The end of the second session of the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens of Belgium asked his fellow bishops: Why are we even discussing the reality of the church when half of the church is not even represented here? This provocative question, midway through a council that was then totally male, was a breakthrough that prodded council members to invite a few token women to the ensuing sessions.
My own experience as one of the 15 women auditors originally invited to Vatican II gives me a particular vantage point from which to view the struggles of Roman Catholic women in the United States since the council.