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THE PUBLIC LEADERSHIP OF WOMEN OF FAITH l 1149 1918 The right to vote 1929 Women are persons; the right to sit in the Senate 1955 Married women could work for the federal government 1969 Birth-control information could be legally disseminated 1973 First women’s shelters opened 1976 Abolition of the death penalty 1982 Abortion taken out of the Criminal Code 1985 Indian Act amended to give all Indian women full status 1992 Rape Shield Law, putting onus on defendant in sexual assault cases particularly harsh impact on women, in particular single mothers, who are the majority of the poor, the majority of adults receiving social assistance, and the majority among the users of social programs . . . . [T]he unavailability of affordable and appropriate housing . . . create obstacles for women escaping domestic violence. . . . [T]here is inadequate legal protection of women’s rights such as the absence of laws requiring employers to pay remuneration for work of equal value. . . . [R]estricted civil legal aid . . . conditions affecting immigrant, aboriginal and refugee women, women in prison and women with disabilities must be addressed.” (McPhedran, 45) Questions remain. Where, when, and how will women of faith equip themselves with tools for engagement with tough policy issues such as the implementation of the Kyoto protocol? Where can women find community that demonstrates a symbiotic relationship with the earth and all its creatures? Can women restore the focus of faith to the healing of divisions in human and nonhuman community? Where, in religious terms, can women be part of such resurrection, of such hope? And how can this be embodied in public policy? SOURCES: Nellie McClung is a Canadian icon, and two primary sources are her In Times Like These (1972) and Clearing in the West: My Own Story (1935). Her linkage of faith with public policy is documented in Carol L. Hancock, No Small Legacy: Canada’s Nellie McClung (1986). Janet Silman’s Enough Is Enough: Aboriginal Women Speak Out (1987) has authentic, memorable quotes from aboriginal women themselves. Ellen Anderson’s Judging Bertha Wilson—Law as Large as Life (2001) details Wilson’s legal opinion on abortion, as well as on a host of other controversial issues affecting women in Canadian society . After a national tragedy in Montreal in the 1989 shotgun murder of fourteen female engineering students, Doris Jean Dyke’s Crucified Woman (1991) was published and tells the story of a sculpture raised to commemorate the women. For Canadian women’s involvement worldwide on the issue of violence , refer to World Council of Churches, Together with Energy —Towards the End of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, and Beyond (1998). Violence against Chilean women, especially Carmen Gloria Quintana, is documented in Bonnie Greene, ed., Canadian Churches and Foreign Policy (1990). For information on the Canadian interchurch coalitions that are in the forefront of most social justice work of Canadian churches, read Renate Pratt, In Good Faith (1997); Chris Lind and Joe Mihevic, eds., Coalitions for Justice (1994); and Robert Matthews, ed., Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy (1988). Clarification on Canada’s stance on its human rights obligations can be had from the Senate of Ottowa, Promises to Keep: Implementing Canada’s Human Rights Obligations (2001). One woman’s test case against paying taxes for her country’s involvement in war is documented in Jerilynn Prior, I Feel the Winds of God Today (1992). An entire community ’s attempt to identify the ethical issues affecting their future is offered by Lois Wilson’s Town Talk Manual (1969). Popular movements of women to create the climate for public policy change are written in Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada, Report to Women across Canada from the Canadian Women’s March Committee (2001); Shirley Farlinger, One Million for Peace (2002); and Marilou McPhedran, The First CEDAW Impact Study, Final Report (2000). This short essay on women of faith and public policy had focused on only a very few Protestant and Roman Catholic women in Englishspeaking Canada. THE PUBLIC LEADERSHIP OF WOMEN OF FAITH: ENTREPRENEURS, SOCIAL ALCHEMISTS, AND BEARERS OF RELIGION IN THE WORLD Katharine R. Henderson SOME WOULD SAY that putting together the words public, leadership, women, and faith is an oxymoron, that those words simply do not belong together. At the beginning of the new millennium, Americans remain ambivalent about the historic role of women in public life and uncertain about the role that religion should play in the public arena. During the course of the past decades...

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