Berkley Center

This month’s series for the Women & Religion project looks at the intersection of development, violence, and empowerment, as our experts and activists examine how religious ideas can contribute to attitudes that harm women—and at other times provide a framework for flourishing.   

From reducing child mortality to improving maternal health, achieving universal primary education to combating HIV/AIDS—all Millennium Development Goals—activists point to interventions and investments in the lives of girls as particularly crucial in global development. And there religion has a big, if not complex, role to play.  

Cultural ideas around issues like forced, early marriage, experts say, are sometimes enmeshed with religious ideology, so for advocates, the key has been making health arguments that do not directly challenge theology but instead redirect the conversation. For advocates like Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, that means that on an issue like female genital mutilation, presenting local communities with health data has become a fundamental pathway to improving the lives of girls. “The reason that FGM is now unacceptable to some communities and religious leaders is because a lot of statistical information has indicated it’s medically harmful,” Kanyoro explains in an interview.  

Other contributors to our series take on the issue more directly, such as the Rev. Gwynne Guibord, an Episcopal priest, in her interview with Katherine Marshall: “Violence against women is violence against Allah, God, the Buddha, and so forth.” Ryan Stewart of Sojourners is similarly forceful in his call for American Christian men to address the masculine culture that celebrates aggression and strength, but downplays tenderness and vulnerability.  

The Women & Religion project will share diverse perspectives from thought-leaders, activists and scholars from around the globe on how faith communities are addressing the challenge of violence and empowerment.