The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy

p.446

Perspectives from Feminist Philosophy of Religion

Patrice Haynes

Introduction

While feminist theology has flourished since the 1970s, it is something of a marginalized enclave in feminist theory, which is largely secular, if not thoroughly anti-religious, in outlook. However, the late 1990s saw the publication of two monographs expounding a feminist philosophy of religion (Anderson 1998; Jantzen 1998). Since then the field continues to reconfigure “malestream” philosophical reflection on religion in cogent and novel ways (on some of these, see Chapter 5 in this volume). Nevertheless, feminist philosophy of religion remains curiously mute on the topic of religious diversity (but see Anderson 2011). This is an oversight, not least because recent post-secular debates are often cashed out in terms of the “Muslim issue” (Braidotti 2008: 4), thus fuelling a toxic climate of “gendered Islamophobia” (see Perry 2014; Zine 2006).

In this chapter I consider how feminist philosophy of religion might address the so-called “problem” of religious diversity (see Gross 2005 for a critique of the treatment of religious diversity as a problem). While appreciating the overlapping terrain that brings feminist philosophy of religion and feminist theology into creative proximity, I highlight the epistemological issues raised by religious diversity as an area in which the feminist philosophy of religion can offer analyses distinct from feminist theology. I then suggest that dialectical materialism offers resources for avoiding the modern, secular reduction of religion to pure thought—i.e., to consciously held beliefs. Dialectical materialism endorses the feminist insistence on contextualizing truth claims, such that feminist philosophy of religion must seek to make explicit the socio-cultural and historical milieu in which religious beliefs gain their valence. But when women’s religious subjectivity is contextualized the emancipatory impulse driving feminist critique is thrown into a disorienting spin. For the encounter with religiously diverse women reveals forms of religious subjectivity that conserve rather than confront the patriarchal gender hierarchy of their religious tradition. Insofar as this chapter ends with a provocation, it testifies to the richness and vitality promised by feminist philosophy of religion as we move through the twenty-first century.

p.447

Gendering Religious Diversity

The 1893 World Parliament of Religions, a feature of the Chicago World Fair held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the “New World,” marks the first trial of modern interreligious dialogue. This watershed event saw religious leaders from around the world convene to promote mutual understanding between different religious traditions and a spirit of “brotherhood.” Jeannine Hill Fletcher suggests that the Parliament is a useful point of departure for discussion on women in interreligious dialogue. She cites a newspaper account of the event, which noted: “The fair sex were there, too, and they were not neglected. But sisterhood in such a gathering was superfluous. The air was full of brotherhood, and it was of the generic kind, such as fits both sexes” (Fletcher 2013: 169). As feminists routinely explain, however, the notion of generic man is mistaken: supposedly universally applicable to both men and women, it implicitly presupposes the perspectives and experiences of men, which are held to be normative.

As it turns out, Fletcher explains, women were very much present at the Parliament—no doubt spurred by the growing global women’s movement in the late nineteenth century. That said, women’s involvement in the Parliament was downplayed in John Barrow’s official editorship of the Parliament’s proceedings (he failed to record that a distinct Women’s Committee had even taken place). Nevertheless, after the 1893 Parliament, women from different religious traditions would increasingly foster interreligious encounters and relations with each other, seeking solidarity across religious borders in the face of shared patriarchal oppression, and desiring to share stories of their faith as lived. However, at official and formal levels women remained overlooked in the work of interreligious dialogue. As late as 1998, feminist theologian Ursula King remarked that “feminism remains a missing dimension in interreligious dialogue” (King 1998: 42).

While feminist theology gained serious traction in the academy from the 1970s on, the standard preoccupation revolved around questioning and reconfiguring Christian doctrines. At the turn of the twenty-first century, feminist theologian Rita Gross (who was raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition but became a Western Tibetan Buddhist as an adult) would rightly complain that whenever feminist theology addressed religious diversity it would principally be in the Christian context—intra-Christian, not interreligious, diversity (Gross 2000: 73). With the twenty-first century well underway the picture has begun to change: Gross’ plea for feminist theology to engage seriously with religious diversity is being heeded in various ways.

