The Church and Gender Inequality in Latin America

By: Kendall Flaharty

April 22, 2023

Spring 2023 Student Symposium: REWA Minors

Femicide, an extreme form of gender violence in which women are targeted and killed because of their gender, is extremely prevalent in Latin America. Historically, religion has inspired sweeping movements towards democracy and social justice in Latin America. As successful as religious actors have been in pushing Latin America towards democracy, justice, and human rights, issues of gender inequality seem to have been left behind. I examine the prevalence of gender inequality in Latin America, where the current policies and religious attitudes fall short, and how this cause can draw on successful Catholic human rights movements to create a framework that may be able to increase policy effectiveness in the region.

Bibliography

Escobar, J. Samuel. “Religion and Social Change at the Grass Roots in Latin America.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 554 (November 1997): 81-103. 

Hale, Christopher. “Catholic Church Advocacy in Latin America.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. Last modified January 25, 2019. 

Hehir, J. Bryan. “Religious Activism for Human Rights: A Christian Case Study.” In Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective, edited by John Witte, Jr., and Johan D. van der Vyver, 97-120. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996. 

Johnson, Elizabeth A. The Strength of Her Witness: Jesus Christ in the Global Voices of Women. Ossining: Orbis Books, 2016.

McNamara, Patrick. “Conscience, Catholicism, and Social Change in Latin America.” Social Research 46, no. 2 (1979): 329-349. 

O’Neill, Kevin Lewis. “Religion and Gender in Latin America.” In The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America, edited by Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Paul Freston, and Stephen C. Dove, 525-546. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 

Schwaller, John Frederick. The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America: From Conquest to Revolution and Beyond. New York: New York University Press, 2011.

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