Women started to take up many jobs in research, teaching, science and technology, engineering etc. when there was not enough men left to be found qualified for these jobs . May be, if the jobs didn't grew to a level that it outnumbered the qualified men, we may have still had the all-men setup everywhere. Anyway, it was a natural phenomenon which was also triggered by the fact that many jobs shaped up where women could get into without breaching the societal constraints. But, we have come very much a long way from that distant past.
But, fortunately as the world progressed, economically as well as socially, the engagement of women in workforce helped humanity to move forward, which ensured a more participation in the society. To look form an industrial perspective, 50-60 years back, the producers, customers, marketers etc were targeting only men (I should say, it would have been so boring!). But now, we are even designing workplaces and fixing flexible schedules to accommodate women, young mothers etc., which explains the importance women has gained by themselves and their own efforts in current scenario.
It's good to gush about the things said above. But, I feel that much of the threats to these success stories are coming from some institutions within the society itself. Yes, I'm talking about Religions. I agree with all "good" things associated with them. But my worry is this; Aren't we still practicing and holding strong allegiance to some age old beliefs which didn't evolve with times? Why are we still not allowing religion as a personal choice? The dark ages are called dark ages because of the lack of free thought in the society. I believe that he Renaissance mainly helped the Church also to evolve. So, when such an evolved church say that ordaining women should be considered a crime as serious as pedophilia, I don't get where are we heading to? Ok, let me continue with this.
The main argument Church pits against ordaining women is that Jesus selected only men as his disciples. In past, men were controlling everything. It happened naturally as a result of the human evolution, beginning from when man had the role of taking care of the family. For the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and may be even transportation, women had to rely on men. But when conditions improved and even in case of these basic needs, women could help themselves. Ok, here I'm not sure if the religions were designed to continue the status quo of men controlling women or if it was a natural result of the collective social thinking at that point of time. In any case, when women started to move out of men's shades, these directives, not only from religions, became shackles and gave rise to many movements such as feminism and the growing support to individualism gave much support to it.
Now we are in a society where men and women can be equal on any grounds. Even for the basic needs, there is no conventional stereotyping applicable on men or women in the present world. The demarcations between the conventional roles in any profession or responsibilities or duties are going away. But, the same old patriarchal set ups are holding firm ground, citing the religious text books which are based on that period's society and take the then social roles into consideration. The surprising fact is that every other product of human thinking such as science, politics, economics etc has evolved continuously with time, but in case of religions, we stay right at where we were.
It's time for religions to evolve. I believe that women can be ordained priests or bishops because, in a society where men and women are equal, even Jesus would have selected women as his disciples. Consider it as a profession with equal rights for men and women, in the institution called Church. The problem is with the arguments the Church cite in the current social context. We are now more than 2000 years hence the religion was born. And a religion at the present should be in sync with what a society wants at the present. So the religion of 2000 years back was good for the society of that period. 2000 years hence, we need a religion that is suited for the current society. Period.
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