Feminist theologians promise distinctive contributions to debates on religious diversity (Egnell 2009; Fletcher 2013). These include: (1) a hermeneutics of suspicion sensitive to ways religions uncritically justify and propagate gendered norms; (2) an emphasis on sharing personal experiences and life stories, placing the accent on religion as lived rather than grounded in doctrine; (3) a stress on relationality and recognition of multiple or “hybrid” identities; (4) orienting interreligious dialogue so that it is life-enhancing; and (5) probing the category “religions” in ways that resist reifying traditions and effacing their dynamic and internally diverse character.

p.448

Indeed, regarding (5), the very terms “religion” and “the religions”—the former a generic notion and the latter particular expressions of religious beliefs and practices—are decidedly modern, Western (Christian) categories. They emerge in theological and philosophical discourses grappling with Enlightenment disputes on faith and reason, and with a colonial project bringing Europeans into contact with people and cultures around the world. Feminist perspectives on religious diversity must, therefore, engage with postcolonial critiques of the Eurocentrism prevailing in theoretical reflection on religious diversity (Daggers 2012; Kwok 2005).

It is by addressing the epistemic implications of religious diversity that feminist philosophy of religion can bring a perspective distinct from feminist theology to debates on religious diversity. Both feminist theology and feminist philosophy of religion share a common dedication to a feminist project that is at once theoretical, seeking to disclose the multiple causes of women’s subordination, and practical, aiming to bring about equitable relations between women and men. Feminist theology and feminist philosophy of religion diverge, though, insofar as the former can legitimately appeal to scriptural texts and religious doctrines informed by scripture, while the latter admits no confessional authorities. However, if feminist philosophy of religion restricts itself to reason alone, it does not assume the universal reason of much analytic philosophy of religion but takes seriously the feminist contention that there is no impossible God’s eye view, because thought is always situated in embodied life and socio-historical context.

Feminist Epistemology and Religious Beliefs

By complicating notions of truth and rationality, feminist philosophy of religion can create illuminating pathways through the issues generated by religious diversity. Indeed, incorporating developments in feminist epistemology into philosophy of religion is an important way in which this sphere may be transformed by feminist perspectives. Admittedly, not all feminist philosophers of religion would foreground epistemology in this way, suspecting that epistemology remains invested in a “masculinist” symbolic (see Jantzen 1998: 77–99). However, religious diversity raises the question of truth in a stark way: How to make sense of varying religious propositions, regarding ultimate sacred reality and human salvation (or fulfilment), when these often appear to conflict with each other? Is, for example, ultimate sacred reality to be identified with a personal God as in the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), or with an impersonal Oneness (as in certain forms of Hinduism) or emptiness (as in Buddhism)? Is human salvation to be attained through faith in Christ and the gift of God’s grace (Christianity), or by abolishing all desires and cravings (Buddhism)? Typically, analytic philosophers of religion hold to the realist tenet that there is “a truth to the matter” (Basinger 2014). But rather than sidelining questions of truth, feminist philosophy of religion can contest religious truth claims from a feminist perspective without abandoning the notion of truth altogether (see Anderson 2011: 406).

