Challenging Bias Against Women Academics In Religion

This book is a collection of ten essays, all focused on the realities of conducting feminist work within Christian universities and colleges, as well as churches. The purpose of this collection emerges from the contributors’ lives at the intersection of feminist ideas and the Christian contexts in which they work. The book’s focus is on the ways in which feminism continues to meet resistance from Christian institutions and communities. Within these contexts, the authors describe the ongoing challenges they face as feminists with their students, their colleagues, their pastors, their fellow congregants, their peers, and their own families. Scholars, clergy, students, and readers interested in understanding feminism more deeply, and interested in the intersection of religion, feminism, and scholarly life will find this collection invaluable. Readers will find insights into the everyday feminist work of academics, the development of more inclusive student-life climates, feminist learning in college classrooms, and the obstacles to creating more inclusive Christian churches. These essays are honest, heartfelt, and helpful in envisioning more liberating paradigms and practices for feminist Christians who continue to negotiate current realities in integrating feminism with faith in many contexts.

The role of women in Islamic societies, not to mention in the religion itself, is a defining issue. It is also one that remains resistant to universal dogma, with a wide range of responses to women’s social roles across the Islamic world. Reflecting this heterogeneity, the editor of this volume has assembled the latest research on the issue, which combines contemporary with historical data. The material comes from around the world as well as from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. It takes in work from majority Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey, as well as countries with troubled interfaith relations such as India and Israel. Nations with minority Muslim populations such as France, the UK, Canada and Australia, are also represented. The work also features varying Islamic sub-groups such as the two main ones, Sunni and Shi’a, as well as less well known populations such as the Ismaili Muslims. In each case, the work is underpinned by the very latest socio-theological insights and empirical data.

What is the relationship between women and secularization? In the West, women are abandoning traditional religion. Yet they continue to make up the majority of religious adherents. Accounting for this seeming paradox is the focus of this volume. If women undergird the foundations of religion but are leaving in large numbers, why are they leaving? Where are they going? What are they doing? And what's happening to those who remain? Women and Religion in the West addresses a neglected yet crucial issue within the debate on religious belonging and departure: the role of women in and out of religion and spirituality. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship between gender and secularization, the book moves its focus to in-depth examination of women's experiences based on data from key recent qualitative work on women and religion. This volume addresses not only women's place in and out of Christianity (the normal focus of secularization theories) but also alternative spiritualities and Islam, asking how questions of secularization differ between faith systems. This book offers students and scholars of religion, sociology, and women's studies, as well as interested general readers, an accessible work on the religiosity of western women and contributes fresh analyses of the rapidly shifting terrain of contemporary religion and spirituality.

At no point in recorded history has there been an absence of intense, and heated, discussion about the subject of how to conduct relations between women and men. This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to these omnipresent issues and debates, mapping the present and future of thinking about feminist theory. The chapters gathered here present the state of the art in scholarship in the field, covering: Epistemology and marginality Literary, visual and cultural representations Sexuality Macro and microeconomics of gender Conflict and peace. The most important consensus in this volume is that a central organizing tenet of feminism is its willingness to examine the ways in which gender and relations between women and men have been (and are) organized. The authors bring a shared commitment to the critical appraisal of gender relations, as well as a recognition that to think ‘theoretically’ is not to detach concerns from lived experience but to extend the possibilities of understanding. With this focus on theory and theorizing about the world in which we live, this Handbook asks us, across all disciplines and situations, to abandon our taken-for-granted assumptions about the world and interrogate both the origin and the implications of our ideas about gender relations and feminism. It is an essential reference work for advanced students and academics not only of feminist theory, but of gender and sexuality across the humanities and social sciences.

This book explores the contributions of Eastern female pioneers in science, politics and arts from Ancient Egypt to modern times, and discusses the possible psychological and social impact of this knowledge on today’s gender role in Eastern and Western Societies. Based on psychological studies on social learning, the book argues that profound knowledge of the historical contributions of Eastern female pioneers in science, politics and arts can improve today’s gender roles in Middle Eastern countries and inspire young women living in Western Societies with Eastern migration background. Spanning disciplines such as Natural sciences, Neuroscience, Psychology, Sociology, Islamic Theology, History and Arts, and including contributions from diverse geographical regions across the world, this book provides an elaborate review of the gender role of women in Ancient Egypt and the Middle East, outlining their prominence and influence and discusses the possible psychological and social impact of this knowledge on today’s gender roles.

Institutional focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion affects all parts of higher education management. Gender Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academia: A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Transformation scrutinises the conceptual framework for diversity, equity, and inclusion actions in academia to facilitate research-based and critically reflected decisions in higher education management. The book contains 24 chapters, each focused on one of 24 fundamental concepts that are essential for identifying, understanding, and implementing organizational changes and counteracting unjustified disadvantages faced by women and members of other gender minorities in academia, preceded by an introductory binding chapter. The book also discusses concepts directed towards solutions, such as affirmative action and feminist pedagogies, and overcomes the traditional binary approach on gender by incorporating specific challenges faced by LGBTQ+ and transgender staff and students. Gender Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academia will be key reading for academics in Gender Studies and Education Studies, while also serving as a vital resource for individual consumers working in or preparing to enter leadership positions in higher education.