‘Feminist Theology’, ‘Lived Religion’ and the Investigation of Women in Conservative Religions as Changing the Agenda of the Study of Religion

Abstract

In this article, it is demonstrated how scholars located in various disciplines have brought their feminist agenda to the study of religion in what I see as three different routes: feminist theology as disputing the old discipline of theology in Western countries; ‘lived religion’ as offering an alternative vantage point to religious studies in the U.S.A. and the U.K.; and a focus on women in conservative religions worldwide innovatively studied by feminist anthropologists and sociologists. Often these differing routes between feminist theologians, female scholars in religious studies and feminist social scientists are perceived by their immediate followers in terms of ‘mutual disregard’ or ‘double blindness’ (King 2004; Woodhead 2007; Llewellyn & Trzebiatowska 2013). However, I believe a broader social and substantive analysis of the different positions of feminist theologians and feminist social scientists as I show here is more adequate. This illustrates very well that not only intellectual training in a certain discipline contributes to a research position, but also the social, political and religious relations, networks and power relations in which the researcher stands, or finds herself standing in.

Keywords

• religious studies
• gender studies
• social sciences
• religion and gender
• feminist theology