In keeping with a standard move in feminist epistemology, Pamela Sue Anderson maintains that feminist philosophical reflection on religious diversity should uncover points of gender-blindness that create sites of “epistemic inertia” (Anderson 2011: 409). Such inertia not only impedes efforts to ascertain the truth of religious beliefs but also leaves unchallenged the ethical implications of certain religious beliefs for women (and, similarly, some groups of men).

p.449

To elaborate, for the feminist philosopher of religion it is not simply a matter of disputing, say, the nature of ultimate sacred reality—God, Oneness, emptiness—but of recognizing how beliefs about ultimate sacred reality inform our understanding of sexual difference. For instance, Jewish and Christian feminists have noted that the prevalence of male imagery for God in Judeo-Christian religious language reinforces a gender hierarchy whereby men are considered more God-like than women—as Mary Daly once claimed, “If God is male, then the male is God” (Daly 1973: 19). Rita Gross points out that Buddhist women do not face the issue of the maleness of God since Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. Nevertheless the Buddhist tradition devalues women in different ways. One is the contention that to be born a woman is the result of bad karma (see Anālayo 2014). As to accounts of human salvation, the major world religions tend to view women as more prone to err from the righteous path, often leading men astray in the process. In the Abrahamic religions, Eve disobeys God by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, tempting Adam to do the same. Consequently, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women are viewed to be the gateway to sinfulness, guilt and immorality. It then becomes the role of men to ensure that women uphold “female” virtues: chastity, fidelity, and modesty. Indian religions also contain sacred writings (e.g., The Laws of Manu in Hinduism) that stress the need for women to defer to men to ensure a well-functioning society.

These examples only touch on some ways in which a range of religious traditions often produce claims that denigrate women. However, when analytic philosophy of religion considers the implications of religious diversity for religious truth it rarely considers how religious beliefs depict women in controversial, often sexist, ways. In seeking to glean the truth of religious beliefs, feminist theologians might bring a hermeneutical lens, reinterpreting tradition in ways that disclose insights congruent with feminist thought that have been suppressed by patriarchal society. A Muslim feminist might point out that unlike the Genesis story in Judeo-Christian scripture, the Qur’an holds Adam and Eve equally responsible for defying God. She could argue that those hadiths—the sayings and actions of the Prophet Mohammed recorded by others after his death—that proclaim Eve to be the first transgressor are most likely influenced by Jewish and Christian thought (for a critique of such a reading see Hidayatullah 2013). By contrast, feminist philosophers of religion can interrogate religious claims to truth by examining epistemological problems arising from the repeated failure to consider religions’ assumptions around sex and gender.

The following illustrates this gender-blindness. In Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity, Robert McKim explains why religious diversity may be viewed as problematic:

It is not just the fact that there are diverse [religious] beliefs that is striking: it is the fact that wise people who think carefully and judiciously, who are intelligent, clever, honest, reflective and serious, . . . who admit ignorance when appropriate and who have relied on what has seemed to them to be the relevant considerations in . . . acquiring their beliefs, hold these diverse beliefs.

(McKim 2001: 129)

For McKim, the philosophical task is to reflect critically on the fact of disagreement about religious beliefs among “people of integrity.” The contentious point, for McKim, is how far one must hold one’s religious beliefs (or rejection of such beliefs) tentatively given conflict among one’s “epistemic peers” (Basinger 2014). However, no consideration is given to how norms and values regarding rationality and belief formation are imbricated in a context of relations of power that downgrades women’s epistemic status so that they cannot be regarded as epistemic peers. Here is a case of epistemic inertia that feminists can overcome by raising questions about epistemic norms and who counts as a knowing subject (Fricker 2000; Langton 2000).

p.450

Furthermore, the attempt to resolve (or minimize) conflict among religious epistemic peers presumes that there are “experts” capable of grasping the whole of a religious tradition and representing it in interreligious dialogue (McKim 2001: 134–135). Indeed, the very term “dialogue” is moot because it overemphasizes intellectual argument at the expense of creative, affective encounters. However, as Fletcher notes, what counts as representing a religious tradition is problematic (2013: 173). Insofar as women in interreligious settings often draw attention to religion as lived and embodied in everyday life (not reducible to propositions and doctrinal orthodoxy), philosophy of religion, mindful of women’s voices, may be reminded that “‘religions’ are ultimately unrepresentable in any totalizing or comprehensive sense” (Fletcher 2013: 173).

