Introduction

        The 21st century has seen important advances in several social changes and trends. Two of those are feminist movements and modernization processes. Many people thought that by now we would be living in modern societies where modern women are free from religious and patriarchal traps. However, the secularization theory proposed by several 19th century social scientists has proven to be unable to accurately apply to modern times[1]. Feminist ideals and expectations are constantly reshaped, meaning women all over the world disagree on how they should live their lives. The present essay seeks to examine how social changes and developments in religious traditions have impacted the negotiations and experiences of gender of religious women in recent decades. Keeping in mind theories proposed by Angela Aidala and Jen'nan Ghazal Read, the experiences of Muslim women in Europe and Catholic nuns in the United States will be compared to gain a better understanding of how modern religious women navigate changes and challenges from civic society and their religious community. I will argue that despite important differences between the two cases (i.e., religious tradition and geographical location), the experiences of these women show a significant parallel as they navigate and contest widely accepted ideas of gender roles, modernity, and religion through (and not against) their religious tradition in response to social transformations. Since their actions are fueled by social changes and expectations of modernity, these case studies are important instances of how religious women navigate their traditions within modern society.

        Angela Aidala’s work, Social Change, Gender Roles, and New Religious Movements (1985), is a cross-sectional study in which the author analyzes data from spiritual and secular groups inspired by a range of social movements in the 1960s United States to “explore the relationship between gender role ambiguities and contemporary communitarian movements” (Aidala, 290). Though her research focuses more on sexuality and cultural change than on participation in social movements or individual agency, her thesis and conclusions are a helpful focus lens to analyze this essay’s sample cases. Her conclusion that social crises lead to re-interpretation of gender ideas because “regardless of other (political, social, interpersonal, etc.) goals and programs, issues of sexuality and gender roles were a matter of ideological concern” (Aidala, 310) will be addressed. On the other hand, Jen'nan Ghazal Read’s analysis of survey data collected from a national sample of Arab American women (members of an ethnic group comprised of Christians and Muslims) concludes that these groups are diverse and less traditional in their gender role beliefs than popular stereotypes imply. In her essay, The Sources of Gender Role Attitudes among Christian and Muslim Arab-American Women (2003), the author concludes that “religiosity and ethnicity are more important in shaping women's gender role attitudes than are their affiliations as Muslims and Christians” (Read, 207). Her findings show that immigration status, ethnicity of the spouse, participation in cultural organizations, and belief in religious dogmas are better predictors of gender traditionalism. Based on the mentioned case studies, it will be shown that both pious Muslim and Catholic women have challenged gender expectations through their faithfulness to their tradition, thus challenging the idea that the degree of attachment to Christian or Muslim communities reinforces traditional gender lifestyles.

First Case: Muslim Women

        Contemporary society is seeing the Islamic Revival movement: a revival of Islamic practices, reaffirmation of Islamic doctrines and re-emphasis on traditional Islamic ways of living after previously colonized countries in the Middle East and South Asia began to achieve political independence. The current normativity dictates that religion and its practices should be interiorized, hidden from the public sphere, and that secularity is enhanced by capitalism’s focus on the material and ephemeral. In that sense, the reinvigorated ideology that emphasizes Muslim identity is connected to a sense of the failure of capitalism and rejection of western secularism in the post-colonial landscape. Women who are urban-based, middle-class, university graduates and young professionals have been particularly prominent in this movement. They claim agency to their religious, civil, and professional decisions through the piety movement: ethically and morally transforming the self through a renewed focus on religiosity and pious practice (Robathan, June 21). Karin Van Nieuwkerk provides a picture of the Islamic Revival and Piety Movement in the book Performing Piety (2013), as she illustrates how art and prayer are tools used by Muslims to protest and transform society. The author outlines what Aidala would classify as “social and cultural disjuncture” where colonization and modernization is what inspires young Muslims to reinterpret their tradition as a way to fire back against capitalism and secularism. They use music (for instance, rai, rap, hip-hop, and heavy metal) to protest against forms of discrimination of Muslims in Europe, and they see prayer (movement of the body, styles of comportment, dress, and tape-recorded sermons or songs) as a means for discipline and ethical self-making which differentiates them from the Western idea of modern individuals.

