The Diversity of Womanhood and All of God’s Creatures: Addressing Challenges in the Protection of Women’s Religious Freedoms Using a Novel Classification

Abstract

The protection of women's right to freedom of religion or belief presents many challenges to liberal states. Yet, this fundamental right of women has not been recognized as such in global treaties. Women's entitlement to this right is a neglected matter in international law. When reference is made to the liberty to manifest religion, states are often given the vague guidance that discriminatory practices should be eliminated. However, what happens when it is women who choose to believe those supposedly oppressive practices to be the absolute truth from God? We tend to focus on the struggle between women's freedoms and religion, but forget that women are not a homogenous group, especially when it comes to their religious and faith aspirations. Some women wish to bring equality in their religious communities, some wish to remain secular, and others express deep attachment to their religious traditions despite conflicts with feminist ideas. The most complex dilemmas that states confront are those that present clashes between those diverse women's groups. This article reveals that the variety of women's religious and non-religious practices is not adequately reflected in the guidance given to states by human rights treaty bodies, and that states' challenges are left unattended. To date, only harmful practices committed against women and girls have been fully addressed and defined within numerous international sources. It is often obvious that international standards were formed and consolidated at a time when women were not considered as bearers of the right to freedom of religion or belief but as its victims. States are therefore left to develop their own understandings as to complexities in the protection of women's religious liberties. This article thus proposes a novel classification and suggests distinguishing between harmful, traditional and reformative practices of women. It lays out guidelines for the protection of such practices, in the hope that they assist human rights' advocates and policymakers in achieving the delicate balance needed in such situations to affirm women's belief liberties.

Keywords: freedom of religion or belief, international law, feminist legal analysis, women's rights, gender equality, religious liberties, CEDAW, religious practices, religion