Religion, Gender and Citizenship

Through interviews with Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, this book explores intersections between religion, citizenship, gender and feminism. How do religious women think about citizenship, and how do they practice citizenship in everyday life? How important is faith in their lives, and how is religion bound up with other identities such as gender and nationality? What are their views on 'gender equality', women's movements and feminism? The answers offered by this book are complex. Religion can be viewed as both a resource and a barrier to women's participation. The interviewed women talk about citizenship in terms of participation, belonging, love, care, tolerance and respect. Some seek gender equality within their religious communities, while others accept different roles and spaces for women. 'Natural' differences between women and men and their equal value are emphasized more than equal rights. Women's movements are viewed as having made positive contributions to women's status, but interviewees are also critical of claims related to abortion and divorce, and of feminism's allegedly selfish, unwomanly, anti-men and power-seeking stance. In the interviews, Christian privilege is largely invisible and silenced, while Muslim disadvantage is both visible and articulated. Line Nyhagen and Beatrice Halsaa unpack and make sense of these findings, discussing potential implications for the relationship between religion, gender and feminism.

Auteur

Line Nyhagen is Reader in Sociology at Loughborough University, UK. A sociologist and political scientist, she researches gender within historical and contemporary religious contexts focusing on Christianity and Islam, as well as feminism and ethnic relations within the contexts of social movements and public policy.

Beatrice Halsaa is Professor in Gender Studies at the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo, Norway. A political scientist, she researches the institutionalization of gender equality politics in Norway, the history of women's and gender research, feminist utopias, as well as feminism and ethnic relations within the contexts of social movements and public policy.

Résumé
How do religious women talk about and practise citizenship? What are their views on gender equality, women's movements and feminism? Via interviews with Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the UK, this book explores intersections between religion, citizenship, gender and feminism.

Contenu

1. Faithful women: Religious women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom talk about faith, citizenship, gender and feminism
2. Binaries and complexities in the study of religion, gender, feminism and citizenship: Towards lived religion and lived citizenship
3. Religious identities and meaning-making
4. Religion and citizenship as lived practice: Intersections of faith, gender, participation and belonging
5. Religion and gender equality
6. Women's Movements and Feminism
7. Faithful women: Lived religion and citizenship, gender equality and feminism