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Introduction
This article examines how religion and family produces the idea of gender. It presents an initial literature review on religion and family as these factors relate to shaping gender ideology.
Case studies are used in the article as reference to elaborate how family and religion interrelate to influence gender ideology.
How Religion and Family Produces the Idea of Gender
Gender is the way society creates, patterns, and rewards our understandings of femininity and masculinity, or the process by which certain behaviors and performances are ascribed to women and men.
Gender is a form of social institution of sexual difference (Susan & Janet 172). Although man and woman are biologically different, the society understands these differences and gives the humans their gender roles. The way society does this is influenced by family values and religious practices (Susan & Janet 174).
Several scholars have indicated the functional nature of religious participation for family relationships and have focused on how such participation increases feelings of satisfaction and happiness in marital and parent-child relationships (Judith 1).
The scholars have also emphasized the part played by religion and family in shaping gender roles and child-rearing practices (Roy 60).
Susan and Janet asserts that, from the studies to bring materials and perspectives from Women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, they noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged in the curriculum and in the books of religion (186).
Demographers agree that there are unexamined family and religious factors that are independent from economic development factors that have sustaining effects on gender (Jiexia 2).
Modernization has dramatically increased women’s participation in labor force and enrollment in mandatory education (Judith 1). However, several studies have shown that the patriarchic and religion driven nature of gender relations in the world have continued to be dominant (Jiexia 17).
In India where there is a caste system which heavily defines the religious practices of the three castes of Indian, the ‘white’ Indian men do not have to do the “dirty work,” such as housework which is usually done by the lower caste inferior group, usually the poor women of who are the black Indians from the lower caste (Palmer 36).
India is an ideal case for examining the association between religion, family and gender. India has gone through tremendous modernization and urbanization during the past few decades and the religious market is also thriving in the country (Jiexia 18).
Family roles are strongly influenced by religious beliefs. Traditional religion holds that a woman’s purpose in the moral order is bound by roles of wife or mother and women belong in the home.
These views have generally characterized Catholicism, Islamic religion, fundamentalist Protestantism and Orthodox Judaism. The catholic religion for instance has strongly favored the traditional nuclear intact family and reinforces its support of traditional gender roles with its prohibition of birth control and divorce.
The global Protestants and Catholic churches have also played an important role in shaping the modern gender. The history of these churches has showed distinct characteristics in shaping of family and gender characteristics (Jiexia 18).
Studies conducted in the USA suggest that fundamentalist religious traditions, particularly conservative Protestantism, produce and legitimize conservative gender ideologies (Christopher & Robert 58).
Conservative Protestants are more likely to emphasize men’s headship in household, to defend traditional family roles and to resist “modern” egalitarian family ideologies than other religious groups (Bendroth 144).
They tend to encourage women to marry earlier, have more children and be homemakers (Christopher &Robert 58). They also make women more likely to be discouraged from working ‘outside-home’ especially when they are younger (Glass and Jacobs 106).
Such gender roles are often sacred because the relation between men and women represents the association between Jesus and the Church (Jiexia 22).
Compared to conservative Protestants, United States Catholic and mainline Protestants typically hold more liberal family ideologies. Catholics often have ambiguous family ideologies and therefore are less alarmed by the surrounding secular culture which is likely to “erode” family morality (Wilcox 202).
Instead of setting rules around traditional family life, mainline Protestants and Catholics focus more on the “golden rules,” social justice and the impact of social-economic factors on the family instead of conservative theology about gender and sexuality (Wilcox 204).
Christian churches are regarded as one of the major agents which led to civilization of many societies in the world (Jiexia 22). They have been one of the most active advocates of political reforms, democracy, anti-corruption and human rights for indigenous groups and women compared with other religious groups (Jiexia 22).
Penny claims that, for men church attendance increases the likelihood of engaging in some forms of caring and helping behavior (59). Among men who do not attend church regularly about ten percent regularly care of elderly or sick relatives, whereas 22 percent of the men who attend church engage in such care (Penny 59).
Christopher and Robert assert that, “multivariate statistical analysis reveals that the relationship between the church attendance and willingness to be a regular caretaker holds across life stages and social status” (121).
Conclusion
It can be noted that, a good number of scholars have studied the influence of religion and family on shaping gender ideology. Despite their varied interpretations all of them have emphasized the significance of religious belief and family values in shaping gender ideology.
Individual and collective legal mobilization by women influences and shapes legal processes and outcomes. The interaction between the state, women’s groups, ethno-religious groups and sources of civic authority ensure the destabilization of gender inequality in state and societal laws and legal forums ((Susan & Janet 214).
State-society interactions in interpretive legal sphere ensure that transmission, communication and cross linking of these ideas, disputes, resolutions, processes both within and among heterogeneous religious groups, civil society and the state is done. These processes prevent the cementing of group boundaries and enhance cultural ‘blending’ in society.
Works Cited
Bendroth, Margaret. Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present. USA: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.
Christopher, Ellison and Robert, Hummer. Religion, Families, and Health: Population- based Research in the United States of America. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2010. Print.
Jiexia, Zhai. Religion, Gender and Family Relations in Taiwan. Ann-Arbor: Pro-Quest publishers, 2007. Print.
Palmer, Phyllis. Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in the United States, 1920–1945. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Print.
Penny, Edgell. Religion and Family in a Changing Society. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006. Print.
Roy, Fairchild. “Problems, Stratification and Religious Perspectives of Parents”. Office of Family Education Research, Board of Christian Education (1959): 60-66. Print.
Shaw, Susan and Lee, Janet. Women’s Voices Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.
Wilcox, Bradford. Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Print.
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