        The work of Jeanette Jouili centers on the experiences of women in European countries, especially France, by narrating experiences of how they have negotiated traditional gender roles and their life in a secular country. Her essay Visibly Muslim: Negotiating Presence in Public Spheres (2015) complements Aidala’s article as it exposes how social transformations (postcolonial societies, immigration and secularization) fueled changes in religious traditions and individual perspectives on gender roles. Women in France have had to negotiate their public life (attending school, work, being in public spaces and government buildings) with their religious practices (visible praying, modesty, and veiling, for instance) in a variety of different ways. European passersby often feel shocked when witnessing one of these religious practices, as well as when being confronted with a closer interaction with a Muslim woman who exercises modesty in the physical ways of interacting with strangers (Jouili, 157). Despite it being counterintuitive for westerners, Muslims insist that “‘modesty’ should not be mistaken for either ‘segregation’ or ‘auto-exclusion’. In this sense, friendly relations with colleagues or fellow students became proof that Muslim women could maintain ‘normal’ relations with the other sex” (Jouili, 170). The act of veiling appears to be much more controversial among Muslims. For some women “wearing the veil in key institutions of the public sphere … was increasingly understood as an act of autonomy vis-à-vis the majority society, an act of self-confidence, and a refusal to let the majority society’s negative perception of Islam determine one’s own conduct and impede the exercise of one’s religious duties” (Jouili, 162). Others, however, have opted for not veiling and escalating the social ladder to prove to society that there is no incompatibility between their religious tradition and modern life. Still, this is a complicated decision for many women who have trouble deciding how to appear in public spaces for they “link their inability to wear a headscarf with their lack of courage to confront the majority society. Overcoming one’s fear and becoming capable of wearing the headscarf publicly was often described as “liberating” oneself from the gaze of the Other” (Jouili, 161). These instances shed light on the inherent nuances of religious traditions and women’s experiences, proving that a single and static understanding of what is like to be a religious woman in modern society is inoperable.

        Muslim women in Europe have regained agency in their decision making (be it veiling or not, working or not) by rejecting ideals of western secularism, through piety as an expression of freedom to act according to what they believe. The experiences narrated by Jouili introduce the notions of piety and self-cultivation as non-oppressive nor passive acts, by focusing on moral questions rather than on the demands of society (Robathan, June 21). This disputes Read’s claim that women more attached to religion will be less reflective of gender norms, since they link their religiosity to their agency in support of or against gender expectations like veiling and working. Being liberated, autonomous, civil, professional, refined and aesthetic, often considered exclusively European attributes, have therefore been redefined by these women as Islamic qualities grounded in their cultural values, memories, and texts (Jouili, 175). In this sense, we can agree with Aidala on her theory that modernity and secularism have led religious groups to reevaluate their beliefs, especially those regarding gender expectations. These women have not only contended traditional religious gender roles by freely deciding to veil or not, but they have also challenged western conceptions of “freedom” and “gender liberation” by showing no incompatibility between their faith and pious actions with modern secular society. In fact, Jouili explains that “the specific recognition project in which many of these women engage is meant to prove their compatibility with European modernity not in spite of but because of their Muslimness … In this way, the modern temporality pursued is integrated into a timeless modernity, which is what, for my interlocutors, the Islamic tradition, if understood correctly, stands for” (176). Jouli’s words might seem counterintuitive when a secularist conception of modernity is upheld but are easier to digest once the experiences of religious women, empowered in their religious tradition and civil life, are accepted as another reflection of modernity.

