Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women's Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts

Abstract

By Jane H. Bayes and Nayereh Tohidi, eds. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave, 2001

Studies dealing with the broad theme of 'women and religion' are often designed along the lines of edited volumes of essays on each of the major religious traditions, written (most often) by Western experts. Such an approach is perfectly legitimate and, when the results are informative, justified as well. It is an approach, however, that makes comparison between (and even within) traditions difficult, as one crucial aspect of this kind of tradition narrative is inevitably missing. That aspect, and the most important word in this book's sub-title, is 'contexts.' The contexts in the present case are not defined by there
being only two traditions treated, the (Catholic) Christian and the (Sunni and Shia) Muslim.