Anxiety about truth in the face of religious diversity has since the 1980s seen philosophical and theological discussions circulate around three main positions (Race 1983). The first is exclusivism: the claims of one’s own religious tradition are true while all others are false. The second is inclusivism, which grants that other religions may recognise some truths while upholding one’s own tradition as possessing the most complete and significant religious truths. Finally, religious pluralism (at least the sort inspired by John Hick) asserts that many of the world’s religions are different yet equally veridical manifestations of, and responses to, one ultimate sacred reality.

At first glance, religious pluralism seems the most promising option for a feminist perspective on religious diversity. This is certainly Gross’s view. For her it is inconceivable that a feminist, committed to affirming diversity, would emphasize the superiority of one religious tradition over others—particularly since all religions historically enshrine patriarchal beliefs and practices that harm women (Gross 2001: 89). For Gross, religion’s proper job is “transforming humans into gentler, kinder, more compassionate beings” (2001: 90). Accordingly, she gives primacy to ethics rather than doctrinal truth, and so holds that exclusivist and inclusivist positions can only ever invite discord and, at worse, conflict.

However, feminist theologian Jenny Daggers is wary of the sort of transreligious theology of religions proposed by Gross because it excludes women committed to the truth and integrity of their religious tradition—even as these demand critical scrutiny with respect to their engrained patriarchy (Daggers 2012). Moreover, the pluralist position viewed through a postcolonial lens could be charged with reinstating Eurocentric universalism in a new guise, as it downplays differences in favor of highlighting commonalities between religious traditions. Seeking to preserve the incommensurable differences between religious traditions without homogenizing them, while also encouraging creative interreligious relations, Daggers turns from pluralism to particularism. She does so with the aim of articulating a Christian (white) feminist theology of religions (2012: 159–184). Presumably feminist theologians from other religious traditions and socio-cultural locations could adopt the sort of particularism elaborated by Daggers so that they too may engage in interreligious relations using terms drawn from their particular religion.

p.451

By contrast, a feminist philosopher of religion concerned with making visible the gender-blindness of epistemological models, could examine the theories of truth and error, epistemic norms around disagreement, and values (both constitutive and contextual) that guide exclusivist, inclusivist, pluralist, and even particularist positions. For example, Anderson (2011: 408–409) targets the epistemic framework espoused by Christian exclusivists such as Alvin Plantinga. For Plantinga there are central Christian tenets that are “properly basic.” That the world was created by God, an almighty, all-knowing and perfectly good personal being, and that human salvation is by way of the life and sacrificial death of God’s son, are two such beliefs (Plantinga 2008 [1995]: 41). Aside from his failing to address the gendered conception of the divine, Anderson indicts Plantinga for exempting core religious beliefs from questioning and revision. The trouble is, Anderson argues, upholding such exemption leads to an epistemic inertia at odds with the pursuit of truth. For Anderson, it is only by pursuing truth that we can discern how religious beliefs contribute to women’s subjugation.

This suggests that commitment to a particular religious tradition risks producing epistemic inertia insofar as such commitment demands treating certain doctrinal claims as unquestionable. Does this mean that Daggers’ particularism is at odds with the effort to surmount epistemic inertia endorsed by Anderson? Seeking to show how her revised particularism, with its stress on the incommensurability of religious traditions, does not preclude interreligious exchange, Daggers indirectly responds to Anderson’s concerns. Drawing on theologian Catherine Cornille, Daggers maintains that commitment to a religious tradition must be tempered by openness to other traditions. This encourages a level of “‘doctrinal humility’ and ‘doctrinal hospitality’” (Daggers citing Cornille 2012: 173) that can provoke the transformation of—in Daggers’ case—Christian tradition. Yet if the integrity of a religious tradition is to hold then the transformation occasioned by encountering religious others can only go so far. There is, therefore, a tension between the desire for openness and transformation (countering epistemic inertia) and upholding the particularity of religious traditions. However, it is my contention that feminist theorists must question all religious beliefs and practices that enhance men’s lives at the expense of women’s. Such questioning need not be antipathetic to tradition—feminist theology shows how critique is possible while remaining rooted within a religious tradition.

