and bring them freedom and happiness and to rule religion out of that is actually quite discriminatory.
You know, Caroline, I have to say there's lots of people who are shouting in the audience who haven't got a microphone. I'm going to quickly come to Rabbi Laura, I'm going to come to Kate, and then we will open it up to the floor. So just bear with me two seconds.
Briefly, who would, Rabbi Laura? So, just on the record, I think equal pay is not a micro-issue. I think that that is key to our lives and our choices. For me, religion is very different than faith, because religion is often what is placed around individual faiths.
I don't see it as a racetrack with a differentiation. I see that men and women are equal. It's because of what I...
And it is because of how I see God and what chi, I don't want to limit it to a male kind of imagery, I believe is in my life. And this image of someone starting short, especially as I'm so short, or later, I think is an image that has a structural inequality to it. And I really believe, that if we are bounded in such a way by gender, then we are limited and have no choice.
And I believe that we as human beings, the only difference for me between men and women is the fact that I had the blessing of giving birth and of feeding my children. Apart from that, my husband and I, thank God, are the same. I'm not sure if that's a blessing, but we'll see. It was a blessing. I'm joking, I'm joking.
For me, it was a blessing. And I wanted to say one other thing, which is I think this is not about faith. I think this is about fundamentalism.
Feminism. Kate. Kate, go ahead.
Yeah, well, firstly, I just want to come back to this idea of talking about equal but different. Personally, I am horrified by that. Personally, equal only means one thing.
It means equal. Telling people that there are... To me, that's like saying, hey, black and white...
white people are equal, but you sit at different parts of the bus. No, if you're equal, you sit wherever you want. And here we are talking about equal but different, and yet many of the people on this panel represent faiths where the top jobs, the best paid jobs within those faiths, are not available to women. We've got 26... unelected bishops in the House of Lords in this country.
We've got both the Catholic and the Muslim faith absolutely loaded with jobs that are only open to men. So that's one issue. And just to follow up again on what Caroline was saying about contraception and abortion, one of the most damaging things that faiths, lots of different faiths around the world do, is threaten women's right to reproductive rights, to contraception and to abortion. And if we talk about women coming out of poverty, the biggest driver globally of women raising themselves and their families out of poverty into a much better situation into a much more successful situation is their access to reproduction and abortion and if your faith is against that then I'm afraid so once in a while I do have to say you might call yourself a feminist but I choose not to use that word okay people in the audience are desperate to get involved It's interesting that you mentioned the jobs in the faith because we had a comment on Facebook from Fatah and Lagos saying when are we going to have a female Pope?
When are we going to have a female Imam and someone who's leading the Muslim prayers? Also, Rabbi Lohr, you mentioned fundamentalism and feminism. Mukelli tweeted saying, as per my understanding, no religion is against feminism, but some of the so-called religious leaders make things difficult for women. Hashtag 100 women is how you tweet.
So many hands in the air, but I know, Anna, you were wanting to speak very early on. If you can stand up so everyone can see you. Anna Arrowsmith, an atheist.
I'm very proud of it. I just want to say, I think that, you know, I accept the fact that different religious people can call themselves feminists if you want, because as a porn director, I've always had that from the other side, that people say, you're not a feminist because you're a porn director. So within third-wave feminism, that's acceptable to just allow variance. However, I do think religion is a deep mistake. I think it's...
unintellectually, you know, supportable. My problem is that I think that religious texts are so full of instances, and I'm afraid I only know with any detail the Bible, but I know that there are ten instances where gang rape is encouraged and things like this. And also, if we look at the horrendous homophobia in the Bible as well, we're not talking about sexuality here, it's the same problem.
And I think that we can't ignore... that those is cherry-picking and it's like oh we'll just ignore that we can't really ignore the fact that all the major all the religions have men at the top of it you can't ignore the fact that it's actually changing i'm happy to say which is i have to say in all i mean i mean the gods and the um jesus we are coming right up to the end of this part of the program but i have to say in all of my years of doing world have your say whenever we do these kind of religious discussions people can throw scripture either one way or the other. And we've had so many problems with this over the years, but I appreciate all of your points.
So many hands coming up all around the room. We will come back to you. We've got to take a quick break, but I do appreciate it. Wherever you're watching around the world, facebook.com forward slash world, have your say, or using the hashtag 100women on Twitter.
