1st Edition
Women, Agency and Religion Social and Legal Issues in the Mediterranean Public Space
On both Mediterranean shores, women’s agency is articulated by new social and legal actors that face the religious factor both as an asset and as a brake. This book explores how female agency is defined and takes place in the region. The collection brings together contributions of both theoretical and thematic nature mapping various experiences on the public role of women in the Mediterranean context. In particular, the book relates the two sides, observing affinities and differences in the affirmation of women’s agency. This synoptic approach avoids essentialist contraposition and dialectic between different cultural, religious and political universes and emphasizes the role of a common geopolitical space where women's agency is playing an increasingly decisive role in the building and defense of constitutional democratic political systems. The reflection is enriched by the specific analysis of the role of a “religious factor” in the process of affirmation or, in contrast, as a restraint on women’s agency. The book focuses both on the role of women believers in the processes of transformation of the political contexts of the North African and Euro-Mediterranean area, and on the role of women within religions, questioning from inside the patriarchal traditions of the latter. The book applies a multidisciplinary approach to the theme of women’s agency, in which law, sociology, theology and philosophy interact with each other. As such, it will be a valuable resource for those working in the areas of Human Rights Law, Law and Religion, Socio-legal Studies and Gender Studies.
Introduction: Women, religions, and human rights in the Mediterranean context
Ilaria Valenzi
1. Gender, citizenship, religious identity: innovative approaches to autonomy and political agency
Debora Spini
2. Feminist-religious intersections across the Mediterranean
Alberta Giorgi
3. The role of European private law in rendering women’s participation to public space effective
Barbara Pozzo
4. Queer as a lesson in reality
Letizia Tomassone
5. Women in the Catholic Church: (de)sacralising boundaries
Cristina Simonelli
6. Commitment to gender equality and human rights – an idealistic passion?
Diana Çuli
7. Fèminismes laïques, secular feminists and Islamic feminisms in Muslim countries: experiences in the Maghreb
Leïla Tauil
8. Islamist women’s mobilization and agency in the Arab Uprisings and their aftermath in Egypt
Erika Biagini and Paola Rivetti
9. Gender equality and Islam: experiences in Morocco
Asma Lamrabet
10. Algerian citizenship between the principle of equality and freedom of enterprise
Leila Boussaid and Souad Ghaouti Malki
11. Gender Equality in political participation in Libya: the transition’s controversial assessment
Jinene Limam
12. Women and political parties in contemporary Türkiye
Jean Marcou
13. The structural inequalities in laws and practices and their impact on women’s agency in Lebanon: the long battle for gender equality
Rita Chemaly
Biography
Ilaria Valenzi is a researcher in law and religion at the University of Milan and a member of the Scientific Council of the Redesm Research Centre at the University of Insubria. She is also adjunct professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she works on the religious factor in determining the role of politics and law in the global space. Her research focuses on post-secular freedom of religion and belief and religious minorities at the intersection of other personal and collective identity factors.
