1st Edition
Religion and Gender Equality around the Baltic Sea Ideologies, Policies and Private Lives
This volume aims to rethink the intersections of gender and religion, as well as the secular and religious, in implementing and challenging gender equality at individual, institutional and societal levels in the regions around the Baltic Sea. Acknowledging the diversity of societies and the significance of socio-historical contexts, the empirical data discussed in the book draw attention to the under-researched region of post-socialist Baltic states. The analyses presented in the chapters are based on fieldwork carried out in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Norway. The volume includes sociological, anthropological, historical, political science, and theological perspectives and covers five broad research areas: a shifting concept of gender equality and its developments in Baltic and Nordic countries; a diversity of developments within religious groups related to issues of gender equality and the negotiation of competing gender ideologies; inter-religious developments and gender equality; the role of religions in the construction of public discourse on gender equality; and religious socialization, focusing on the promotion of religious gender models through socialization and public education.
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction. Milda Ališauskienė, Eglė Aleknaitė and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow
1. Religions and Gender Equality in the Baltic States: Key Aspects of Soviet and Post-Soviet Developments - Milda Ališauskienė, Dace Balode, Linards Rozentals, Anne Kull and Artūras Tereškinas
2. Female Presidents, but not Female Priests? Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Women's Discourse on Female Ordination and Gender Relations in Estonia, Latvia, And Lithuania - Eglė Aleknaitė, Anne Kull and Girts Rozners
3. Seeking Equality: Relational and Power-based Conceptualizations of Gender (in)Equality among Latvian Women of Faith - Aivita Putnina
4. Between Gender Equality and Religion: The Baltic Muslim Women’s Quest for ’True’ Islam - Morta Vidūnaitė, Anastasia Babash and Anne Hege Grung
5. Gender as a (non)issue in Lithuanian female Muslims’ lives - Egdūnas Račius
6. Gender Roles and Family Practices among Pagan Women in Lithuania and Estonia: between Reconstruction of Tradition and Memories from Soviet Past? - Milda Ališauskienė and Liina Kilemit
7. Gender (in)equalities in lived Christianity: Catholic and Lutheran Evangelical Women’s Understanding of Gender Roles in the Family in Estonia and Latvia - Liina Kilemit, Aivita Putnina, Girts Rozners
8. From the Demonization of LGBTQ+ to the Privatization of Intimate Citizenship in the Lithuanian Catholic Church - Artūras Tereškinas and Morta Vidūnaitė
9. Baltic Parable of Life and Death: Christian Opinions on Gendered Violence in the Context of the Istanbul Convention - Gintarė Pocė, Anne Kull, and Ilva Skulte
10. Inter- and intra-religious alliances making gender and family politics in Norway and Lithuania: What is at stake, and for whom? - Anne Hege Grung and Eglė Aleknaitė
11. Intersections of Religion and Gender in Public Schools of Baltic Countries - Olga Schihalejev, Rimgailė Dikšaitė, Laima Geikina
Index
Biography
Milda Ališauskienė is a Professor of Sociology at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Eglė Aleknaitė is a senior researcher in the Social Research Center at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow is a Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway.
