Sister Joan Chittister and Daisy Khan

photo of Sister Joan Chittister with Jimmy Carter from her website

We do not need

to practice prayer.

We need

to become a prayer.

—Joan Chittister

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 
for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, 
neither slave nor free, 
nor is there male and female, 
for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 
Galatians 3:26-28

Sr. Joan Chittister, O.S.B., is Catholic. Daisy Khan is Muslim.

When they met at Chautauqua Institution, they had an immediate connection — both are advocates for the rights of religious women around the world.

After their first meeting, Khan invited Chittister to speak at the launch of her organization: Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE).

At first, no one in the room knew what an elderly Catholic lady was doing at their launch, or even who Chittister was. But Khan said once Chittister began to speak to the women, something changed. Loud and confident, she spoke of the responsibility and meaning behind “being a rebel.” Khan said the whole room went into “thunderous applause.”

“I brought a Catholic perspective into a Muslim meeting, and found that we share more in common than we have that divides us, meaning women in every major tradition are struggling to be seen as full human beings. None of the male imams, bishops, cardinals [or] pastors will admit that,” Chittister said. “I saw Daisy [doing] … what Catholic women have been doing for centuries, and that is studying both the theology, the philosophy and the sociology of women’s roles and finding them lacking.” Madison Rossi, The Chautauquan Daily, July 14th, 2016

Both Daisy Khan and Sister Joan Chittister spoke at an outdoor event at Chautauqua on July 15th, 2016, on the topic of Women and Leadership.

Below are very abbreviated notes from what they shared from their religious experience, Daisy being a leader in the Islamic community and Joan an outspoken Catholic for over 35 years, as a leader within the Benedictine community.

Daisy Khan - Muslim

• Each of you is a shepherd - Mohammed
• Servant leaders, deep sense of ethics, willingness to be introspective and the need to convey uncertainty
• Carving out a path - the story of the Prophet, receiving a lot of revelations, liked what he was saying
• A woman once approached the Prophet and asked him: 'Why are all the revelations being addressed to men?'
• Mohammed didn't have an answer at the time but later replied (35:35) that God speaks to both men and women without restriction

Joan Chittister - Benedictine Sister

• If a woman tries to advance the woman's question she is seen as the enemy, she is rejected or ignored whether the issue is daycare or occupational opportunity,
• When a woman stands to question the way things are, the questioner is questioned
• They are dismissed with 'well you know how women are...'
• In Morocco - a woman is raped and she has to marry her rapist
• In the US - a college student who reports she has been raped is told to be quiet
• The problem is systemic
• In Mexico a woman is expected to carry water up the mountains, in the US men executive can get their corporations to cover their golf course memberships but women can't get day care
• The question is: how can society benefit from governance that taps into only one eye which can see, only one ear that can hear and only one mouth that can speak?
• No wonder our society is suffering so badly!

• There is a limit where forbearance ceases to be a virtue
• Increasing lip service to women in leadership featuring the token women
• and yet 7 out of every 10 business start ups by women
• The theology of male domination in early Christian theology in conjunction with the divination of the subordination of women
• "I suffer not a woman to teach" St Paul
• "I fail to see the use of a woman other than to bear children, a second species...' Augustine 
• "If they become tired or die in child-birth, it is no loss." Martin Luther
• It affects our entire social system adversely when women are deemed a derivative of men
• The word that is translated as 'helper' or 'help-meet' in Genesis 2:20 appears 30 times in the Old Testament. In all but this verse the Hebrew word is translated as a 'power equal to'' but not here
• Eve was created as a power equal to Adam, which is more than just a helper
• These old ideas must go, they are on a collision crisis with the world at large
• Leadership studies indicate that women are more likely to collaborate rather than pontificate as men are inclined to do
• that for the 16 competencies that make for good leaders, women outscore men in 10 of these categories, are equal to men in 4 others with men scoring higher than women in only 2 categories
• and yet only 3% to 4% of leaders today are women