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Mary Daly, a Leader in Feminist Theology, Dies at 81 More Articles in Education »

By MARGALIT FOX
Published: January 6, 2010 TWITTER

Mary Daly, a prominent feminist theologian who made worldwide LINKEDIN

headlines a decade ago after she retired from Boston College rather E-MAIL

than admit men to some of her classes, died on Sunday in Gardner, PRINT

Mass. She was 81 and had lived for many years in Newton Centre, SHARE
Mass.

A friend, Linda Barufaldi, confirmed

the death, saying Professor Daly had
been in declining health recently.

A self-described “radical lesbian feminist,” Professor Daly

Christopher Pf uhl/Associated Press
Mary Daly in 1999, shortly before she
left Boston College.
maintained a long, often uneasy relationship with Boston
MOST POPULAR
College, the Jesuit institution where she had taught
E-MAILED BLOGGED SEARCHED VIEWED
theology since the 1960s.
1 . Sleep Therapy Seen as an Aid for Depression
In 1999, Professor Daly left the college after a male student 2 . Findings: A Cold War Fought by Wom en
threatened suit when he was denied a place in her class on 3 . Thanksgiv ing Day , à la Française
feminist ethics. She had long limited enrollment in some 4 . Well: Mother's Exercise May Boost Baby 's Brain
advanced women’s studies classes to women only, 5. Night Falls, and 5Pointz, a Graffiti Mecca, Is
Whited Out in Queens
maintaining that the presence of men there would inhibit
6 . Perks Ease Way in Health Plans for Lawm akers
frank discussion.
7 . Op-Ed Contributor: Are We Alone in the Univ erse?

Professor Daly did let men enroll in her introductory feminism courses and offered to tutor 8. Well: Taking Aspirin at Night May Boost Heart
Benefits
them privately in the advanced subjects.
9 . How Doctors Die

Among the first American women to train as a Roman Catholic theologian, Professor 1 0. Country at a Crossroads: In Middle of Mexico, a
Middle Class Rises
Daly challenged orthodoxies from the start. She came to wide attention in 1968 with the
publication of “The Church and the Second Sex” (Harper & Row), in which she argued Go to Complete List »

that the Catholic Church had systematically oppressed women for centuries.

Her next book, “Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation”
(Beacon, 1973), explored misogyny in religion in general.

“She is a central figure in 20th-century feminism,” Robin Morgan, the feminist writer and
former editor of Ms. magazine, said in a telephone interview on Monday.

Professor Daly’s work was the subject of a critical anthology, “Feminist Interpretations of
Mary Daly” (Pennsylvania State University, 2000), edited by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and
Marilyn Frye. Jay Z and Barneys announce
substantial changes
If Professor Daly’s ideology placed her outside mainstream academic and religious life, ALSO IN STYLE »
then that, by her own account, was where she was glad to be. Formerly a practicing Watch Sunday style in Johannesburg
Catholic, she came to regard organized religion as irreparably patriarchal, in later years The gayest place in America?

calling herself “post-Christian.” Where her scholarly concerns had once been largely
theological, she gradually came to regard them as spiritual in the broadest sense of the

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/education/07daly.html?_r=0 1/3
11/20/13 Mary Daly, a Leader in Feminist Theology, Dies at 81 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
word.

Mary Daly was born in Schenectady, N.Y ., on Oct. 16, 1928. By the time she was an
adolescent, the natural world seemed to resonate for her in a way it did for few others.

“Especially important was a startling communication from a clover blossom one summer
day when I was about 14,” she wrote in an essay in The New Y orker in 1996. “It said, with
utmost simplicity, ‘I am.’ ”
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After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and Latin from the College of Saint Rose in
Albany in 1950, she earned a master’s in English from the Catholic University of America Are You Writing a Book?
and a Ph.D. in theology from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind. She later earned Get a free guide to professional

two more doctorates, in philosophy and theology, from the University of Fribourg in editing & publishing options.

Switzerland. www.iUniverse.com

Professor Daly joined the Boston College faculty in 1966. In 1969, in a widely reported
case, she was denied tenure, a development interpreted by many as a response to “The
Church and the Second Sex.” After more than 1,500 students signed a petition supporting
her — most were men, for the college did not admit women to its liberal arts division until
1970 — she was reinstated with tenure.

In 1999, when Professor Daly and Boston College parted company, a spokesman for the
college said she had agreed to retire. She maintained she was forced to retire.

Critics alternately praised and condemned Professor Daly for her pyrotechnic, bitingly
witty, eccentrically capitalized and punctuated style.

Most were enchanted by “Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English
Language” (Beacon, 1987; with Jane Caputi). A lexicon of new, nonsexist English, the
book contains original coinages, like “Mister-ectomy” (“a guaranteed solution to The
Contraception Problem”), plus familiar pejoratives like “crone” and “hag,” rehabilitated as
emblems of pride.

But some reviewers seemed discomforted by Professor Daly’s later prose, which appeared
to dovetail ever more snugly with New Age rhetoric:

“Although I was not in a ‘trance’ when writing ‘Gyn/Ecology,’ I was in a special mode of
creative consciousness, which stemmed, in part, from a will to overcome all
phallocratically imposed fears and Move on the Journey of Gynocentric Creation,” she
wrote in the 1990 edition of “Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism”
(Beacon), originally published in 1978.

Professor Daly leaves no immediate survivors.

Her other books include “Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy” (Beacon, 1984) and
“Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage: Containing Recollections From My Logbook of a
Radical Feminist Philosopher (Be-ing an Account of My Time/Space Travels and Ideas —
Then, Again, Now, and How)” (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992).

Reviewing “Pure Lust” in The New Y ork Times Book Review in 1984, the religious-studies
scholar Demaris Wehr wrote: “Mary Daly is an extraordinary woman and this is an
extraordinary work, demanding unusual spiritual and intellectual effort from its readers.
The effort is worth it.”

Ms. Wehr added, “Her powerful mind, her creative genius and her uncanny ability to put
her finger on deep emotional, psychological and spiritual problems are ignored at our
peril.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 7, 2010, on page More Articles in Education »
B20 of the New York edition.

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