WUNRN
Religion
Gender Politics
Caught in the crossfire of the global resurgence of religion in public life and multiculturalist claims to difference, what are the prospects for gender equality and women's human rights? If you would like to contribute an article to this debate please email your ideas to jane.gabriel@opendemocracy.net
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Background information on the
“Religion, Politics and Gender
Equality Project”
The Heinrich Böll Foundation and UNRISD have carried out a large
research project since October 2007. Key question of this project
is the impact of politicized religion on women’s opportunities to pursue
equality with men. The project therefore explores (1) how religion
and politics interact in different national settings, and (2) how this
nexus affects gender equality and feminist politics.
Eleven commissioned research papers on Chile, India, Iran, Israel,
Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Serbia, Turkey and the U.S.,
encompassing both “developed” and “developing” countries with
populations belonging to diverse religious traditions (including Christian,
Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish), reflect on these two key questions. In
so doing they engage with some of the most contested contemporary
issues: the promises of “actually existing” secularisms and their
discontents; the social and political forces pushing religious organizations
and discourses into the public and political arena; and the implications
for human rights agendas, and women’s rights agendas more specifically,
when religions “go public”. What the research underlines is that from
the point of view of women’s rights to equality, autonomy and bodily
integrity, there is much at stake in how religion and politics intertwine.
For more information on the project see
http://www.gwi-boell.de/de/web/index_1376.htm
and http://www.unrisd.org/research/gd/religionandgender.
The cooperation with openDemocracy, HIVOS and AWID and the
announced website launch are part of the follow-up phase of this
project, intended to disseminate the research results as widely as
possible and to instigate further debate through the net.
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