Gender is a term which is used to denote "a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female" (Oxford Dict., OUP), but which stand for a social construct, by opposition to a reduction to a psycho-physiological determinism. Globethics Gender and Theology collection covers issues at the intersection of gender and theology with a strong focus on Latin America.

Recent Submissions

  • The Bible for All: Biblical Interpretation as a Grassroots Movement

    Hopkinson, Hannah L. (ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange, 2023-01-01)
    In Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s proposed emancipatory paradigm, the biblical scholar must both analyze how the Bible is used to subjugate and imagine how those texts could form a more just world. If tenants of this emancipatory paradigm were practiced in the local church, the Bible’s power could nurture a more just society. This paper explores how an emancipatory paradigm could be applied in local churches through analyzing the structure of its grassroots inspiration, Consciousness Raising Groups of the American Women’s Liberation Movement, and also a similar South African method, Contextual Bible Study. In contrast to other models like the pastor theologian, the emancipatory paradigm resists hierarchical structures and instead invites all to the table of biblical interpretation.
  • "Femme Fatales of Faith": Queer and "Deviant" Performances of Femme Within Western Protestant Culture

    Minnick, Kelsey Waninger (Digital Commons @ DU, 2019-01-01)
    Women and queer folk are changing the religious landscape of Christianity in America, and the scope of visibility for these figures and their apostolic endeavors is widening as more and more Christians are seeking out communities rooted in doctrines of love and connection rather than exclusion and hegemonic piety. Thinking on this phenomenon, this dissertation focuses on the intersectional dilemmas of faith practice and rhetorical discourse with Western Christianity, particularly as it revolves around those female pastors and clergy - considered "dangerous" by many within the church - who are advocating for a more inclusionary church space. By conducting a rhetorically-motivated investigation centered within feminist and religious dialogues, this project attempts to answer the following questions: How can the femme fatale, as read through a lens of queer performativity, be a hallmark of identity-making for women within religious spaces? How does the rhetorical act of confession, specifically the memoir, work as a performative tool of resistance when used by the "femme fatales of faith" What do the alternative and 'out-law' narratives and embodiments of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Paula Stone Williams, and Pamela Lightsey speak to in terms of female church leaders marking themselves as "femme fatales of faith?"
  • Sobre política, ética e afeto : emergência e negociações do protagonismo religioso no Brasil

    http://lattes.cnpq.br/3518204311819015; PATRIOTA, Karla Regina Macena Pereira; Falcão, Carolina Cavalcanti (Universidade Federal de PernambucoPrograma de Pos Graduacao em ComunicacaoUFPEBrasil, 2019-12-10)
    Nesta tese, apresento e conceituo o que chamo de protagonismo religioso no Brasil. Assim, discuto como as formas não-hegemônicas de visibilidade cristã estão desenvolvendo uma agenda política progressiva, uma ética e uma gramática afetiva da presença pública. É também um trabalho sobre como é possível apreender a reprodução e a dinâmica simbólicas que garantem a legitimidade desses agentes não hegemônicos. Entendo que o protagonismo religioso é um fenômeno típico dos fluxos comunicativos da Internet, aplicando uma comparação de como a liderança religiosa televangelista tradicional e hegemônica, por sua vez, é típica da ordem de transmissão da mídia. Enquanto essa liderança televangelista se apóia no carisma, o protagonismo religioso é impulsionado por uma competência afetiva que mobiliza uma presença performativa no espaço público (online e offline). Argumento que as formas de reprodução simbólica em relação ao protagonismo religioso não apenas abraçam novas formas de manifestação no espaço público, mas também exigem uma posição antagônica contra o cristianismo atual, que é carismático e difundido (tanto em aspectos católicos quanto evangélicos). Há uma visibilidade específica para os sujeitos do protagonismo, cuja principal proposta é se apresentar como figuras religiosas progressistas, “forasteiras” do auditório televangelista brasileiro e seus padrões morais, movidas não pelo carisma, mas pela mobilização de afetos como esperança / medo e amor. Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir com precisão o status e os efeitos dessa visibilidade, sobre como o protagonismo religioso seria capaz de negociar, juntamente com questões teológicas, novos limites para a sensibilidade secular moderna. Além disso, também avança nos estudos sobre os afetos como um capital fundamental para a realização de novas formas de autoridade religiosa na Era da Internet. Uma discussão urgente, especialmente no contexto latino-americano, em que o projeto carismático cristão (e, portanto, radiodifusão) encontrou crescimento significativo, legitimidade e força política.
  • Encountering the Divine, Resisting Patriarchy: Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Prophetic Catholicism

