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New Woman, New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation

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Rosemary Radford Ruether (born 1936) is an American feminist scholar and theologian.

She writes in the Preface to the 20th anniversary edition of this 1975 book, "New Woman, New Earth was my first book in feminist theology and gathered together essays in feminist thought which I had begun to write in 1968... Although the essays in this book were written more than twenty years ago, I don't see them as decisively superseded either by my own new work or by other feminist work in the field or religious studies... When someone who is just beginning to read feminist theology asks me what book of mine they should read first, I usually suggest New Woman, New Earth."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"The full-blown lineaments of this concept of matriarchy, as developed by ... thinkers such as Bachofen (see Myth, Religion, and Mother Right) and ... Elizabeth Gould Davis's The First Sex seem to me unhistorical."
"Protestantism failed to create any new role for women in religion comparable to the Catholic religious order."
"Mariology operates socially as a right-wing rallying cry among Catholics... Mariology as it is used by the clergy, seems antithetical to the liberation of women. Whose side is Mary on?"
"Nevertheless it is clear that that early historical tradition did not exalt Mary. The feminine figure closest to Jesus was Mary Magdalene."
"Even the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 11 ... indicates that Paul did assume, in fact, that women were vocal in the congregation as leaders of prayer and prophecy."
"The entrance of women into the ministry regularly ... must throw into question all the relationships which have been modeled on sexual hierarchicalism."