A further intervention that a feminist philosopher might make in debates about exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism is to question the demand for neutral or common ground from which to assess the truth of competing claims objectively. That neutral ground must be sought is a claim that most feminist thinkers would contest (Jantzen 2001). Such ground presupposes a disinterested subject detached from any socio-cultural location: an ideal observer able to achieve a “view from nowhere.” This conception of the subject is the centerpiece of an androcentric philosophy that refuses to admit the relevance of socio-cultural location to epistemic practitioners. Without abandoning rationality, feminist philosophers of religion can draw on feminist epistemology to tackle the difficult aim of establishing ways to adjudicate competing religious beliefs without presupposing an impossible view from nowhere.

I have suggested that epistemology offers a fertile site for bringing feminist philosophical perspectives to bear on the “problem” of religious diversity. A key strategy for feminist philosophy of religion, then, is to expose how epistemological models used by “malestream” philosophy of religion entrench the discipline in gender-blindness. In taking a constructive turn, feminist philosophy of religion could seek to articulate an epistemology that is both attentive to epistemic locatedness and, given an adequately revised conception of rationality, emboldened to tackle thorny questions on how truth should be figured in discussions on religious diversity. Could a feminist philosopher of religion defend some form of exclusivism? Or, approaching the question of truth from another angle, how might the feminist philosopher of religion facilitate learning the truths, however disputed, of other religious traditions? This could be an exercise in cross-cultural understanding that dovetails with the ethical intent to promote open and hospitable relations with religious others. I am sympathetic to Gross’ criticisms of religious exclusivism and inclusivism noted earlier. Nevertheless, I do not think that commitment to the truth claims of a particular religious tradition is necessarily hostile to the feminist endeavour to overcome women’s subjugation by patriarchal orders. Daggers’ revised particularism points to the idea of “critical commitment” to one’s religious tradition, which values both its integrity and its receptiveness to critique from those internal and external to that tradition.

p.452

Materialist Interventions: Religion as Real Abstraction

Insofar as feminist philosophy of religion is feminist it is at once a form of social criticism—its theoretical reasoning strives to connect with collective efforts to overcome the devaluing of women by patriarchal socio-cultural orders. It may be feared that this practical orientation of feminist philosophy of religion evades questions regarding the epistemic truth of religious beliefs and the rationality of maintaining an exclusivist, inclusivist or pluralist response to religious diversity. For sure, feminist philosophy of religion directed towards the “problem” of religious diversity will seek to examine how traditional epistemic norms implicitly support false and damaging beliefs about women. However, I have advocated a more rigorously self-reflexive philosophical method that refuses to excise contextual socio-cultural values and interests as irrelevant to philosophical inquiry. Such a method can enhance our ability to rationally assess religious truth claims.

That said, fixation on the epistemic status of religious belief may be queried by post-secular discourse informed by Marx’s dialectical materialism. Seeking to develop a critical philosophy of religion, Daniel Whistler draws on Marxist social theorist Alberto Toscano and feminist philosopher Gillian Howie to rethink religions in terms of “real abstraction” (Whistler 2014). For all his antipathy towards religion, along with his Feuerbachian contention that “man makes religion,” Marx “provides us with a potent critique of the [Enlightenment] critique of religion” (Toscano 2010: 10). Boldly put, for Marx, religion is a form of real abstraction because it is both true and false. It is true because it bears witness to an antagonistic social reality (namely, social relations that produce economic inequality); false because it invokes an autonomous, spiritual reality independent of humanity. For Marx, “the crucial error is to treat real abstractions as mere ‘arbitrary product[s] of human reflection’” (Marx cited in Toscano 2010: 12)—for they are necessary illusions. Theistic beliefs, therefore, are not founded on a mistaken understanding of reality that can be corrected by pointing out the lack of evidence for the existence of God. Rather such beliefs are a rational way of making sense of, and living in, a world characterized by social injustice—a world that fails to deliver genuine freedom, equality, and happiness. The emancipatory task, for Marx, is not to correct religious beliefs as illusory but to “give up a [social] condition that requires illusion” (Marx cited in McLellan 2000: 72).

