Halacha or Social Inflexibility?

This JPost article startled me. I guess I should have realized that there must be some Orthodox Jews who dare to go that far against the grain, but somehow I didn't. I'm hardly a halachic authority, so I can't judge either way, but if there is a space in halacha to recognize women who have the skills and dedication to become as learned in Torah as any rabbi of our time, it should happen. This, unlike so many other contemporary "feminism vs. Orthodoxy" issues, is not about what women may do, but about what we may acknowledge them to have already done. It's about the kavod -- and the salary -- we give them. It's also about the message we send to our daughters, any number of whom may want to study and teach Torah for a living, just like their male counterparts who aspire to the rabbinate...but may not want the choice between being marginal and being an insurgent.

I'm not saying that women should be allowed to make halachic rulings, if there is a credible halachic reason why they shouldn't. But as Lauren Gelfond Feldinger points out, most rabbis in our time do not have anything near the authority that they did in ages past, and s’micha does not mean now what it did then, even for men.

“Technically, an ordination is much the same as a diploma, in this case, confirmation of having mastered texts and having the ability to apply precedents to contemporary questions”

(Hat tip to Soferet.)