Astana, July 2 (Inditop.com) Whatever the third Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions held in Kazakhstan might have achieved, it did prove that when it comes to religious leadership, women are yet to break through the glass ceiling.
A list circulated by the organisers featured the names of 184 participants – and only 13 of them were women.
Of these, there was just one woman representing Islam but she was an American – Debbie Almontaser, a board member of the Brooklyn Borough President’s New Diversity Task Force, Muslim Consultative Network and Women in Islam Inc.
There were seven women representing Christianity – four as members of the World Council of Churches, two from Germany’s Lutheran church and one from the Anglican Jewish Commission of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Two of the women were from India – Kala Dhananjay Acharya of the Somaiya Bhartiya Sanskriti Peetham representing Hinduism and Anahita Adil Sidhwa of the World Zarathusti Cultural Foundation representing Zorastrism.
The other three women were honorary guests – one representing the UN office against discrimination, another representing the chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the third representing the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Of the eight religions represented at the conference, women could find place in only four: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Zorastrism. There was no place for women in delegations representing Judaism, Buddhishm, Taoism and Sintoism.
So much for gender equality!
