I am excited to announce a new project: the Religious Feminism interview series.

Sometimes it feels like the Mormon feminist community is working in isolation, dealing with problems that are entirely unique. However, we actually have counterparts working for gender equality within many faith traditions.

While sexism and patriarchy are everywhere, our religious institutions remain one of the last bastions of overt sexism in Western society. You don’t have to be subtle or sneaky to discriminate against women at a place of worship—many communities of faith continue to have outright bans on women from positions of authority and bar women from participating in religious rituals.

Sexism in religion is particularly difficult to combat because patriarchy in religion has been established through centuries of tradition, many people believe that religious sexism is mandated by God, and religious institutions are largely exempt from discrimination laws that govern other sectors of society.

But religious sexism doesn’t only affect religious people. It spills over into all areas of society, affecting the way people vote, work, and even how they think about the women that surround them on a day-to-day basis. Feminists working to combat sexism in politics and workplaces need the help of religious feminists because one of their greatest barriers to success is the sexism people learn to tolerate at their places of worship.

This new interview series is intended to introduce religious feminists to each other and to feminists working on other kinds of issues, so that we can learn from each other and collaborate more.

As more interviews are added to the series, you can find the episode notes here at the Exponent website at: https://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

For the first episode of the Religious Feminism Exponent podcast, I am starting at home and talking to my colleague Nancy Ross about our own brand of religious feminism, Mormon feminism. As the series continues, I will interview feminists working within a variety of faith communities. Do you have an idea for a feminist of faith or a religious feminist movement you would like to know more about? Are you a religious feminist of another faith who would like to volunteer to be interviewed? Please let us know in the comments!