    Jim Robinson (MDPI AG, 2023-09-01)
    While Rosemary Radford Ruether is widely, and rightly, acknowledged as a prophetic Catholic scholar–activist, her interest in and experience of mysticism is rarely emphasized. However, Ruether had an impactful mystical experience as a young woman, and the themes of this experience echo throughout her body of work. This paper paints a portrait of Ruether as both a profoundly prophetic scholar–activist and a spiritually attuned seeker of the very divinity that she encountered in her twenties. In the process, this paper first offers a democratized and demystified vision of mysticism by drawing on the work of Bernard McGinn, Dorothee Söelle, and Jess Byron Hollenback. Next, it offers a biographical sketch of Ruether, contextualizing her early mystical experience within the broader pattern of her spiritual and intellectual path. It interprets Ruether’s mystical experience, through which she encountered the divine as a feminine presence suffusing creation, as a meaningful source of inspiration for her decades-long commitment to an anti-patriarchal, ecofeminist theology.
  • Indonesia’s fight for a law against sexual violence needs to involve a discussion of Islamic values

    Afrianty, Dina (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2021)
    [Extract] This year, the House of Representatives of Indonesia (DPR) has returned for the second time in five years to the subject of law reform in the effort to eliminate sexual violence. This follows many years of lobbying by women’s rights advocates seeking wide ranging reform to end sexual violence and violence against women as part of their efforts to promote women’s rights and gender equality. Right from the beginning, such efforts have faced persistent opposition from conservatives and from parliamentary representatives both from Islamic and secular political parties. The public policy debate surrounding the deliberation of the elimination of sexual violence bill in the past five years has been framed in terms of religious doctrine and state ideology. The first principle of Pancasila, which could be considered state ideology enshrined in the Constitution, is ‘Belief in One God.’ This is widely interpreted to mean that any public policy, in particular those pertaining to morality, must be based on religion—in this case Islam. Certain conceptions of human rights, and women’s rights are being cast as merely a Western construct which contradicts Islamic norms and therefore not worthy of respect and which must not define public policy making.
  • L’ambivalence d’un féminisme d’extrême droite: stratégie politique et/ou reconfiguration idéologique de la question du genre?

    Debras, François (Observatoire des radicalités, 2023)
    Qualifiées d’organisations machistes, exaltant la virilité et réduisant les femmes à leur rôle de mère, les partis d’extrême droite, pour leur part, se présentent comme les promoteurs des droits des femmes contre l’Islam et l’immigration. François Debras pose la question de savoir comment et pourquoi les partis politiques d’extrême droite mobilisent les termes « genre » et « féminisme » dans leurs discours.
  • Tracing an ethic of care in the policy and practice of the Troubled Families Programme

    Sue Bond-Taylor (17154238) (2017-01-01)
    " Drawing upon the Trace method developed by Selma Sevenhuijsen (2004), this paper has traced the discourse constructed in two key Troubled Families Programme (TFP) policy documents through the lens of care ethics, highlighting tensions between ‘care’ and ‘justice’ orientations in the neoliberal family intervention model. It is argued that whilst the family intervention model advocated has the potential to provide families with support underpinned by an ethic of care, the TFP's managerialist tendencies also create challenges to the integration of care ethics within such services. Given that the programme's financial framework generates considerable opportunity for local variation in policy implementation, the ethics of care offer a valuable moral framework by which to evaluate local practice. Moreover, engaging with a distinctly feminist ethic of care renders visible to family support services the inequalities produced through the gendered distribution of ‘caring’ responsibilities, and highlights the need for interventions to address rather than reinforce these inequalities. "
  • A qualitative analysis of beliefs related to gender equality in the Church of Christ

