Welcome to UU Women and Religion

Welcome!

The Women and Religion Movement is alive and well in the 21st Century. A grassroots project started by lay leaders in the 1970s as an effort to promote examination of religious roots of sexism and patriarchy within the UUA, UU Women and Religion officially began as a task force following the unanimously-passed WOMEN AND RELIGION RESOLUTION at the 1977 UUA General Assembly. Although the Task Force was eventually sunsetted, the movement still exists in UU Districts that hold Women & Religion programs and woman-focused gatherings. It exists at General Assembly, where UUW&R has an annual gathering and a booth in the display area. And it lives in the hearts and lives of women and men who have been touched by the many changes inspired by this movement.

"We do not want a piece of the pie. It is still a patriarchal pie. We want to change the recipe!" -- Rosemary Matson

The Fall 2011 issue of WOMUUNWEB was e-mailed October 27! Click the News-->WOMUUNWEB Current link at top to read it. Here's the PRINTABLE version (PDF).

Charlene Spretnak Honored for Leadership in Women's Spirituality

Written by Sid Reger, Assoc for Study of Women & Mythology |

Charlene Spretnak is the 2012 winner of the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality. The award will be presented at the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) national conference in San Francisco, May 11-12, 2012. Her presentation is entitled, Modernity, Mythology, and the Elusive Gestalt.

Ms. Spretnak’s work is internationally recognized in the areas of spirituality, cultural history, feminist and other social criticism, and ecological thought (Green politics, ecofeminism, ecophilosophy). In 2006 she was named one of “100 Eco-Heroes of All Time” by the publication of the British government’s Environmental Department.
She is one of the founding mothers of the Women’s Spirituality movement, through her work in the second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s. Her first book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths reconstructed pre-Olympian myths for the first time in more than 2500 years; the Los Angeles Times called it “a poetic revelation.” [Two pieces from this work and several other references are included in Shirley Ranck's Cakes for the Queen of Heaven curriculum - Gretchen]

Her most recent book, Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World (2011), focuses on the “Relational Shift” seen in the fields of Education and Parenting, Health and Healthcare, Community Design and Architecture, and the Economy.

UN: Global Conference on Women in 2015

On International Women’s Day, Secretary-General, General Assembly President Propose Global Conference on Women in 2015, 20 Years after Beijing

Following is a joint announcement by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser:

The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz al?Nasser, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations would like to jointly propose the convening of a Global Conference on Women by the United Nations in 2015, 20 years after the last women’s summit in Beijing.

Given that women make up half of humanity and given the importance and relevance of women’s issues for global progress, it is high time that such a world conference is convened. It is all the more important because of the enormous changes the world is going through, with both positive and other implications for women.

The President of the General Assembly and the Secretary-General feel confident the international community will welcome this joint initiative. They also hope that the Member States, who have the final authority to convene the proposed conference, could take the necessary steps during this sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly. They believe that the high point that the United Nations reached with the establishment of UN-Women in 2011 can be meaningfully substantiated with a global programme focusing on women that can be articulated at the Fifth Conference.

Belonging Values – Modern Morphing Replay

Written by Helen Popenoe, Editor |

HelenPopenoe2010 Walhonding Road, at the end of my street, is my pre-dawn destination for not-so-regular walks. Why? The urban symbolism of what I experience there gives my day’s work, usually for social change, much inspiration. It reminds me that sustainability is at the heart of any workable action plan. It reminds me to endure without giving way to power-over circumstances that can control my “balance”, “expressiveness,” “playfulness” and “openess to spirit.” (Note – all words in quotes come from a “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven” resource, Carol Lee Flinders’ Rebalancing the World’s Belonging Values list.)

I seek to live with others in the pre-patriarchal forager ways (a redux for today’s needs.) It can be achieved by partnering with consensus decision making that employs complementarity, “mutuality” and “inclusiveness,” “generosity”, “deliberateness”, “egalitarianism”, “non-violent conflict resolution” (or management), and “self-restraint.” For my additional spiritual guidance, my Walhonding Road experience sparks awe-filled awareness of my “connection with the land”, my “empathic relationship to animals”, and to be a helpful inhabitant in my part of Earth’s biosphere, supporting healthy growth in the natural world (“custodial conservatism” which includes the motto, “What you have, you share.”)

These days many factors are often involved in making decisions, so that “ordinary deductive reasoning processes aren’t equal to the task.” So, with “affinity for alternative modes of knowing”, I try “to allow intuitive wisdom to come to the surface.” (Flinders quotes, again, to complete the Belonging Values list) All the Occupy consciousness raising brings a different national dialogue to the surface.

Continental UUW&R featured in One-and-One

Written by Gretchen Ohmann |

Our online retreats calendar and the Cakes class calendar on www.cakesforthequieenofheaven.org were both featured as "one useful tool" in a January 2012 issue of One and One, an e-newsletter from the Ministries and Faith Development Staff Group of the Unitarian Universalist Association. http://www.uua.org/documents/mpl/one/120125_issue38.pdf

Apply for the Dana Greeley Award

Written by UU-UNO office |

UU-UNO logo

All Unitarian Universalists are invited to submit a sermon (or address) to the UU-United Nations Office (UU-UNO). The topic this year should address “Empowering Women for a Better World.”

While all submissions will be considered, those highlighting the work of the United Nations and the UU-UNO will be given priority consideration. The winner will be awarded a cash prize of $1,000 and will have the opportunity to deliver the sermon or address at the next UUA General Assembly.

Send submissions by February 1, 2012 via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For more information, visit the UU-UNO's website.

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