Rita M. Gross was an American Buddhist feminist theologian and author
Education
She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in 1975 from the University of Chicago in History of Religions, with the dissertation "Exclusion and Participation: The Role of Women in Aboriginal Australian Religion." This was the first dissertation ever on women"s studies in religion.
Career
Before retiring, she was Professor of Comparative Studies in Religion at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. In 1974 Gross was named the head of Women and Religion, a newly created section of the American Academy of Religion. In 1976 she published the article "Female God Language in a Jewish Context" (Davka Magazine 17), which Jewish scholar and feminist Judith Plaskow considers "probably the first article to deal theoretically with the issue of female God-language in a Jewish context".
Gross was herself born Jewish.
Gross grew up on a dairy farm in the Rhinelander, Wisconsin area. Gross died of a massive stroke, on November 11, 2015, at her home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. by Carl Olson (Belmont, California:Wadsworth, 2004), pp.
Politics
Feminism and Religion: An Introduction. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Korean translation, 1999.
Chapter One “Defining Feminism, Religion, and the Study of Religion” reprinted in Theory and Method in the Study of Religion, educated