    Priestley, Timothy J. (Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2023-01-01)
    In recent years, American Christian churches, including the Church of Christ, have grappled with the role of women in their congregations. As women have gained legal rights, expanded social roles, and access to leadership, certain churches, including the Church of Christ, have lagged in adapting to these changes. This study aims to understand the organizational change process within these churches, exploring why belief systems can be slow to change and how some congregations have successfully transitioned from a complementarian to an egalitarian stance related to women's leadership roles. The research employs a contextual lens, considering how human psychology influences beliefs and behavior. Cognitive psychology reveals the challenge of changing rigid beliefs as humans are wired to hold onto preconceived notions. Organizational culture change is hindered by this resistance, leading to cognitive inflexibility and reduced adaptability. The study examines 12 congregations within the Church of Christ denomination that have successfully shifted towards egalitarian practices using the methodology of structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of interview results uncovered themes related to successful transitions and factors impeding change. In order of relative strength, the themes were a) Biblical interpretation; b) exposure to women in leadership; c) cognitive flexibility; d) dialogue; e) age demographics; and f) time. Identifying common themes promoting or hindering belief system changes, this research offers valuable insights for facilitating social change within these communities and useful directions for future research and practice, and the expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their leadership roles.
  • Min kvinna - en kvalitativ intervjustudie om muslimska mäns syn på kvinnan och könsroller

    Kvist, Helena; Sunesson, Josefin (Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle (HS)Malmö högskola/Hälsa och samhälle, 2014)
    Denna studie syftar till att öka förståelsen för islamiskt grundade värderingar om könsroller, genom att undersöka muslimska mäns kvinnosyn och förväntningar på kvinnan som framtida hustru. Intervjuer med åtta muslimska män besvarar frågeställningar kring förväntningar på kvinnan, könsroller och äktenskapet. I denna studie undersöks muslimska mäns syn på skillnaden mellan könen. Sekulär och muslimsk feministisk teori används för att analysera empirin. I studien framkommer hur praktiserande muslimer som vill leva efter Koranen, kan uppleva en viss social press kring att leva upp till sin könsroll som ofta framställs som medfödd. Det finns en syn bland informanterna i studien att man och kvinna kompletterar varandra i ett äktenskap. Det centrala kring mannens könsroll är försörjningsplikt. Det centrala kring kvinnan handlar snarare om kropp och klädsel. Studien visar också på den heterogenitet som finns inom religionen och hur viktigt det är att se muslimer som individer, snarare än tillhörande en homogen, muslimsk kategori.
  • Male headship and female submission in marriage among African Christians : a pastoral perspective

    Dreyer, Yolanda; Maisiri, Oscar (University of Pretoria, 2016-06-10)
    Dissertation (MA (Theol))--University of Pretoria, 2015.
  • “Why Care Now” in Forced Migration Research? Imagining a Radical Feminist Ethics of Care

    Clark-Kazak, Christina (Centre for Social Spatial & Economic Justice at the University of British ColumbiaÉrudit, 2023)
    This article lays out the ethical, epistemological, and methodological reasons for radical care ethics in research in forced migration. Drawing on a growing body of literature and recent initiatives to codify ethics in forced migration studies, it highlights the transformational potential of a radical feminist care approach to the “ethical turn” in the field. I suggest that radical care ethics re-centers reciprocal human relationships in forced migration research to address specific ethical challenges posed by the criminalization of migration, extreme power asymmetries, precarities in migration status and politicization of migration policies. It is incumbent on all forced migration researchers to think proactively and carefully about ethics beyond procedures prescribed by institutional processes. I conclude with ways in which we can build on examples of radical care ethics in forced migration studies to imagine an “otherwise” (Povinelli 2012b) in our field.
  • Humans, Horses, and Hybrids : On Rights, Welfare, and Masculinity in Equestrian Sports

