It will be an impediment because religious legal strictures limiting the ability of women to participate fully in religious life and often constraining the rights of women more generally are deeply ingrained in many religious traditions, particularly more fundamentalist traditions.

At the same time, just as the religious belief that “we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights” led to the great achievements of human rights and democracy, so also it is the belief that all are created in the image of God and of equal value that will in the end sustain the march toward full equality for women.

Fared well or fared badly? It depends on one’s perspective. In ancient and medieval Judaism, in most ways, women simply did not have as expansive rights and opportunities as did men. On the other hand, Jewish laws and customs were based, in large part, on the societal norms of the day, and though it was an (almost) entirely male-dominated, chauvinistic, and paternalistic society, many laws, albeit chauvinistic, served a role in making life better for women.

Examples of such laws include marriage/divorce, where men were obligated to provide for women; or the Maimonidean view that women were exempt from fulfilling the commandment to procreate because of how life-threatening childbirth is to women. Also, women were exempted/excluded from time-bound commandments, such as prayer, so that they could fulfill household duties, because it was thought that it would be impossible for them to do both.

Yet those same laws that were meant in part to maintain a woman’s status in her home and community are the same laws that increasing numbers of people feel now hold women back from achieving full equality in religion (even though women today are able to achieve full equality in every other aspect of society).

It took only two generations of Jewish and Protestant denominations ordaining women to reach a point where, in light of the aesthetics and gifts women bring that have enriched the religious lives of those they lead, we look back in astonishment that so recently we questioned the fundamental fairness and value of such equality.

I believe the same will be true of all the major religious traditions in this century. Women will be better off for this achievement; men will be better off; religion will be better off; and the world will be better off. And I believe that God will look down with satisfaction that the freedom of choice entrusted to us was finally used to achieve equality for all God’s children.