Theorizing Gender from Religion Cases: Agency, Feminist Activism, and Masculinity

This symposium considers the potential of religion cases for social theory. I approach this question from the perspective of a subdiscipline that has been relatively successful at this endeavor—scholarship on gender and religion. I trace the history of this research and then discuss three bodies of scholarship that engage core concerns in gender studies: agency, feminist activism, and masculinity. I organize my discussion as “lessons” for gender scholars who are not religion experts and consider how religion cases can enrich gender studies, noting that the three strands of scholarship have varied in their impact. I argue that the continued legacies of the feminist dilemma of religion—assumptions about religion’s inherent incompatibility with the interests of women and gender and sexual minorities that results in ambivalence and hostility toward studying religion and learning from religion cases—partially explains the difference between the cases. My analysis suggests broader lessons about the institutional and intellectual conditions that facilitate or thwart effective cross-fertilization.