p.453

Religious realists (myself included) who maintain that ultimate sacred reality is objectively real may worry that Marx undermines religious truths by anthropologizing or naturalizing them. However, I leave this concern in suspense so that we do not miss the key point that, for Marx, religion as real abstraction has material efficacy. Religion concretely articulates the complex and contradictory lived experience of alienated social relations produced by the capitalist system. The notion of religion as real abstraction shifts attention away from its conceptual representation (i.e., religious beliefs) to its extra-conceptual social actuality.

Given these insights, Marx criticizes anti-religious critique for focusing on the truth content of religious belief when a materialist, emancipatory critique requires scrutiny of the social relations constitutive of such beliefs. Whistler suggests that philosophy of religion in accord with dialectical materialism continually oscillates between critique and the critique of critique (Whistler 2014: 184). Citing Toscano, Whistler explains that the principal task for a critical philosophy of religion is “to confront the social logic into which they [religious abstractions] are inscribed, and the dependence of these abstractions on given modes of production and social intercourse” (2014: 191).

This materialist re-orienting of critique is, as Whistler notes, paralleled in Howie’s important work Between Feminism and Materialism. Whistler’s focus on real abstraction in Howie’s work reveals that the feminist critique of reason, identity and universality must also be critiqued. For feminist theory to begin at all, according to Howie, it must use theoretical abstractions as tools that afford the “critical distance” needed to turn real abstractions (e.g., epistemic norms such as identity and objectivity) against themselves by tracing their imbrication in contingent socio-cultural conditions (Howie 2010: 58).

Taking its lead from dialectical materialism, critical theory reminds us that critique must not be limited to theoretical disputes. There must also be a dialectical critique of critique. Thus, the critique of religion will remain myopic so long as it remains gripped by arguments about the truth of religious beliefs and epistemic justifications for upholding exclusivism, inclusivism or pluralism. With this in mind, feminist philosophy of religion in a dialectical materialist register would not repeat the Enlightenment reduction of religion to mere thought. Rather it would challenge “both the universalising and ahistoricising tendencies of contemporary philosophy of religion” (Whistler 2014: 192) by conceiving religions as real abstractions, thus attending to the concrete ways in which religious beliefs are efficacious in women’s lives.

One area in which feminist philosophers of religion would do well to view religion in terms of real abstraction, i.e., as socially located, is regarding the practice of veiling by some Muslim women. Islam has long been criticized by Western societies for being oppressive towards women, the veil serving as the most potent symbol of (purported) Islamic misogyny. The scriptural basis for veiling can be found in certain verses of the Qur’an and some hadiths. For example, the Qur’an states: “And say to the believing women that they should avert their gaze and guard their modesty . . . and they should throw their veils over their bosoms, and not display their adornment except to their husbands or fathers” (Holy Qur’an 33: 59 cited in Zine 2006: 243). Islamic scholars dispute how to interpret scripture, particularly the hadiths, with respect to women’s veiling. However, of interest here is the set of beliefs concerning ideals of Islamic womanhood that support the practice of veiling: modesty, obedience, humility, and similar qualities. It might be tempting for liberal-minded feminists—whether secular or religious—to discredit such beliefs by pointing out their erroneous sexist assumptions, lack of adequate justification and harsh disciplining of women’s bodies. But this reduces the issue of veiling to a matter of Muslim patriarchal ideology, that is, a set of beliefs to be debunked by liberal feminist theory. Such an approach overlooks the specific socio-historical, cultural and political matrix in which Muslim women veil.