We'll be back in the next few minutes. Hello, welcome back to World Have Your Say, part of a special edition on the 100 Women season here across the BBC. We're live in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House and we're discussing whether faith and feminism can co-exist. Say something. Welcome back to World Have Your Say.
Well, just before the break, we had so many hands going up in the audience. We're going to try and get around as many of you as possible. So let's go straight now to some comments.
I'm British Egyptian and I'm Muslim and I just I've grown up practicing Muslim and I think Islam and feminism I am a Muslim and I'm feminist and that does not antagonize my religion Muslim women pray in Mecca together, pay the zakat together, all the punishments in Islam are applied on women and men. This equal but different is a human interpretation of the sacred text. It's not a sacred text.
Thank you. Tamina Qazi, British Muslims for Secular Democracy. I have two questions. Firstly, how do we popularise interpretations of religion that lead to more equal treatment for women, LGBT people and minority sects within faiths? And my second...
question is, how do we better protect liberal activists within faith communities who have the courage to take a stand against extremism, particularly Muslim women? Say it. Say it again.
So for me, one of the very important things that I do is give voice to the LGBT community so they can understand, and the wider community can understand that religious people support them and that in our, in Reform Judaism we officiate at same-sex ceremonies. So say it and say it and say it. My name is Teresa Forcadas and I come from Barcelona, Benedictine nun. And I would like to say something to Kate, the question that Kate raised about the faith. And I would like to say that for a long time, and that was mostly in the pre-modern period...
Religion was trying to prove by reason that God existed. In the modern philosophy times, we have learned that reason cannot prove either that God exists or that God does not exist. So, Kate, I'm afraid to say you do have a faith.
if you believe that God does not exist. No, I don't. That's like saying, I believe in ghosts or I believe in not ghosts.
Simply the fact is, either you believe in ghosts or you don't believe in ghosts. I don't have to believe in the absence of ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts and I don't believe in God. But if you say that reason cannot prove that God exists or either doesn't exist, then you have a reasonable or rational position.
But if you are convinced that, and I'm saying that not only to make a polemics, but to say, given that reason cannot... make the decision whether God exists or not. One second.
Given that God's reason cannot make the decision whether God exists or not, then it might be, according to reason, it might be that God exists. Then, if God exists, and I would believe that, you wouldn't believe that, but those are beliefs, not reason. If God exists, then what you should be asking, and I think any of us who call ourselves feminists, as I do, I'm a feminist theologian, should be asking of ourselves is, how do you behave in your religion?
How do you behave in a tradition? that I agree has a lot of misogyny. I'm Catholic, Roman Catholic, and I think not only the tradition, not only the patriarchy of the old times, but today my faith has a structure that is misogynist and is patriarchal. And I don't like that.
And I'm there and I'm trying to change that. Can I respond to that? Can I respond?
She's talking to me. Can I just respond to that? So just two...
So firstly when you say that somehow I should say I believe in non-religion, it's interesting because you introduce yourself as a Catholic but you don't say I'm somebody who doesn't believe in the Muslim God and I don't believe in the Sikh God. You don't introduce the things that you don't believe, you introduce only. So that's one thing.
But secondly, it's interesting, and I'm really glad that you said and openly admitted that the history of Catholicism is deeply misogynist. And a lot of, in fact, all major religions around the world have a history that is deeply misogynist. And here's the thing, you know, how do we break free from that?
We can work and poke around with these different verses and try to find a way to empower the more liberal elements. Or we can go, hey, this is the 21st century. This stuff isn't true.
Let's get rid of it and build an equal society from scratch. Let's go. This stuff isn't true. You are assuming that this is something you say from reason, and that's why I made the point.
But I would like to say something else, which is if I thought the tradition was only misogynist and only patriarchal, I don't know if I would stay or not, but I am a Benedictine nun. My community comes from the 12th century. Since the 12th century. century until the 21st, there is an unbroken chain of tradition of a community where women sometimes up to 100, now we are 35, are living together.
Where do we have in the civil society a similar transmission of women's initiatives? This community was started in the 12th century probably by prostitutes that decided to change their way of life and start, but I don't mind how we started as a community. The thing is from the 12th century until today. So I mean to say that we've seen that different religious traditions, and in my case it's the Catholic Church, there are spaces where I personally have experienced a more amplitude of real day-to-day freedom than I'm a physician to, so in the hospitals or in the university I have encountered these glass ceilings, and I acknowledge that, I acknowledge the problems in the Catholic Church, but as I said, this is not going to happen. Really briefly, because I want to bring in Marina, and we've got lots of videos.
