"WE'RE PEOPLE TOO !"

Her words sum up a Jewish lady's protest against gender segregation in the right to pray at the sacred wall in Jerusalem.  Women as well want to wail at the wall.  In the Catholic Church, some women want to be priests.  Tradition going back to anti-feminist Paul of Tarsus affords little hope for female would-be celebrants of Mass and lady confessors. 

The controversy between the hard and soft-liners may seem to atheists like a storm in a tea-cup.  But while one must sympathize with the cause of women's rights in general, and support legislation which would guarantee total gender equality in every domain, it is pathetic that in spite of the belated recognition of women's right to vote (1902 in Australia, 1945 in France), as well as of certain other civil rights more recently, religions continue to discriminate against women.  It is just another reminder of the blindness religions generate and try to preserve.  The worst case is when religious women themselves accept the dictatorship of the self-appointed men who make them second-class people and inferior believers.