p.454

In her work on Islamic women’s organizations in Cairo, Egypt, Sherine Hafez explains that efforts to understand the situation of pious, veil-wearing Muslim women in contemporary Egypt are thwarted if the focus is solely on how Islamic beliefs shape these women’s lives. Rather, the status of such women must be “contextualized within the historical development of anti-colonial nationalism, state building projects, and nationalism” (Hafez cited in Kassam 2013: 145). In the particular locale of Egypt’s Islamic revival over the last two decades or so, the increasing number of women wearing the veil cannot be entirely attributed to the imposition of androcentric Islamic ideals. Geopolitical and socio-historical factors also affect the practice of veiling and the religious comportment of contemporary Egyptian women. The significance of the veil shifts according to the specific contexts within which it is worn. The veil worn in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan cannot be understood in the same way as the veil worn by, for example, converted (or reverted, to use the preferred Muslim term) African American Sunni Muslim women in twenty-first-century South Central Los Angeles (Rouse 2004). By taking heed of how women’s religiosity is distinctively contextualized, feminist philosophers of religion can avoid the simplistic identification of religion with religious beliefs.

Contextualizing Women’s Religious Subjectivity

I now wish to return to the issue of religious diversity to highlight how feminist philosophy of religion is faced with a frankly alarming challenge when it reflects on certain models of women’s religious subjectivities evident in a range of religious traditions—namely, those subjectivities that appear to be fundamentally at odds with feminist emancipatory aspirations.

In recent years anthropologists (e.g., Saba Mahmood) and historians of religion (e.g., Mary L. Keller and Phyllis Mack) have provided rich empirical details on how women in particular socio-historical situations construct their religious subjectivity and with this establish distinctive forms of agency. All too briefly: Mahmood’s Politics of Piety examines the women’s mosque movement in 1990s Cairo, Egypt, which saw participants endeavoring to cultivate a pious subjectivity by fostering “those bodily aptitudes, virtues, habits and desires that serve to ground Islamic principles” (2012 [2005]: 45); Keller’s work has explored the religious subjectivity of spirit-possessed women in Shona (Zimbabwean) history (Keller 2003); and Mack’s research on Quaker women in eighteenth-century England highlights their efforts to do “what is right” as this is determined by God, rather than personal desires (Mack 2003: 156).

These studies elucidate notions of religious subjectivity that do not centre on an individual’s assenting to a set of consciously held beliefs, in the manner of the autonomous, rational subject of Western modernity. Rather, the religious subjectivities described are constituted by a woman embodying practices that endeavour to accomplish a way of life, an ethos, delineated by the norms and ideals of her tradition. Scholars such as Mahmood, Keller, and Mack concentrate on the local conditions in which women live their lives: the specific social relations, institutions, discursive traditions, embodied practices and networks of power. They identify notions of (religious) subjectivity that challenge what Keller calls the “hypervaluation of autonomy” (Keller 2003: 78) in secular, Western thought, including feminist theory. Liberal, humanist subjects act according to their own will or conscious intention. In contrast the religious subjectivity of the women described above is characterized less by self-expression and more by self-transcendence (Mack 2003: 153). However, to interpret such women as exhibiting no more than a “deplorable passivity and docility” (Mahmood 2012 [2005]: 15) would be to presume a Western, secular conception of agency. It would miss how religious subjectivity may be understood as achieving agency and selfhood through embodied, normative relations (e.g., obedience, duty, responsibility, etc.) with otherness (e.g., the will of God, tradition, the needs of others), relations that constrain as well as empower.

p.455

Of course, the liberal account of agency premised on an autonomous, fully rational subject unencumbered by social relations has been criticized by feminist philosophers (Stoljar 2013). However, despite the various theories of agency and autonomy developed in feminist thought, Mahmood contends that they rarely problematize “the universality of the desire—central for liberal and progressive thought, and presupposed by the concept of resistance it authorizes—to be free from relations of subordination, and for women, from structures of male domination” (Mahmood 2012 [2005]: 10).

