Critical Essay: Role of Religious Institutions in Gender Discrimination and Equality

Critical Essay: Role of Religious Institutions in Gender Discrimination and Equality
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Critical Essay: Role of Religious Institutions in Gender Discrimination and Equality
Introduction
Gender discrimination and equality constitute the most pulsating topic in public discourses. It is an elusive theme that has left people divided. It is a matter that has remained highly contestable along with economic, political, and social circles across the globe. The notions of sex, gender, and sexuality in various cultural and social contexts manifest in contemporary social and political issues. More often, gender and sexual identities are embodied and performed in everyday life, including a forming framework for discriminative, bias, and prejudicial practices.
Equality and discrimination along gender lines are often influenced by many factors rooted in culture, including religion. Religion is one of the cultural dimensions and systems in society, has been used to advanced patriarchal and hegemonic communities. Discrimination and other related oppressive practices have been propagated based on the system of beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, and practices provided by religion. This paper dissects the role of religious institutions in influencing gender discrimination and equality in society. Religious systems play a binary role by facilitating gender-discriminatory practices and enhancing equality. Clashing concerns have been reported. Are religious institutions promoting gender discrimination and bias? or are they promoting equality? Arguments and counterarguments have been advance from either side of the debate.
Concept of Gender and Religion
Connell (2009) defines gender as a dimension of personal life, social relations, and culture where individuals face practical challenges regarding justice, identity, and even personal survival. The concept of gender is one of the most misunderstood topics laced with outright prejudice, discrimination, and falsehoods. A significant portion of the population would believe men and women are psychologically opposite, and men are more intelligent than women (Connell, 2009). It must be noted that gender issues are not merely about women, but its scope expands to cover men and homosexual community and other forms of sexual orientations. Human life is not supposed to be diverted along dichotomies because there are more than two gender groups or identities. There is a connection between gender and religion. Are feminists compatible with the major world religions? How do religious concepts shape social understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality? In what ways has Western feminisms had to accommodate the reality of the continuing adherence to religions by millions of women and men worldwide?
The concept of religion is culturally intertwined with the broader societal environment and plays a crucial role in defining gender roles and expectations. Gender-convention religions such as Catholicism, conservative Protestantism, Orthodox Judaism, Mormonism, and Islam, are associated with strict gender relationships anchored on male headship and women’s submission (Burke, 2012). The author observes increased emphasis on ontological differences between men and women while noting that men having overarching control of leadership, activity, and a strong work ethic, and women are naturally nurturing, passive, and receptive. Gender‐traditional religions enhance the belief that men and women were created to implement different and complementary roles that privilege men's status.
Understanding the Role of Religious Institutions and Systems
For most of the population, religion plays a fundamental role in providing a sense of purpose, direction, and help.  Religion offers spiritual, social, and psychological support for individuals and families. It aids people to make sense of lives and their role in their families and community in general. The majority of society and communities are culturally diverse. It would be impossible to imagine how a community can organize itself in the absence of religion. It has an enormous impact on how persons and religious groups conceive and act in the world. The concept of transformation or change is a critical feature that defines contemporary societies. Most people would often resort to religion when they desire specific life changes. People often engaged in religious practices like prayers in seeking change. Religion provides shock absorbers against adversities in life by enhancing resilience and creating a sense of hope.
Religion creates a community based on race, ethnicity, social class, or any other group definition feature. This association constitutes social support in which the group can identify with each other and share beliefs and commitments. The growing importance of advocacy from religious quarters has been critical in shaping political space, opinions, perceptions, and decisions. Religion offers material resources for the less advantaged and the poor by advocating for the underrepresented and less privileged in society. Political leaders have engaged various religious institutions in coming up with economic and sociopolitical transformation. Thus, religious systems define how we perceive and act on a specific phenomenon in society. Religious tools have been used to draw boundaries around ideal and stigmatized gender norms, family forms, and sexual identification. This article postulates that religious participation, institutions, and systems could increase gender discrimination, inequality, and bias or promote equality. The two sides of the discussion are based on the specific beliefs, attitudes, and practices contextualized in a given community and interactions between the religious community and the broader social environment.
