Women in Religion has matured significantly as an area of study since the Women in Religion Working Group, now a regular section of the American Academy of Religion, was formed in 1971. Research on the subject has proliferated at a rapid rate and the Women in Religion Section has earned a reputation as one of the few places at the annual meetings where interesting and vital research is presented. Seven years ago scholarship on women in religion was difficult to find. Primary sources had not been identified and studied from the perspective of the image and role of women, nor was there a tradition of secondary scholarship. Today numerous primary sources have been identified, and there is a growing body of secondary literature on the subject of women and female symbolism in nearly every area of the field of religious studies.

Research in Western Christian studies has progressed more rapidly than any other area simply because there are more scholars, and more scholars with interests in women, in the Christian fields in religious studies. But research is proliferating as well in Buddhist and Hindu studies, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, and others. There is no area of research in religious studies in which there are not important questions to be answered concerning the image and role of women and the phenomenology and function of female symbolism.