10 Inspiring Women Religious Leaders

Editor's Note: For thousands of years, women have participated in religious observance and worked to support religious institutions -- often in greater numbers than men. Unfortunately, women in leadership roles have too often been discouraged, resisted or prohibited in all religious traditions. In recent years, women have risen to the top of major religious denominations as well as becoming household names as religious teachers. These ten women leaders are groundbreaking in different ways; and approach the religious project from very different perspectives. Yet all have much to teach us as they, and thousands of other women religious leaders, lead the way towards greater gender equality in religion and in all areas of the human experience.