Feminism and Religion: queering the divide

This paper discusses three challenges that ‘religion’ poses to contemporary feminism, in relation to the assumption of feminist secularity, feminist definitions of individual autonomy and the way in which feminism understands itself as an emancipatory practice. The growing literature on gender and religion sheds light on the multiple intersections between religion and feminism and helps to nuance and develop the analysis of the multiple roles that religion has played and continues to play in the feminist project. In this vein, I suggest exploring the intersections between the material and political conditions and effects of subjectivation. The analysis of the ‘othering’ of religion may provide feminism, as a political project, with alternative ways of conceptualising difference as well as emancipation.