'To Bless All Mankind' March 12, 2018 Issue

True womanhood has no limitations

Mary Alice Rose

A version of this article was published in The Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 2017.

Considering the implications of giving Saudi women the right to drive (see editorial on facing page) helped me appreciate my own journey in breaking barriers in thought regarding women.

For instance, I once was appointed to a position that automatically made me a member of a regional ecumenical group of about ten members. I was the first woman to participate in this group in years, and I approached this membership tentatively. At my first meeting, I was welcomed cordially, but I didn’t particularly feel I belonged. At my second meeting, most of the members didn’t even remember me, despite my being the only woman among them!

This was a wake-up call. I recognized that this was not personal, but an opportunity for me to rise to a fuller, more spiritual concept of womanhood. The most important role model for me in this regard is Mary Baker Eddy. Born in the United States in 1821, she lived in what was almost exclusively a man’s world: Women were not allowed to vote and not generally welcome as entrepreneurs, authors, or members of the clergy.

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