Latina Feminist Theology: Past, Present, and Future

The role of feminism within Latina theological scholarship has, from the outset, been an issue of serious debate and contention. Latina theologians that claim a feminist voice are confronted with two obstacles from the outset: first, the reception of a feminist hermeneutic from their male colleagues; and second, the viability of feminism as a theoretical tool and designator for Latina theological contributions. Whether one claims a feminist voice or not, the impact that feminist theology has had upon Latina theologies is profound. In this essay, I explore these tensions within Latina feminist theological scholarship in light of the future of this particular theological collective. My comments are in conversation with feminist theologies as a whole, personified by the groundbreaking insights of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.

In his overview of Latino/a theology, Orlando Espín highlights the growing impact of Latina feminist contributions to Latino/a theology. However, Espín notes,

We would be daydreaming and lying to ourselves if we thought that this increased awareness and reception of feminist concerns and issues has occurred without tension, that it's a "done deal," or that most of feminist critical theory has been understood, assimilated or even read by most Latino/a theologians (who are males). Unfortunately, much Latino/a theology pays lip service to feminism, while ignoring it methodologically.¹

Due to a lack of attention to the concerns and insights of feminist thinkers, Latinos, for the most part, have marginalized women's contributions as exclusively feminist critiques and/or as pertaining solely to women's concerns. Thus nearly all theology written by women is uncritically deemed "feminist," a term that remains inadequately defined within Latino/a theology.

The failure of Latino/a theologians to seriously engage the work of feminist theologians as a central concern is only one dimension of this marginalization. An occasional footnote does not suffice. We Latino/as grow hoarse begging Euro-American scholars to learn our intellectual history, yet among Latino/as there is a certain ignorance concerning the history and complexity of feminist thought. I am not denying the important role Latinas have played in the history and construction of Latino/a theology. As Allan Figueroa Deck highlights in his 1992 introduction to Frontiers of Hispanic Theology in the United States, a characteristic of Latino/a theology is "the unusually prominent role that women have had in this emergent theology."² Women's presence is indisputable. I am suggesting, however, that Latino theologians have not taken feminist theology as a whole seriously and incorporated gender as a central category of analysis. We must ask why. Schüssler Fiorenza's insights are helpful on this point. In her critique of the exclusion of feminist discourse from rhetorical biblical criticism, she notes that this may be understood in light of the "feminine gendering" of rhetoric and religion in modern Western discourses. "Religion and theology as well as rhetoric have been coded as the 'feminine other' of the masculine 'hard' sciences. . . . Such a 'feminine' coding of both biblical studies and rhetorical studies engenders 'masculine' insecurity in biblical studies, which is compensated for by excluding actual wo/men from leadership of the clergy and the academy."³ Could a similar insecurity be operating among Latino scholars? Furthermore, since Latinos are considered men of color, they are marginalized within the theological academy. Addressing gender concerns would add yet another layer to their marginalization.

Another challenge to Latina feminist theologians is posed by those Latinas that explicitly reject a feminist hermeneutic. Loida Martell-Ortero, for example, in her work on mujeres evangélicas, expresses reservations about both Latina feminist and mujerista theologies, because of their Roman Catholic emphasis and what she sees as their secular origins.⁴ Martell-Ortero articulates as an alternative her theology of evangélica, whose sources are found in the faith and practices of Protestant Latina women. She thus rejects blind categorization of all Latina voices as "feminist." In addition, reducing all women's theologies to feminist theology, whether intentional or not, marginalizes their contributions to feminist studies, which have not been, historically, a central concern for Latino/a theologians. Gender remains...