How do we find places where women can get together in a secular, atheist world? We design them ourselves, we choose whatever we want, and we don't need God to... Tell us how to do that. That's not the world. We're going to have to move on now, but I do appreciate your contribution.
Marina, you were trying to come in. I just wanted to briefly pick up on the first point that the sister mentioned in that... Ultimately, it's my personal view that we are all worshipping something.
Whether you believe in a faith and you're worshipping a god, a deity that you believe in, if you choose not to believe in that, I do believe, as the sister said, that you are choosing a belief in a non-theistic path. So whether that be, okay, I'm not going to worship a deity, but rather instead I'm going to be a narcissist and worship myself, or I'm going to worship my career, or I'm going to worship the environment, or whatever it is. Or maybe you could worship nothing at all.
It doesn't have to mean that you worship yourself without faith. Ultimately, we all... For people who are watching all around the world, lots of hands going up in the room, if people are watching around the world, you can get involved on Twitter using the hashtag 100women.
It's been trending worldwide for most of the day. And I want to bring in this video, which has been uploaded at worldhaveyoursay.com. It's from Iman in Cairo.
This is Iman Ali, PhD student and blogger. Was religion standing in the way of women? It's complicated, but when a friend was spattered in the street as a teenager for leaving home without a headscarf, male interpretation of religion was certainly attempted beaten into her. Herein lays the issue though, male interpretation. Patriarchal norms did not end with religion.
Consider the rational movement, the objective witness or true scientist was assumed to be a white male of a certain class. Females are still considered to be white males. underrepresented in science today and in public women are silenced by writing them off as emotional and irrational. To solely focus on religion then is to diminish these issues.
Lord Cromer in Egypt wishes to save women from the backward veil by vehemently opposing British suffragettes at home while anti-Islam ads attacking clothing restrictions utilize objectifying visuals. It is not so much religion then but patriarchal norms undergirding it and other false liberating systems we need to combat. Balvinder, do you want to pick up on that? Is it not the problem, the problem doesn't lie with religion, it's the patriarchal society?
I personally think she's right because my religion preaches all about equality but when people put it into practice they don't follow the preachings that are in the book. For instance, we still find our Guru Nanak took women out of Parda, the veil. And he preached against female infanticide, but that is still high level in Punjab at this particular moment in time.
Many of our traditions, which are more cultural traditions, like Karwa Chauthworth, where a woman prays for her husband's long life, Rakkari, where a sister ties a thread around a brother's hand, thread for protection. A lodi which is celebrated for your boy birth and when a boy is born there are celebrations and religious prayers said for the boy. So our Gurdwaras somehow play along with that inequality because there is money to be made by the Gurdwara for that. So what I'm saying is the cultural interpretation rather than the religion.
Hi, my name is Fatima Saeed and I'm a British Egyptian and I'm a Muslim also and I'm proud to say that. I'm just really disappointed and quite disheartened that people are still like putting that differentiation that oh you can't be a feminist if you're also religious. That's really something that's disappointed me and I actually study Middle Eastern studies and part of that is Islamic history and it's what's interesting to see is that you know when in history they've deviated away from Islamic teachings that's when patriarchy and misogyny actually comes in.
So we have a trend that actually religions and You know, I'm talking about Islam because that's what I study. That's when, you know, once you have that, that's when feminist ideology and feminist thought actually comes in and develops. And so instead of trying to marginalise these people, and, you know, Islam is part of my identity, I don't want to let go of that. And I think, again, it's disappointing that I'm being told, no, you can't do it. It's part of my identity.
So instead of encouraging me, instead of encouraging... women to actually go into scholarships and to study these religions, to actually have a more feminist interpretation of them, we're being marginalized and told, no, sorry, you can't. Okay, let's have a conversation.
And it's very condescending and patronizing. Let's have a conversation, Rose. I think I would just quickly like to say that there is always going to be a danger when we try to put each other in boxes. We need to allow, you know, we're sitting in a group in the midst of many women.
We need to allow each other to self-define ourselves without others. telling us that we're not who we say we are. And the reality is, because I do not use abortion as birth control, because I do not do X or Y or whatever, it doesn't mean that I cannot be who I say I am. My faith teaches me to love, to love everyone, to respect everyone.
