Religious Women, Agency and GBV

What do we actually mean when we talk about “agency” and women’s “right to choose?” In this article, Elisabet Le Roux argues for complicating the ways that we think about the agency of religious women, to accommodate different forms and presentations of agency.

Those advocating for gender equality often understand agency along the lines of either resistance or compliance. In this framework, a woman has only two options: to resist patriarchal rules and structures or to comply. She has agency if she resists, and lacks agency if she complies. This framework is applied especially when it comes to the religious woman, whose devotion to religion is often understood as implicating her in structures of subjugation and docility, and denying or diminishing her agency over her own body.

As Le Roux writes:

Women’s agency – which includes their choice to support systems and structures that perpetuate gender inequality and violence – is constantly dismissed when faced with the reality of women opposing empowerment programming or equal rights. I feel this knee-jerk reaction within myself, too. The narrative of women as only victims is a strong one (p.2).

Woman sitting in a church. rquevenco via Pixabay.

help those that seek to understand and transform women’s lives for the better to enter into an encounter that is respectful and valuing of the worldviews and perspectives of both parties… [which] is urgently needed in order to better respond to a world where many women are subjugated and remain victims of violence (p.3).

In sum, this article argues that religious women’s actions should not automatically be interpreted only in terms of patriarchal resistance or compliance. Instead, religious meaning-making acts should be taken into consideration, alongside the particular cultural contexts in which these acts occur, where agency can have different meanings. The previous steps have focused on analysis, this activity shows how NGO’s and FBO’s are working to transform gender relations for the better based on a deep understanding of the ways religion and culture shape notions of being man or woman.

If you are interested in reading the original article, you can access it through this link.

References

• Elisabet le Roux “Can Religious Women Choose? Holding the Tension between Complicity and Agency” The African Journal of Gender and Religion 25 no. 1 (July, 2019)