Religious Research

Religious Research

A Reflection on the Universality of Mary Daly's Teachings with an Emphasis on Her Works

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Ashraf Hashemi
Instructor, Department of Language and Literature, Bent Al-Huda Higher Education Institute, Al-Mustafa International University, Qom, Iran
10.22034/jrr.2025.485718.2231
Abstract
In her works, Mary Daly creates a new philosophy and theology based on women's specific experience of faith in God. She strives to reveal the inherent gender bias embedded in the concepts, patterns, and language of Christianity, introducing it as a factor of oppression, a neglect of women's experience, and an obstacle to their human perfection. Daly seeks to raise awareness and realize the "becoming existent" of women; however, a number of thinkers have viewed this with skepticism. By raising questions about the nature and process of this awareness, they have posed the concern of whether sharing such awareness among women will be able to provoke a profound transformation in them and in society or not. This article, using a descriptive-analytical method and by examining her views in three works — *The Church and the Second Sex*, *Beyond God the Father*, and *Gyn/Ecology* — concludes that the perspectives she presented as a "universal law" lack generalizability. Furthermore, in addition to the existence of duality in some of her ideas, many feminist theologians have also criticized and challenged them.
Keywords
Mary Daly, patriarchy, feminist theology, subordination of women
Bellow-Stratton, T. 1996. From sexual prejudice to patriarchy and its agents: The radicalization of Mary Daly's analysis of sexism (Master's thesis). Western Michigan University. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/4136
Daly, M. 1968. The church and the second sex (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Daly, M. 1973. Beyond God the Father: Towards a philosophy of women’s liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Daly, M. 1975. The church and the second sex (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Daly, M. 1978. Gyn/ecology: The metaethics of radical feminism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press
Daly, M. 1985. Beyond God the Father: Towards a philosophy of women’s liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Hauke, M. 1995. God or goddess? Feminist theology: What is it? Where does it lead? San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press.
Hunt, M. E. 2014. "Pure complexity: Mary Daly’s Catholic legacy". Feminist Theology, 22(3), 233–245.
Kassian, M. 1992. The feminist Gospel: The movement to unite feminism with the church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Sanders, F. 2010. Mary Daly: Radical feminist theologian. The Scriptorium Daily.
Sue, W. 1998. The theoretical contexts of Mary Daly's thought (Doctoral dissertation). University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland.
Wood, H. 2015. Revisiting Mary Daly: Her views on the Trinity, Mariology and the Fall as post-Christian myths. Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, College of Human Sciences.
Wood, M. J. 2013. Patriarchy, feminism and Mary Daly: A systematic-theological study (Doctoral dissertation). University of South Africa.
Religious Research
Volume 13, Issue 25 - Serial Number 25
November 2025
Pages 215-238