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1 Gender, religion and feminisms
The present chapter offers a broader contextualisation of the analysis regarding the relationship between the academic study of gender and religion, in addition to providing a brief overview of feminism as it relates to the study of gender and religion. In the first section of this chapter we explain the historical tensions that exist between the study of religion and gender in general. The second section is dedicated to examining the question of whether the culturally organising function of gender is to be inevitably linked to the formation and perpetuation of patriarchal religion in general, and Islam in particular, or whether religion, including Islam, can be a source of non-patriarchal values and ethics.
Recognising that the socially constructed nature of gender, gender norms, and of religious symbols and narratives generate a variety of feminist and gender critiques and reconstructions in the field of religious studies and theology, we discuss some of the most important ideas and developments in this context. A short history of the gradually evolving cultural interplay between empirical womenās studies, critical feminist theories and the descriptive and normative study of religion is also briefly outlined with the focus on the methodological and epistemological advancements specific to the first three waves of feminism that were paralleled by evolving applications of the woman and/or gender problem in the academic field of the study of religion and theology.
1 Introduction
Duality is a concept that has dominated human thinking throughout most of our history: day and night, body and soul, woman and man, our people and their people, nature and culture etc. Rarely was this duality viewed in a non-hierarchical manner, that is, as a concept based on reciprocity and equality. In most cases, duality was embedded in a hierarchical worldview and was viewed through the lens of opposing essences sometimes (misleadingly) described with the language of complementarity that emphasised the distinction between a superior Subject/Self and an inferior Object/Other. The multiplicities, nuances and differences that marked any given reality were artificially reduced to a duality, and the elements involved in that duality were reified and hierarchically evaluated. Throughout history, this idea of duality has functioned as an ordering principle of most, if not all, aspects of human cultural life.1 Furthermore, the way we understood the duality has had concrete implications for all aspects of human life, including those pertaining to gender and religion.
The socio-cultural reality, especially in the mainstream Western history of ideas,2 was perceived, structured and functionally organised through the lens of the major dichotomy of the dually sexed / gendered human beings: women and men. This two-gender binary model was, however, never a universal one. In fact, there have always been cultures worldwide that culturally recognised three, five or six genders.3 Moreover, under the yoke of Western colonialism these cultures were often dehumanised and persecuted for defying European gender binary roles and norms that were taken to be āa mark of the human and a mark of civilizationā.4 Very rarely, socio-cultural organisation did not gravitate around body-oriented concepts of gender. For instance, in old African Yoruba land the chronological age difference/seniority rather than gender constituted the criteria for distributing social roles.5 Nevertheless, over time and especially due to the legacy of colonialism, gender binary thinking became a dominant model throughout the world.6
Furthermore, this gender duality system did not simply remain as a purely theoretical model. On the contrary, it expressed itself concretely in myriad ways in what became considered ānaturalā / God given hierarchies with the general devaluing of the āfeminineā traits and values and the elevation of the āmasculineā ones as the universal standard.7 On a symbolic level, according to this worldview, women were culturally associated with concepts such as nature, matter, body, immanence, darkness, emotion, instinct, impurity, deficiency, dependency and weakness, and men were invested with the opposite: authority, spirituality, reason, transcendence, culture, light, intellect, purity, completeness, autonomy, power.8 Such views of masculinity and femininity were in the modern era further justified on the basis of arguments couched in the logic of biological determinism, which uses biological differences between men and women to legitimise rigid gender/sex roles and norms in the socio-political, cultural and legal realms of human endeavour.9
We can conclude that gender relations, by their very nature, are affected by the broader power relations that operate in the societies and communities in which they are embedded. As such, they are mutually conditioned by and inextricably linked with religious teachings.10 For more detail, we turn to this relationship between religion and gender in the following section.
2 Historical tensions between the study of gender and religion
Gender, in the realm of religion, refers to sex-associated characteristics and behaviors in both the natural and the supernatural world.11 Gender as an analytical category is of particular importance to religion for a number of reasons. First, the two concepts are intimately interrelated and are mutually embedded within each other, with religions shaping gender and gender influencing religion.12 This means that gender patterns are often only covertly present in religion and need to be historically excavated and carved out analytically through a careful exercise of close examination of foundational religious texts and the religious authorities and institutions built on them. Second, gender issues permeate religion since religions have created, legitimated, enforced, oppressed, subverted, transformed, and liberated gender.13 Third, there is, in particular, a close relationship between gender and religion because peopleās self-perceptions and identity are formed and deeply rooted in their culturally shared religious heritage even if this heritage is sharply criticised and/or rejected.14 Fourth, religious traditions, beliefs, and practices are often highly gendered, so much so that the gendered nature of the religious phenomenon is increasingly recognised, including in the sphere of theorising about religion.15 Given the above, without a critical approach to gender it is hardly possible to describe, analyse, or explain any religion accurately.
As noted recently by Hermansen, there are four positions that people, including the relevant scholars, are taking today in their discourses and understandings of the relationship between women and religion. The first position is described as āpatriarchal and proud of itā. Those who subscribe to this view consider patriarchy as part of the divine order and āgender discriminationā (which is conceptualised in terms of gender difference or what I term below as āgender oppositionalityā) is welcomed as divinely willed.16
Secondly, there is a view that the founders of religions, including Jesus and Muhammad, were the first āfeminists.ā According to this narrative, these persons chosen by God as recipients of Revelation initially brought gender egalitarian messages which were subsequently lost or suppressed. Hence, what remains to be done is to recover this egalitarian spirit of the original message. The third position is that patriarchy has āhijackedā religion with the implication that theological and institutional change is necessary from within the faith-based framework to remove the garb of patriarchy from religion. The fourth position considers religion a priori and inherently patriarchal as it is considered to be against the best interest of women. Hence, womenās emancipation is sought from outside of the framework of religion. Representatives of all of these views exist in different proportions in all major religions today.17
Religion has played an important role in defining the meaning of gender both as a symbol and in practice by communicating distinct behavioural roles for men and women which, in turn, gave rise to specific sex/gender-based rights and responsibilities.18 Indeed, factors that engender masculine and feminine gender roles (i.e., sets of expectations for behaving...