While feminism is far from uniform, it is fair to say that the basic axiom shared by all feminists is that the patriarchal subordination of women by men is unjust and must be overcome. In that feminist philosophy of religion is committed to opposing gender inequality could it be viewed as eulogizing a Eurocentric, secular idea of subjectivity at odds with socially conservative models of religious subjectivity and agency? The danger is twofold. Either feminist philosophy of religion risks finding itself deaf to those voices that sound out a different story to that of the supposedly universal liberal subject. Or it takes seriously the historicization of religious subjectivity but, unable to adopt a critical position, finds itself swept off by the currents of cultural relativism.

These are grave difficulties that I cannot address here. Certainly the dialectical materialist approach to feminist philosophy of religion developed in this chapter would press for fine-grained, localized conceptions of religious subjectivity and agency. But as a form of social criticism, feminist philosophy of religion would also seek to identify unjust relations between men and women so that these may be overcome. Howie suggests that a focus on interests offers a way to make sense of the patriarchal relation as one of domination: “the systematic subordination of the interests of women to those of men” (2010: 200). However, problems arise when feminist theory takes into consideration women whose religious subjectivity pursues fulfilling the interests of God or their community rather than their own personal interests.

We need to avoid treating conservative religious subjectivities as merely instances of false consciousness (the internalization of oppressive norms). Instead, a key task for feminist philosophy of religion is to theorize how concepts such as interest, constraint, power and patriarchy may do explanatory work while being appreciative of “what agency means in relation to specifically religious grammars” (Bracke 2008: 63). Because I believe it is overly simplistic to ossify a distinction between liberal “agency as autonomy” and religious “agency as submission,” I am drawn to Tanya Zion-Waldok’s concept of “devoted resistance.” She seeks to articulate the possibility of social critique and political resistance for women who, nevertheless, are deeply committed to their religious tradition (Zion-Waldok 2015).

p.456

The dialectical materialist insight to be added is that social transformation is unlikely to result simply by changing consciousness (Mahmood 2012 [2005]: 188). Rather concrete transformation will be prompted by, and organized around, local problems. To the extent that these problems concern women’s interests or flourishing the response may be considered feminist in character. The forming of alliances between (differently) religious and secular women, between socially conservative and progressive women need not appeal to a priori, universal principles but to relations of solidarity that emerge as similarities are discerned “between one woman’s situation and another’s, between this local group of women and other groups” (Howie 2010: 204).

Conclusion

According to Basinger, among the issues philosophers discuss that have practical bearings “none is more relevant today than the question of religious diversity” (Basinger 2014). Given this, it is incumbent on feminist philosophers of religion to address the gendered implications of debates on religious diversity and interreligious encounters. Challenging gender-blind concepts of truth and rationality is one way feminist philosophers of religion can agitate this field. The notion of religion as “real abstraction” helps us circumvent interminable debates about the epistemic status of religious belief, focusing instead on religion as a lived experience, enmeshed in specific socio-historical relations. However, contextualized accounts of women’s religious subjectivities tug at the secular, Eurocentric values woven into progressive feminism. Feminist philosophy of religion is thus provoked to think afresh the nature of its emancipatory aims in light of women who prioritise their religious commitments over resisting the patriarchal structure of their tradition. The way forward for feminist philosophy of religion is far from obvious. The dialectical materialist point is that feminist philosophy of religion must remain alert to the concrete actualities of women’s religious lives, including any local problems such women seek to address, such as the problem of piety. The wider point for feminist theory is that it must engage with the experiences of religiously diverse women if it wishes to expose its entanglement with assumptions regarding subjectivity, agency and even the nature of critique that could only ever blunt its emancipatory force.