But don't you put yourself in a box by saying, I follow this religion? No, absolutely not. It's one that gives...
me immense freedom. I feel a huge sense of freedom belonging to my faith. Do I see misogyny around me within those who practice?
Absolutely. But that does not define who I am and make me not want to be a part of the faith. It's interesting, you said the lady on the front row that you found it disappointing we're even having this discussion about whether faith and feminism can coexist. The vote we did at the beginning of the program 35% of people in this room said they didn't feel it could exist. It would be interesting to get those people to a microphone.
Lots of people waving at me suddenly. For you to know that we've got probably about 20 minutes of the programme left, it would be great if you would re-vote. Yes, if you do believe that it can co-exist, faith and feminism. No, if you don't. And we'll just see if anybody has changed their mind before the end of the programme.
I just was trying to draw your attention to another aspect of this whole discussion or question of faith and feminism or religion or feminism. By the way, I'm Urzula Ashraf, activist and scholar from Afghanistan, and my country actually paid... probably the highest price of the war that was labeled as a religious war.
We started our conflict back in 1978, 79, where thousands, thousands of people were killed just because they were praying. And we continued the war where again hundreds and thousands of people were killed just because they didn't follow one or another in a parent religion. But in reality it was a war.
It was a cold war that we got in and it was after followed by the end. So what I'm trying to say here is that what we are seeing, the subordination of women in many of the countries, regardless of... What religion they are following comes basically from a patriarchal system.
It comes basically from the question of power rather than religion. Religion becomes a label or a use for all the justifications that people make. It's the opposite.
My name is Claire Birchinger. I practice Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. I'm a member of the Zoghagakai International.
It's based on the Lotus Sutra, which means women are equal to men. And I see no problem with faith and feminism being compatible at all in my religion. my faith.
Thank you. Yes, I'm Madawi al-Rashid and I taught the anthropology of religion for 22 years. I'm an anthropologist. What I want to say is we sometimes fall into the trap of these two binary opposites.
On the one hand, the religious fundamentalist and on the other hand, the atheist fundamentalist. And here we have a clash of fundamentalism in a way. What I want to say is that I take a social scientific approach to to religion. For me, religion is a text that can only be reached through human interpretation.
This human interpretation is grounded in a particular context, whether it's history or geography or a certain period in time. And therefore, for me, religion is neither revolutionary nor oppressive. It is what human society makes out of it. And then it is very common in a specific context in the West is to blame certain actions, since we are here in a 100-women conference.
So, for example, genital mutilation or violence against women or forced marriage or polygamy is always attributed to religion, and I think this is escaping from facing the real issue. The real issue, it is the society in a particular condition that allows it to interpret religious texts in a particular way. But there is nothing in these religious traditions that say that, for example, girls should be mutilated.
Ladies, there's a lot of people who've got their hands up, and I want to get around as many of you as possible, but we must be brief if you could, because otherwise people aren't going to get a chance. Yes, I'm Anis from Indonesia, I'm Muslim. I think in my perspective, the religion, until now, the fundamental value of religion is equality between men and women. And... And what the problem is the interpretation of the human and mostly male.
Because of the religion is not free from the structural value, not free from the structural paradigm, not free from the political interest of the leader. And we know, I think right now there are so many male become leader of religion and few women's religion. So what our homework now is how to ensure that the feminism perspective, feminism interpretative of the religion that respect and give the dignity for women should be distributed more for all of our society.
We're going to have a quick bounce along the people that sit on the stage. So, firstly, I'm hearing it's a matter of interpretation. And the thing is that all of the major religious texts that we've been talking about have specifically sexist and homophobic verses within them.
If you think that you have the right to reinterpret them, then I'm not entirely sure you really believe them. Secondly, I'm hearing this is cultural. And here's the thing, when you say to somebody, no, stop stoning that woman to death for adultery, nobody turns around and says, but this is cultural. They say, this is my religion.
And until we challenge that religion, we're never going to get to the end of that. that. And then thirdly and finally, people have said that it is patronising of me to say that I don't view other women of faith as being able to be fully feminist in the way that I am. But the thing is, there are Tory MPs who say that they're feminists. There are racist people who say they're feminists.
