Lelanda Lee, member of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council calls for gender equity on this International Women’s Day. She writes in Patheos:
The women from my Berkeley Women’s Group have been celebrating International Women’s Day annually since before I joined them in 1971. I moved away in 1975 and have made it back rarely since then, but Suzann, our convener, has called me every year on March 8th to remind me that I am one of them, remembered and loved. Sisterhood is like that.
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The world is far from achieving gender equity for females explains the Executive Director of United Nations Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, on March 6th in an Associated Press interview. Then former first-lady of the United States, Hilary Rodham Clinton, said, “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.”
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Chester Cathedral: Jesus and the Samaritan woman
I think of Jesus as a feminist, holding women in the same regard as men, in a time when society did not share his sentiments. In addition to Jesus’ preferential option for the poor, I also think he had a preferential option for women, revealing himself first, after his resurrection, to women. Perhaps Jesus meant to honor the women by showing himself to them first, or maybe Jesus trusted the women to believe the miracle of his resurrection.
One small step towards gender equity takes place in the Church of England as the Rt Rev. Libby Lane begins her ministry as a bishop of the church. The Manchester Evening News reports:
The Church of England’s first woman bishop will preach her first sermon today as she is installed in her home diocese – on International Women’s Day.
Libby Lane was consecrated as the eighth Bishop of Stockport at York Minister in January but today’s ceremony at Chester Cathedral will mark the formal beginning of her ministry in her diocese.
