I'm Hemmint Mehta and I'm Jessica Limke and you're listening to the

podcast for Friendly Atheist.com you can now listen to all of our episodes and see show notes at friendly

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Dr. Karen Garst is the former executive director of the Oregon Community College Association

and Oregon State Bar.

She writes at the website Faithless Feminist Feminist, and she's the editor of a new book called

Women Beyond Belief, Discovering Life Without Religion.

Karen, thank you so much for joining us today.

Well, I'm just delighted.

Thank you for inviting me.

So there's certainly been plenty of discussion about women and

religion but could you give us a brief overview of sort of the special

hardships that many women in many religions face? Yes, and this book concentrates on the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I am writing another book that's going to include Islam, but this one doesn't.

Sadly, this could be the start of a very long series.

Like Harry Potter?

Yeah. Yeah? I think the big issue and I've done a lot of research in this area and I don't think women are aware of it,

but there used to be a feminine divine. And if you look back in the Paleolithic and you see the

figurines and perhaps even a mother goddess that was honored and the cycles of women aligning

with the cycles of women aligning with the cycles of nature and then slowly but surely

...