Tina Beattie calls (“Theology that hears the poor”, 12 October) for a “deep theology of women, by and for women”. It is remarkable that she does not see how the very notion of a theology of women is patronising and belittling. How would people react to a call for a theology of male human beings? Perhaps she thinks that that is what we already have, that Catholic theology as a whole is a ­theology of males, by and for males. She is right that Catholics should work against “sexual violence, poverty and the lack of reproductive health care”, which are mani­fest evils. She may properly plead for equal rights for females and males both in secular societies and in the Church. These, however, are political objectives, to be pursued by arguments like t