[1] The organization was formally established in 1989 at Trinity College in Legon, Ghana, with 79 founding members convened by the Ghanaian theologian Mercy Oduyoye.
[2] Oduyoye contends it informally began in 1976 when she invited female scholars of theology and religion to join the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.
[3] The official launch in 1989 was as "a culmination of a decade-long work and the realisation that while women were the majority in faith-based organisations, they were visibly absent in religious leadership and academic study of religion.
Keynote speaker Puleng LenkaBula added that the work of the Circle did not only acknowledge "the evil of oppression in our societies, but also the injustice of colonialism of our bodies and of the earth."
For LenkaBula, the Circle represents "a contestation and a call for justice, but also a path that feminist and womanist theologians came to shape the narratives that were often muted in church and society.