And I have the right to say, you may think that. I don't see you that way. I think what you're doing to women is bad and dangerous. And so I don't, that's my interpretation. It doesn't stop you saying whatever you're saying.
And in terms of suggesting that it's patronising, what is, I think it's very patronising. for me to say, well, that's okay, you just believe something. It's nonsense, it's not true, and I'm not going to challenge you.
I think it would be very patronising for me not to challenge people who I disagree with. I think it's only right that I challenge them. I think what else is interesting is we've heard from a lot of Muslim women, and as well, you know, I'm speaking here from a Catholic perspective, and people are saying, oh, well, your religion is very patriarchal because of, you know, you've got men at the top.
Firstly, I just want to point out that actually religion is not the same. It's a vocation. It's not a paid job.
So I think we're looking at... Your leaders get paid. The mayor leaders of the Catholic Church are paid. The Pope has paid a lot of money. No, the Pope has not paid a lot of money.
He lives in a huge house. He's covered in jewelry. A normal Catholic priest will depend on...
Sorry, my husband's about to be... A Catholic priest, I kind of know a little bit about it. What salary will he be getting? He'll be getting £2,000 a year, if he's lucky. So the idea of the Catholic Church, a wash with cash.
But the interesting thing, I think, here is that women within the religion, you know, we've got lots of Muslim women, we've got me here, we don't feel oppressed. You know, and it's other people who are not adherents of our religion who are saying to us, you're oppressed. So basically, are you saying to us we're oppressed and we're too stupid to realize it?
We don't understand it? This is what I think is quite patronizing. If you look at the Catholic Church in particular, the majority of people sat in the pews are women.
Women are doing so much within the Catholic Church. Now, if Catholicism in particular was an oppressive religion... We would have women leaving it in droves.
And that's not the case. They are doing a lot in the Catholic Church, but they're doing it at very much a grassroots level. They're not leaving.
They're cleaning, they're looking after, they're collecting donations. They're not up in the high echelons of the church. And for some people, they see that as a problem.
There are actually women in the Pontifical Academy. There are women in Catholic universities. The great doctors of the church, we have St. Teresa of Avila. We've got St. Therese of Lisieux. We've got Hildegard of Bingen.
We've got Catherine of Siena. There are lots. And of course, we've got Our Lady.
There's a tradition of great female saints and great female doctors of the church. I think the problem with the church is very often we either idolise women as we do the mother of our Lord, Jesus. We either idolise them, put them on a pinnacle so high, or we see them at a place where they're cleaning or teaching Sunday school.
I think... teaching standard school is very important so don't get me wrong I do however believe that women need to within the Christian tradition and that's where I can speak from with some sense of knowing what I'm talking about within that tradition we do need to have women in leadership visible many of you are agreeing that it's actually it's not the problem isn't with religion it's with the interpretation I just want to remind people that behind us are my colleagues from the BBC language services who are tweeting our conversations in their own languages. It's BBC Brazil, BBC Houser and BBC Mundo.
If any of you have got some comments that you want to get involved, give me a big wave and I will certainly get you involved. I would like to draw some lines. Briefly, if you would, because we've got another video. I'd like to draw some lines about behaviour.
We agree that faith is about God and separate from religion. There is behaviour that I think is a manifestation of fundamentalism that is not acceptable from a feminist point of view in any way. And we can agree it across the religions, when women are silenced, when women are hurt in the name of religion.
The list that you gave, we can together say, this actually is, for me, fundamentalism. If women are silenced, Women can choose how to live. They are not silenced. They are not segregated in public. They can choose what to do with their lives.
Religion can support them and give them strength. For me, it gives me strength. So I think that there are lines out there that we can agree on.
Just a reminder to everybody. Hang on, Kate. Just a reminder to everybody in the room, please do keep voting yes if you think that faith and feminism is compatible.
Two, number two on your keypad is a no if you don't think. And we're going to go back to that poll at the end of the programme. We've only got about five minutes of programme left. Before I come to Shaima, who's chomping at the bit to get involved, and the many people with their microphones, I just want to go to this video which has been uploaded for us. It's from Micah, who is a blogger.