    Jönsson, Kutte (Malmö högskola, Institutionen Idrottsvetenskap (IDV)Malmö högskola, Idrottsvetenskap, 2012)
    Det faktum att hästar spelar en avgörande roll för hästsport reser en rad speciella etiska frågor. Vad är moraliskt legitimt att göra mot (icke-samtyckande) djur för att möta mänskliga intressen? Är inte hästsport ett exempel på att man kränker djurrättsliga intressen? I den här artikeln argumenterar jag, dock, att det är möjligt att försvara hästsport, men inte villkorslöst. Jag föreslår bland annat att de maskulinitetsnormer som finns inbäddade i idrottskulturen försvårar det redan komplicerade förhållandet som råder mellan människor och djur.
  • Queering Jihad in South Africa: Islam, Queerness, and Liberative Praxis

    Mujahid Osman (MDPI AG, 2023-08-01)
    This essay examines the theology and politics of queer Muslims in South Africa. Through a queering of the analytical lens of “struggle and praxis” or jihad, this essay traces the deployment of the term jihad by a collective of queer Muslims in Cape Town. In this articulation, queer Muslims play with their inherited traditions of liberation, challenging its presuppositions, and expanding its contours. This essay argues that these queer Muslims read liberation traditions through their experience and praxis which guide their orientations toward theological meaning-making and community practice. By doing so, they challenge the regulatory nature of hegemonic forms of queerness, which emerged in the Global North, resonating in the local posturing of South Africa as a safe space for queer people, ignoring the disparity between the law and public practice, and erasing the experiences of the margins of the queer community. By embracing this marginality, queer Muslims “reimagine” tradition by presenting an inclusive alternative theology and praxis, suggesting a queer possibility within Islam.
  • Revisiting Creation

    Reddaway, Chloe (Brepols Publishers, 2024)
  • Interseccionalidad

    Gabriela María Di Renzo (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2023-09-01)
    La interseccionalidad es actualmente un campo importante de estudio y se ha convertido en una de las contribuciones más importantes del feminismo. El concepto fue formalizado por Kimberlé Crenshaw como cruce de caminos para significar las diversas formas en las que la raza y el género interactúan para dar forma a las múltiples dimensiones de la experiencia laboral de las mujeres negras. La categoría cobra relevancia en el ámbito jurídico, pero pronto se expande a otras ciencias, especialmente en el ámbito de las disciplinas sociales y en un contexto de habla inglesa. Como enfoque orientado a la justicia, la interseccionalidad realiza importantes aportes a la ética teológica, entre otros: promover un razonamiento moral que asuma un sujeto constituido por múltiples ejes de desigualdades, concientizar acerca de la necesidad de analizar las propias posiciones de poder o de privilegio y considerar las voces y las experiencias de los que están activamente involucrados.
  • Feminizmin Din Dili ve Söylemi

    Mustafa Tekin (Gaziantep University, 2021-12-01)
    Feminizm modern zamanlarda Batı’da ortaya çıkmış bir akım olup kadın haklarını savunmak üzere kendisini tanımlamıştır. Bugüne gelinceye kadar feminizm kendi içinde çeşitlilik kazanarak dünya ölçeğine yayılmıştır. Bu makalede feminizm başından itibaren dine dair geliştirdiği dil ve söylemlerin analizi hadeflenmektedir. Genel olarak bakıldığında ise feminizmin dine yaklaşımında bir olumsuzluk görülmektedir. Makalede öncelikle genelde dinler özelde ise İslam’ın kadına dair söylemleri tasvir edilmektedir. Özellikle üç büyük dinin kutsal kitaplarında kadına dair dil ve söylem anahatlarıyla belirtilmektedir. Ardından tasnif edilen belirli konular etrafında feminizmin bu söylemleri nasıl değerlendirdiği örneklerle anlatılmaktadır. Feminizm bu konuda temel söylemi, dinlerin kadınları ikinci konumda gördükleri şeklindedir. Bu durum bugüne gelinceye kadar feminist düşüncede dinle hesaplaşma gibi bir dilin yaygınlaşmasını birlikte getirmiştir. Ancak feminizm Batı dışında farklı coğrafyalara yayılması oranında dinle daha farklı ilişkiler geliştirdiği gözlemlenmektedir.
  • HIZMET – MIȘCAREA GÜLEN. FEMEILE MUSULMANE, ÎNTRE O MIȘCARE POLITICĂ CU VALENȚE UNIVERSALE, MISIONARISM ȘI ROLURILE DE GEN

