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Challenges of Change Faith, Gender, and Development

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BERKLEY CENTER for RELIGION, PEACE & WORLD AFFAIRS GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 2008 | Challenges of Change Faith, Gender, and Development A project of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Edmund A. Walsh School BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS of Foreign Service at Georgetown University Supported by the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Founded in 1919 to educate students and prepare them for leadership roles in international affairs, the School of Foreign Service conducts an undergraduate program for over 1,300 students and graduate programs at the Master’s level for more than 700 students. Under the leadership of its Dean, Robert L. Gallucci, the School houses more than a dozen regional and functional programs that offer courses, conduct research, host events, and contribute to the intellectual development of the field of international affairs. In 2007,Foreign Policy magazine ranked the School’s graduate programs first in the nation. The Berkley Center The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, created within the Office of the President in March 2006, is part of a university-wide effort to build knowledge about religion’s role in world affairs and promote interreligious 2008 understanding in the service of peace. Through research, teaching, and outreach activities, the Center explores the | intersection of religion with four global challenges: diplomacy and transnational relations, democracy and human rights, global development, and interreligious dialogue. Thomas Banchoff, Associate Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service, is the Center’s first director. The Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs Together with the Mortara Center for International Studies, the Berkley Center is implementing a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Initiative on Religion and International Affairs to the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. The Luce/SFS Program on Religion and International Affairs convenes symposia and seminars that bring together scholars and policy experts around emergent issues. The program is organized around two main themes: the religious sources of foreign policy in the US and around the world, and the nexus between religion and global development. Topics covered in 2006–08 included the role of evangelicals in US foreign policy, religious responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and links between religion, migration, and foreign policy in the United States and Europe. BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS This publication is made possible through a grant from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs. Copyright 2008, Georgetown University. 1 Table of Contents Overview . 4 About this project. 6 Abbreviations and Glossary. 6 Acknowledgements and About the Authors. 7 Introduction. 9 Box 1: Yale’s Women, Religion, and Globalization Project (WRG), Marisa Van Saanen Part I: Gender and Development: A Fast Evolving Field . .13 Box 2: Women, Rights, and Global Challenges, Mary Robinson GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY GEORGETOWN | Table I: Gender-related Development Index: The 2007–08 Ranking of Countries Table II: Gender Empowerment Index: The 2007–08 Ranking of Countries Box 3: Women’s Participation in Sierra Leone’s 2007 Elections: A Case Study, Carole Frampton Part II: Women and Faith: Complex Intersections. .21 Box 4: World Religions, Women, and their Roles in the Family, Society and Religion, Christine Gudorf Box 5: Junctures of Religion and Gender: Insights from Anthropology, BERKLEY CENTER Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer Box 6: Why Women Might Support Fundamentalism, Zainab Salbi Box 7: Who Speaks for Women in the Muslim-West Dialogue? Ingrid Mattson Box 8: Muslim and Non-Muslim Women in Cooperation, Daisy Khan Box 9: On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World: Impact and Response Box 10: Inspiration from Example: The Tostan Story in West Africa Box 11: Inspiration from Example: Reforming Family Law in Muslim Morocco Box 12: Inspiration from Example: Faith Partnerships to Confront the Challenges of Trafficking, Sarah Hidey Part III: Globalization, Development and Faith: Coming into Focus. 35 Box 13: Some Faith-Inspired Organizations Active in Gender-specific Development Work Box 14: Opportunity for Yet More Understanding in Global Health, Joy Phumaphi Box 15: Hope and Identity among Sri Lanka’s Migrant Maids 2 Part IV: Women, Faith, and Development: Paths Forward?. .41 Calls to Action . 41 A 21st Century Approach to Empowering Women and Ending Global Poverty: The Women, Faith and Development Alliance, Jean F. Duff Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion: Multiple Sources of Disadvantage, Elizabeth King Women, Peace and What the Future Offers, Dena Merriam Development and Satisfaction with Life: Women’s Perspectives, Dalia Mogahed The Power of Youth, Eva Haller Men Against Gender Violence, Ray Martin Agendas Ahead, Calling for Reflection, Action, and Dialogue . 47 (a) Common Ground for Action and Advocacy 2008 (b) Mobilizing the Alliances for Action, Educating Girls, Addressing Trafficking | (c) Exploring Potential New Paths for Common Action: Environment, Governance, Sanitation, Labor Practices and Migration (d) Thoughtful and Probing Dialogue: Women’s Body Rights, West-Islam Dialogue (e) Calls for Leadership: Women’s Voices, Pressing and Persisting for Priority Box 16: A Research Agenda: Religion, Gender and Economic Development in South Asia, Shareen Joshi Concluding Remarks. 55 Annexes Annex 1: Resources in Literature: Annotated Bibliography ...............................57 Annex 2: Development Institutions—Some Websites and Statements on Gender Approaches and Priorities ............................................ 61 BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS Annex 3: Faith-Inspired Organizations and Gender Focus................................68 Endnotes . 68 3 Overview his report addresses the relationship between faith, gender, and development Tin the world’s poorer societies. It explores social changes that accompany development, taking religion as a lens, and focusing on how women observe, understand, and influence these transformative processes. Religion is an important factor shaping communities’ norms and aspira- tions for women and girls. It can be a catalyst for action to improve women’s lives, or it can be a source of conflict and a brake on change. Modernization challenges traditional norms in GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY GEORGETOWN | profound ways, none so significantly, perhaps, as the relationships between men and women. That in turn challenges religious institutions and even practices and beliefs. This report explores rela- tionships among religion, gender, and the inter- national development agenda, asking first what we know and what we do not, and second what seem to be the emerging issues and debates. BERKLEY CENTER The report is designed to encourage dialogue and further study of a wide range of issues—including health and education, livelihood strategies, legal frameworks, and decision-making roles—relating 4 to women, religion, development, and social to religion as a significant issue for international change. While these individual topics are the sub- development agendas; and women’s participa- ject of extensive research and policy action, the tion in religious practice across many dimensions connections among them—how each dimension appears higher than their male peers, particularly views, interacts with, and shapes the others—have in poorer communities and those affected by con- yet to be studied in depth. flict. Literature and scholarship continue to high- light the central relevance of women to equity, Two primary assumptions serve as the foundation growth, and development. for the project. First, women play vital and unique roles in the process of social change; because This report examines progress and examples women and issues affecting women are still of best practices, where religion appears to be marginalized in many ways, specific and sharper a positive force advancing women’s rights and 2008 attention to these roles can help in overcoming welfare. It also explores tensions, difficulties, and | disadvantage and improving women’s welfare. gaps in knowledge and understanding. The report Second, women’s roles in the religious sphere are highlights individual stories and experiences that insufficiently appreciated. In virtually all societies, contribute to our understanding of the processes women are deeply engaged with religion, and this and issues at work. We have gathered perspec- affects social choices and action; women also play tives from development practitioners, female critical roles in maintaining religious traditions and leaders, individual organizations, and leading in championing progress. researchers. Our goal is to illuminate the major issues and provide a framework for understanding Contemporary global trends make this discussion them, so that the joint issues of religion, gender, particularly relevant. Growth in religious adherents and development receive greater attention and appears to be outpacing population growth in engender a more purposeful dialogue. developing countries; global attention has turned BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS BERKLEY CENTER REPORTS 5 About this project Religious communities are critical players in the world of global development, but we know relatively little about their activities. The Luce/SFS Project on Religion and Global Development is devoted to closing
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