Between Piety and Protests: The Impacts of Religions and Fundamentalism and Attacks on Gender - Part I

Thursday, 10 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: FSE003 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC32 Women, Gender and Society (host committee)

Language: English

Recent surges in religious nationalism and fundamentalism in many parts of the world have led to a sharp decline in gender rights. While many states in the US have revoked abortion rights, driven by a version of religious nationalism, and suppressed women’s access to reproductive care, women in Iran have continued to face state violence in the name of religion. Religion, however, has also often formed a premise of activism for gender equality.

How do sociologists—both scholars and activists—assess these complexities of religion and their relation to gender? This session will seek answers to this question through presentations about the current developments in religions worldwide, their fundamentalist turns, and their relation to attacks on gender rights and practices. Presenters might also consider activism that pushes back against fundamentalism. The session will feature research which examines the intersectional variations in the impacts of religions on gender rights and practices. The focus can be comparative, local and transnational. Papers that use experimental research methodologies to study gender and religion are also welcome.

Presenters may address the following topics or other relevant issues—

  1. Violence against women and other gender minorities in the context of religion and fundamentalism
  2. Religious nationalism, fundamentalism and gender
  3. Religion, fundamentalism and gendered health equity
  4. Religion-based activism for gender equality
  5. Religion, religious nationalism, migration and gender
  6. Methodologies of studying attacks on gender minorities in the context of religion and fundamentalism
Session Organizer:
Dr. Rianka ROY, Wake Forest University, USA
Chair:
Rituparna PATGIRI, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, India
Oral Presentations
Walking a Fine Line: Subversive Diasporic Resistance amidst Growing Authoritarianisms.
Anjana NARAYAN, California State Polytechnic University Pomona,, USA; Bandana PURKAYASTHA, University of Connecticut, USA
Socio-Religious Entrepreneurship As the Antidote to Fundamentalism: Islam, Gender, and Microcredit in Bangladesh
Fauzia ERFAN AHMED, Miami University Ohio, USA
Expanding Borders in a Conservative Space- the Leisure Arenas of Ultra- Orthodox Women in Israel
Janet COHEN, Zefat Academic College, Israel
Jinnumma As a Negotiated Category: Gender, Political Islam and Women Faith Healers in Malabar.
Muhammed Hussain A V, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India
Sacred Space, Religious Practices, and Cultural Identity: Narrating the Role of Widows and Vulnerable Women in 'sindur Khela', during the Durga Puja in India
Lopamudra SENGUPTA, Bangabasi College, University of Calcutta, India
Werking (Working) Thru a Hallowed Motherland: 'bearing Witness' As Queer Weapon of the Weak in the Philippines
John Andrew EVANGELISTA, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines
Distributed Papers
Female Radicalization in Bangladesh and Its Impact on Minority Communities
Madhurima PRAMANIK, Jamia Millia Islamia, India
Feminisms in Post-Secular Times: Between Contestations and Transformations in Europe’s Post-Migrant Societies
Heidemarie WINKEL, University of Bielefeld, Germany
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