Who are America's most influential women in religion? Why do they get so little ink?

International Women’s Day last week led to — naturally — a lot of news features about the female half of the human race.

The Washington Post did a piece on women in Afghanistan (as did the New York Times); Agence France Presse wrote on women who work for the Roman Curia; the Jewish Telegraph Agency covered Orthodox women who get around their religion’s prohibition against women chanting Hebrew scriptures to mixed audiences.

I would have liked to have something more diverse and wider-ranging, such as a list of top women who exert influence not only within their own religions, but who have spoken to needs or issues in the general culture. In effect, they have transcended their faith groups.

In short, who are the most influential women in American religion?

Time magazine asked a similar question about evangelicals and the magazine’s list of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals is still referred to 18 years later. Most of those named were men; if there were women, they were paired with their husbands. The only two women who made the list on their own merits were televangelist Joyce Meyer and the late Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

I have spent much of my professional career profiling women in religion. The first time I put together such a list was in 2014 when I was so frustrated at how so many gifted evangelical women didn’t get near the top billing in the media that men do. In a post titled “Great Women Who Will Never Be Famous,” I wrote about Miriam Adeney, Nancy Pearcey, Robin Mazyck, Susan Wise Bauer, Sarah Zacharias Davis and Dale Hanson Bourke.

I’ve now updated that list to include other religions. I avoided women who got where they are because of their husbands. I am not denigrating their accomplishments, but simply focusing elsewhere.

I do realize that women in many traditions aren’t allowed into formal religious positions, which is why my list includes activists, bloggers and others who work outside regular boundaries.

It’s a sticky wicket, this list. Should one stick with women who have the largest numbers of books written, most news coverage or most impressive social media standings? How about lesser-known women who represent important constituencies?

For instance, many of you may not know Nailah Dean, 30, a black/Latina California lawyer and Muslim feminist who speaks out on what she calls the “Muslim marriage crisis.”

When writing about Iran, women and hijab, stress the Islamic roots of it all.

The female protestors in Iran have received a lot of positive press recently. Not only did they win Time magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year reader poll, they were also named the magazine’s 2022 Heroes of the Year.

Their bravery, even in the face of death — a number of them are being tortured and killed — has gained the attention of the world.

Recenty, the New York Times did a piece on how so many women are ditching their head coverings, the police aren’t bothering to arrest them. The issue here at GetReligion, of course, is whether journalists are coving the role that debates about specific Islamic traditions and laws are playing in all of this.

An engineer strode onstage at an event in Tehran, wearing tight pants and a stylish shirt, and clutching a microphone in one hand. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, swung freely behind her, uncovered, in open defiance of Iran’s strict hijab law.
“I am Zeinab Kazempour,” she told the convention of Iran’s professional association of engineers. She condemned the group for supporting the hijab rules, and then she marched offstage, removing a scarf from around her neck and tossing it to the floor under a giant image of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The packed auditorium erupted in cheers, claps and whistles. A video of Ms. Kazempour went viral on social media and local news sites, making her the latest champion for many Iranians in a growing, open challenge to the hijab law.

Something has cracked wide open in the consciousness of Persian women.

Recently I’ve been fascinated by the refusal by Iranian women to wear head coverings. I’ve checked out Iranian activist Masih Alinejad’s “The Wind in My Hair” and Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh’s “Captive in Iran,” the latter about these two Christian women’s 259-day stay in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison, to get a feel for what women experience in this sad and terrifying country.

Both give a snapshot of what it’s like to live in a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” society.