50 Key Concepts in Theology

Androcentrism: taking maleness as normative.
Ecofeminism: the view that the oppression of women and the oppression
of nature are interconnected.
First Wave feminism: the era of campaigns for women’s rights, typified
by the Suffragettes.
The hermeneutic of suspicion: an approach to the interpretation of
Scripture and tradition that presumes the existence of oppression and
exclusion. It has been used self-consciously by Schüssler Fiorenza in her
critique of the Christian tradition.
Inclusive language: language that openly includes women.
Patriarchy (literally, ‘the rule of the father’): a term that refers to a
society ruled by men.
Phallocentrism: a term used to describe the priority given to the
masculine in a culture or society.
Post-Christian feminism: the position, argued by Daphne Hampson and
Mary Daly (in later years), that feminism must lead us beyond Christianity.
Post-feminism: a critique of feminism that blames some earlier feminist
approaches for the continued oppression of women.

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Second Wave feminism: a period (the late 1960s to the mid 1980s) in the
history of feminism that was concerned with the transformation of the roles
that women play in public and private life.
Third Wave feminism: a period (in the 1990s) of more philosophical
feminism that focused on connecting feminist concerns with general and
global questions of oppression and justice.
Womanist Theology: a distinct perspective that seeks to recognise,
affirm and empower black women in determining the character of Christian
religion.
BOOKS
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: toward a feminist
theology (Beacon Press, 1983)
Lisa Isherwood and Dorothea McEwan (eds.), An A to Z of Feminist
Theology (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)
Stephanie Y. Mitchem, Introducing Womanist Theology (Orbis Books,
2002)
Imelda Whelehan, Modern Feminist Thought from the Second Wave to