Role of Religious Systems in Shaping Gender Discrimination, Biases, and Prejudices
Despite the critical role that religion plays in society, it has become a source of conflict and division in society. Central to these conflicts are discussions on gender roles, family forms, and sexual identity. For example, the Evangelical Protestant group Promise Keepers attempts to popularize and reinforce boundaries regarding gender division of power and labor in the congregation and home and conservative religious groups. Lawmakers have advocated for the inclusion of marriage incentives education into welfare laws (Burch-Brown & Baker, 2016). Besides, religion plays a crucial role in the recent debates concerning laws, amendments banning or legalizing same‐sex marriages, with conservative Protestants protesting against same‐sex marriage. Religion is central to conflicts associated with privileges that are anchored on the prism of gender, sexual identity, or sexuality. More often, the mainstream Christian religion supports heteronormative sexual orientation in the context of gender and sexuality. Heternormativity sexuality aligns biological sex, sexuality, gender identity, and gender roles, which means that men and women have distinct, complementary genders supported by natural gender roles that are suited in monogamous, heterosexual relationships (Burch-Brown & Baker, 2016). Thus, heteronormative orientation's ubiquity allows mainstream religious beliefs, principles, practices, and power to draw boundaries around ideal and stigmatized gender roles and norms, family forms, and sexual identities (Burch-Brown & Baker, 2016). Religion shapes power dynamics amongst religious leaders, believers, men and women, and people of diverse sexual identities. However, it must be noted that not all religious believers conform to heteronormative values, with some already supporting liberalized sexuality. Christians are divided into their beliefs, principles, and attitudes towards sexuality. Most conventional Christian faithful continue to view sexuality as a gift from God to be enjoyed in marriage between a man and a woman. However, there are emerging unconventional religious institutions like Episcopal and United Church of Christ, which support same-sex marriage (Kelly et al., 2018)
The religious system constitutes the hegemonic and patriarchal system that drives gender discrimination and bias. Regarding gender relations and roles, the cultural influence of patriarchy impacts on religious interpretations has resulted in extended patriarchal hegemonies in many societies. Many Christian and Islamic leaders have advanced teachings and dogma, which paints women as minors in many spheres of life, including religion, politics and governance, economic ownership, and socio-cultural matters. The religious interpretations often emphasize specific sections s of religious texts and ignoring other areas to sustain the institution of patriarchy and hegemony. The religious text promotes equality and dispels discrimination along gender lines that often go unnoticed as most religious interpreters focus on the text that brings divisions along gender lines. Religious leaders put significant emphasis on religious texts that cause gender inequality, division, and discrimination.
There is overwhelming evidence to indicate that religion has been deployed as a tool to propagate discriminate agenda based on gender—such as gender notions, primarily rooted in patriarchy that is widespread across the globe. Despite efforts to address discrimination along gender lines, many groups remained sidelined due to their sexual identity, orientation, and gender. Women continue to get marginalized and other groups, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Dobynes Sr (2017) argues that the church has played a role in perpetuating gender discrimination. Despite being over 60 % of church congregations, women are given tasks with miniscule decision making power (Dobynes Sr, 2017). The author observes that prejudicial barriers linked to historical, cultural, emotional, societal, and theological roots appear to impede women from serving as deacons.
The church has shaped the formation and maintenance of gender inequality and discrimination by lining gender equality through a stereotypical lens. Wood (2019) argues that harmful and traditional cultural practices lead to women’s suffering, associated with violence in the patriarchal context. Women have to renegotiate their identities amidst the church’s views on women and their accepted social roles (Wood, 2019). Women continue to undergo equality in primary areas of life, including home, workplaces, and leadership positions.
Gender discrimination hurts victims. Gattis, Woodford, & Han (2014) indicated that there were less harmful effects of discrimination in the sexual minority among youth ...