There are justifiable reasons, of course, that religion and the women's movement have kept each other at arm's length. Most faiths are patriarchal, reflecting the societies in which they're based. Meanwhile, outside the spiritual realm, many women struggle for equality but find little satisfaction in it. But I'm out here, and there's so much pain. This has nothing to do with feminine weakness, Flinders said.
Young girls are in a terrible dilemma.
We have internalized thousands of years of misogyny. At the Root of This Longing offers no simple prescription. As someone who has spent decades on this path, and who meditates two or three hours a day, Flinders is too thoughtful for that. Rather, she returns for inspiration to the mystics of the Middle Ages, women who confounded the patriarchy by turning to the sacred at a time when that was their only refuge. A society conditioned to diminish and objectify women, she concludes, is the seedbed for such evil.