Religion

This chapter explores how a feminist or gender lens leads us to think about religion and global politics in transnational, intersectional and dynamic ways. Both religion and global politics are gendered in structures, ideas, and practices – often to the detriment of women, while providing new spaces and discourses for women to mobilise. We first look at how global politics and religion are structured – via the concept of secularism – and produce gendered subjects. Second, we look at how religious ideas of motherhood and sexuality affect women's bodies and agency and provide opportunities to mobilise and transform religion and politics. We then look at particular instances of global politics in practice – through the political economy, policymaking, and transnational movements. Gender analysis asks us not only to look at where women are, but also to see how gender identities, roles and ideologies intersect with other power relations to affect the distribution of resources and authority in global politics and religion.