    Fatma Ruxandra Yilmaz (Editura Institutului de Științe Politice și Relații Internaționale „Ion I. C. Brătianu‟, 2023-09-01)
    This article discusses, primarily from a feminist perspective, Fetullah Gülen’s vision on gender equality and the women’s roles within the movement he has founded, Hizmet, in the improvement and the implementation of his ideas regarding the ideal community. The reaserch is looking to shed some light among some articles, books and studies that are placing the Gülen’s Movement in a progressive ideological area and then, using feminism as main theory, intertwined with conceptual tools of secular feminism as secondary approach, is arguing that actually the movement’s mission has at its core an Islamic conservative ideology. Further, using 15 in-depth interviews with women belonging to the Gülen’s Movement in Romania, Turkey and Holland, the article will attempt to answer the following two questions. First: do the lived experiences of female members of the Hizmet movement challenge or alter narratives regarding the concept of „victims” of Muslim women within their own communities?; and second: in what ways do the narratives of women members of the Hizmet Movement inform and/or challenge the broader debates of political science on religion and feminism?
 
  • Amtsverständnis und Führungsstil von Erzbischof Antonius Jan Glazemaker im Kontext der Veränderungsprozesse in der altkatholischen Kirche der Niederlande (1982–2000)

    LS BZ Oude Katholieke kerkstructuren; OFR - Religious Studies; Smit, Peter Ben; Janssen , Lydia (2023)
    In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands underwent many changes while engaging with the changing cultural climate in the Netherlands, involving, for instance, topics regarding human sexuality and gender. A similar engagement led in other churches to significant polarization, which did not happen, or only to a much smaller extent, in the Old Catholic Church. Antonius Jan Glazemaker (1931–2018), who served as Archbishop of Utrecht in the period between 1982 and 2000, exercised significant pastoral leadership in this period, which may well be tied to the decision making (without divisions or schisms) that took place in this period. Hence, this paper explores Glazemaker’s understanding of the ordained (in particular the episcopal) ministry and his style of leadership, arguing that both cohered with each other and were a good fit for the structures and commitments to communal discernment that characterized the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands in this period.
  • Animal Derogation and Anthropocentric Language. An Ecofeminist Reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer

    Sajad Ahmad; Huma Yaqub (LED Edizioni Universitarie, 2023-09-01)
    The theory of ecofeminism is all about drawing comparisons and connections between old as well as new forms of oppressions against women and the environment and it fights against all forms of injustices to make earth a better place to live. Animal liberation theorists not only highlight animal abuse through hunting, caging, butchering, testing, and experimenting but they are of the opinion that animals are abused and derogated through the patriarchal language as well. In this regard, this paper attempts to explore the anthropocentric use of language in Barbara Kingsolver’s “Prodigal Summer” so as to discuss the way the author highlights animal devaluation and depreciation in terms of language. Kingsolver draws readers’ attention towards animal devaluation through various tropes (mostly similes) to highlight animal abuse in her ecofeminist text. The paper will examine the ways in which characters derogate each other through association with different animals and birds and show how the use of language plays a great role in the devaluation and derogation of nonhuman world.

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