If you pay attention to who Jesus was, you see a man who consistently took the paradigm of his culture and turned it on its head. In his Sermon on the Mount, he taught that the least, the weakest, the most vulnerable, They are valued in God's kingdom. Women were the most vulnerable people in the story of Jesus. As a person of faith, I followed Jesus who included prostitutes among his followers and gave women the chance to study with him.
in a culture in which women were not even allowed to address a rabbi. I follow a Jesus who, after his resurrection, appeared first to the women, those who were not even given the privilege of testimony in the court of law. To be a follower of Jesus is to believe in a God who holds hope for every life equally. It's to do everything I can to give women a voice and an opportunity for full life. To not do sin.
would be to turn my back on my faith. We've got clapping and lots of shaking of heads, and I just want to get microphones to some of the shaking of heads, which were very interesting. Pass the microphone down, sorry. My name is Marwa Al-Daly, I come from Egypt, and actually, in my point of view, it's really not faith that is against the human rights or feminism, or not religion, I think it's mostly the people who claim to be more religious, and who take the religion as a tool to tell others that they are better than... them and and who who are excessive in everything and then they represent religion and then like like like even media and how they are portrayed by media for example even seeing the panel here with all my due respect to all of you but then it's either a rabbi or a priest or a veiled person that is for example wearing a niqab which i'm as a muslim i think it's it's the it does not reflect really a muslim woman's look but to be fair if we reflected everybody around the room and around the world you wouldn't be able to fit on you You won't be able to fit on the stage, would you?
But let me just explain. Let me just explain. For people watching around the world, we invited these ladies to come on because we wanted to invite people to explain from the mainstream religions. And, of course, Kate, who doesn't believe.
We're not, for a moment, suggesting that Marina represents every Muslim in the world. Don't talk over the top of me because people listening won't be able to hear. Okay, let's move on.
Go, Kate. Can I respond to that? So I just want to jump in with two things. Firstly, I was really horrified to hear the Christians referring to the Virgin Mary as this idealised woman.
She's a... She's idealised because she had children while still being a virgin. Talk about setting a standard we all can't reach. That's horrific. Secondly, people keep saying that it's cultural and it's this and it's that and the other.
And denying that the link between human rights abuses and religion is there. But where in the world do we see human rights being better adhered to? Is it Sweden or is it Saudi Arabia? The answer is obvious. Call Amnesty International and look at the statistics.
The correlation between religious prevalence in a country and religion being forced on people in a country and human rights abuses is enormously high. It's not a 100% correlation, but it's a really high correlation. And until we challenge that...
We've got three minutes left. Marina, I know that you probably want to come back on what the lady said in your case. Yes, I mean, I'll just pick up on that point.
Saudi Arabia is not a fully Islamic country, just for one. The Quran doesn't say that women can't drive or can't vote. In fact, the Quran gave women the right to vote 1,400 years ago. So I think that actually, you know, taking Saudi...
But when they're asked, why vote women? But can I just say, taking Saudi Arabia as a reflection is not reflective at all, firstly. Secondly, just because I wear the veil doesn't mean that I assume that I'm any better than any...
anyone else. This is a decision that I've made. There's been a lot of furor, especially in Europe and UK recently, about the veil. And I'm not in any way trying to say I'm representative of everyone.
I do believe that it is in Islam to wear the veil. It's not just a cultural thing, but I'm not saying that everybody must. I'm not enforcing my view on anyone.
And just lastly, I want to pick up on the fact that these problems, we mentioned that they're to do with patriarchy, because I believe that there's a lack of religious education. If people were actually educated in their religions properly, they would see that there is equality of the sexes. studying to become an Islamic scholar. And there is a very rich scholarly tradition within Islam which is never portrayed in the media.
Too brief, if you would. Okay, I would like to say that faith is compatible with feminism and must be. We have to make a difference between faith and religion because unfortunately religion is linked too much with politics.
And when we are opposing religion, it's not religion, it's not our faith. is the use, the political use of religion. I think that, for example, I talk from the Catholic perspective.
I'm not happy with what I see in my church. I want to see women ordained. And there's no theological reason to justify...
And unfortunately, Ingrid Beckincourt, you're not going to see that very soon. But I do have to jump in, and I hope you forgive me, because I'm coming right up against to the end of the programme. I want to see...
Very interesting. OK, so our faith and faith... feminism compatible 72 saying yes 28 saying no so that's actually gone up you've convinced people in the room that faith and feminism is compatible well thank you for joining us here on world have you say that's all we've got time for for this week but if you want to carry on talking twitter using the hashtag 100 women thanks a lot