January 28, 2013
Combat Soldiers & Clergywomen: Problematic Equality
In this opinion piece for Religion Dispatches, Mary E. Hunt expresses mixed feelings about the recent announcement that women in the U.S. Military will no longer be barred from serving in combat and thus no longer prevented from career advancement opportunities equal to those of men. “Celebration of another barrier overcome is tempered by the fact that I oppose combat as much as I oppose sexism,” she writes. “Likewise, I reject a hierarchical, clerical priestly model of the Church as much as I reject exclusion of women from its leadership caste.” Dr. Hunt is a theologian and cofounder of the Women”s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER).