By Line Nyhagen Predelli, WP4 leader

How Christian and Muslim women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom talk about and view the women’s movement and feminism is one of the topics currently investigated by FEMCIT Work Package 4. Through qualitative case-studies, researchers in all three countries have interviewed Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Pentecostal women from the majority religion (Christianity), and Sunni and Shia women from a minority religion (Islam) within the three countries.

Preliminary findings indicate that the women’s movement and feminism are regarded in many different ways by religious women in Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, but across the three countries there are many similarities. Most of the interviewed women acknowledge a positive impact from the women’s movement on women’s rights, women’s empowerment, and women’s opportunities, especially in relation to voting rights, leadership positions, education, and labour market participation. However, few of the interviewed women identify with the word ‘feminism’, and many regard feminists as ‘having gone too far’, or as being ‘too extreme’. Such perceptions of the women’s movement are related to the impression many religious women have of the movement as wanting women to either ‘become like men’, to ‘take over from men’, or of it allegedly supporting a notion of female supremacy and superiority.

There are several important lessons to be drawn from our preliminary findings; among them the fact that many religious women support major items on the women’s movement agenda, such as equal rights and opportunities for women and men. However, many religious women do not identify with the concept of ‘feminism’, and many view the women’s movement as too radical. Feminist women’s movement organizations therefore seem to have a challenging task ahead in communicating their agenda to religious women who do not feel that their concerns regarding women’s rights and equality are served well by feminist organizations.  Our findings suggest that there is currently an untapped potential to create alliances between religious and secular women in the advocacy of equal rights and opportunities.   

Other topics investigated in this part of Work Package 4’s research include a discussion of religious citizenship in relation to status, participation and belonging; how religious women talk about citizenship; and the extent to which religious women present religion as a resource or as a barrier to citizenship as practice.
 
The WP4 Strand 2 research team is lead by Dr Line Nyhagen Predelli and includes Dr Esmeranda Manful (UK), Dr Esther Quintero (Spain), Professor Beatrice Halsaa (Norway) and PhD student Cecilie Thun (Norway).