Explain two different religious beliefs about gender equality.

In your answer you must refer to one or more religious traditions. [4 marks]

• Some Christians believe that men and women are equal in all things.

• They point out that the Apostle Paul teaches, ‘In Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Greek, slave and free person, male and female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3. 28).

• Other Christians believe that men and women were created for different roles.

• They point to another of Paul’s letters, where he writes ‘I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to listen quietly, because Adam was formed first and then Eve’ (I Timothy 2. 12–13).