When Women’s Dignity Is Under Attack: Keeping Faith with Our Global Ethic and Our Declaration for the Dignity and Human Rights of Women

by Phyllis W. Curott, J.D., H.Ps., Trustee, Parliament of the World’s Religions; Co-Chair, Women’s Task Force

I still remember the extraordinary enthusiasm when the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions ratified the Declaration for the Dignity and Human Rights of Women. The world’s religions spoke with one voice, affirming that “being treated justly and with respect should not depend on whether one is male or female.” We recognized that “we are all interconnected and interdependent and when half the human race suffers, we all suffer.” And we called upon the world’s religions to honor and uphold the dignity and human rights of women and girls.

Around the world, authoritarian movements understand something people of faith too often forget: control women and you control society. Restrict their autonomy. Silence their voices. Exclude them from leadership. Deny them equal citizenship and authority over their own bodies. The assault on women’s dignity is not incidental to authoritarianism—it is one of its defining strategies.

The United States is no exception. The proposed SAVE Act, which would disenfranchise millions of eligible women, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and continuing attacks on access to contraception are part of a broader effort to diminish women’s equal moral agency and citizenship. Many of these efforts are being spearheaded by organizations and political leaders aligned with white Christian Nationalism, a movement that seeks to fuse religious authority with governmental power to justify restrictions on women’s rights.

Our Declaration identified the root of this injustice with unmistakable clarity: these violations of women’s dignity and human rights are based on “the false premise that men and boys are superior to women and girls,” perpetuated by religious leaders and adherents who choose to misinterpret or selectively invoke religious texts and teachings to proclaim the inferiority of women and girls.

White Christian Nationalism is not Christianity. It is a political ideology that selectively invokes scripture to sanctify inequality, exclusion, and domination, betraying both the teachings of Jesus and the ethical heart shared by the world’s religious traditions. As our Declaration reminds us, “It is impossible to imagine a God, a Divine Source, a Sacred and Ultimate Reality, that is unjust.” Whenever religion is invoked to deny women’s equal humanity, it is not defending faith; it is corrupting it.

Our Declaration calls upon all religious leaders and adherents to “challenge and change harmful teachings and practices that justify discrimination and violence against women and girls,” and to embrace our moral responsibility to ensure that women are fully and equally involved in every sphere that shapes their lives.

Religious communities must refuse to remain silent while sacred teachings are distorted to justify injustice. We must challenge interpretations that deny women’s full humanity. We must elevate women’s voices into equal leadership and defend women’s moral agency—including their full participation in civic life and the freedom to make decisions concerning their own lives and futures.

Silence is not neutrality. It is acquiescence. It permits injustice to wear the robes of religion.

The Parliament has already declared where it stands.

Now let us keep faith with our Declaration—and live it.