Women's rights and religious practice : claims in conflict / Alison L. Boden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boden, Alison L.

Series:

York studies on women and men

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women's rights.

Women's rights--Religious aspects.

Women and religion.

Physical Description:

xiv, 222 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Summary:

Religious freedom is widely agreed to be a basic human right. So are women's rights, among others, to life, to freedom from torture or captivity, and to bodily integrity. Occasionally such rights claims come into conflict, with valid arguments made on each side for the importance of safeguarding religious integrity and the dignity of women. Alison Boden analyzes the ways in which gender and religion so complicate the use of human rights rhetoric that it can become ineffective in resolving the standoff. Women's Rights and Religious Practice traces the impediments to a legal resolution and, comparing Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, examines the variety and complexity of theological positions on women and equality. With a perspective that respects both women's rights and religious practices, the book analyzes arguments for accommodating ethical differences, for family privacy and religious authority, and for the wishes of the women involved. It concludes that, in many instances of such conflict, a resolution is to be found in changes to familial religious ideology rather than to rights legislation and enforcement.

Contents:

1 A Conflict of Rights Claims 1

An argument for the inability of the rights construct to address some conflicts between women's rights and religious freedoms 4

Women's rights 14

Religious freedoms 16

Religion, rights, and the language of justice 18

2 Hierarchies of Rights Claims 26

Which rights are fundamental? 28

Savings and limitations clauses 31

Jus cogens 34

Domestic versus international standards 38

Third party action 40

The problem of enforcement 42

Legal precedents - when courts decide religious matters 44

3 Theological Challenges to Religious Women's Rights 49

Islam 49

Hinduism 59

Christianity 69

4 The Question of Relativism 77

Relativism 78

Theological breadth 82

Selectivity in interpretation 91

Westernization 93

Political uses of religion 95

Religious developments 101

5 The Question of Privacy 105

Privacy and the human rights construct 106

Privacy and human rights instruments 109

Liberal critiques of rights protection in the home 110

Personal status laws 114

Privacy, religion, and states 120

6 The Question of Agency 129

Choosing against one's self-interest 130

The benefits of participating in discriminatory systems 137

Choosing to resist within discriminatory structures 143

The accessibility and acceptability of human rights discourse 150

7 Religion, Rights and Change 153.

Notes:

Bibliography: pages 204-214. - Includes index.

ISBN:

9780230551442

0230551440

OCLC:

155679141