Second Case: Catholic Nuns

        The experience of the “Nuns on the Bus” will be analysed for the catholic women’s case, relying on the works of Erin Brigham and Meaghan O’Keefe. In 2012 and 2013, a group of catholic nuns toured twice in a bus around the United States in an attempt to advocate for those who were going to be affected by government proposals or the lack thereof, specially the poor and the immigrants. This movement gained significant attention from the media and introduced the nuns as humorous, charitable, and dedicated women. They were seen as women who approached those in need and used storytelling to gain sympathy from the broader American community to create motivation for social change (White, June 8). Due to the incredible amount of public attention they received, the nuns were scrutinized by the general public and the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, leading to different interpretations of what they were doing and how they were supposed to do it. In fact, these women were forcefully immersed in a greater debate about abortion, church control, gender roles, and civil versus religious life, none of which was their initial concern. This exemplifies Aidala’s theory of social changes pushing for individual changes that lead to reinterpretations of religious traditions and gender expectations, since it is a special case where catholic nuns create an advocacy movement of great magnitude and persist amid conservative bishops’ attacks. In a tradition where nuns have occupied a liminal space, focused mostly on silent praying and helping, while priests and bishops fulfill the role of verbally communicating with the rest of the world, the actions of the Nuns on the Bus speak volumes about reinterpretation of roles. Additionally, this case also contradicts Read’s conclusion about religiosity being a predictor for conforming to traditional roles because the nuns ground their decision to take an approach unexpected for catholic religious women in the very roots of their tradition and in close connection with the hierarchical teachings of Vatican II, namely the call for renewal, adaptation, and returning to original practices of close interaction with people.

        The story in question was very appealing to the average American since catholic nuns usually keep their distance from political advocacy and rather focus on helping those in need through healthcare or education. For a long time, the status quo in Catholicism was that men, namely bishops or cardinals, were the voices of the Church and the community facing public opinion. For this reason, it was a great shock when a group of nuns, led by Sister Simone Campbell, became spokespersons for their religious tradition and for the vulnerable groups in the United States. A later discourse, sparked by mass media, which antagonized them with the bishops further ascribe the movement in a broad debate about gender. Brigham explains that “Journalists have been quick to point out the contrast between the sisters’ progressive political action and the conservative priorities of US Catholic bishops. The sisters, however, have asserted their own identities and authority, not primarily through direct confrontation with the bishops but through engaging the public sphere in a different way, creating a bridge between faith and politics” (109). In fact, the sisters have argued their adopted position based on Vatican II’s call for engagement with the contemporary world, using political advocacy and social work as their way to renew and adapt to modern times (Okeefe).

        Just like in the case of Muslim women in Europe, the American nuns show how social and political circumstances sparked a transformation in the way they engage with civil society in connection to their religious tradition. Erin Brigham explains that “[sister Simone] Campbell demonstrates that narrative can be an effective way to engage public opinion. Campbell reinforces the moral-political significance of religious narratives in her speech as she explicitly connects her Catholic identity to her political commitments” (117). Unlike the Islamic case, these catholic women did not see their agency as a means to change gender expectations. The fact is that the conclusions drawn from their movement about gender norms in the Catholic Church is a result of the interpretations made by Catholic priests and the broader American audience. The nuns were not pursuing such a debate, their only purpose at the beginning was to help those in need and call into question the actions undertaken by politicians who claimed to be catholic. Yet, by expanding the scope of what is considered appropriate public discourse, their actions have implications on how we view religion's entry into the public sphere (ibidem). Perhaps we can say that the catholic women reinterpreted their role in society considering social and political circumstances and grounded on their religious beliefs without the gender variable at the top of their heads. The interpretation of their actions from a gender perspective was done mainly by those outside the Catholic Church, like the way in which Rosemary Carbine imagines the “ekklesial work” of feminist public theology inspired by the nuns: “Seeking more than gaining access to public debate and more than adding women’s voices to existing patriarchal politics, the ekklesia of wo/men marks out a rhetorical counterspace or counterpublic and a set of distinctive practices so that a different political reality might be imagined, debated, and at least partly constructed” (cited by Brigham, 122). However each person decided to analyze the nuns’ advocacy, their actions remain a clear re-interpretation of gender roles within the tradition, sparked by social trends (i.e., poverty and immigration) that made them question their role in society.

Discussion and Conclusion

        Aidala follows the theoretical explanation of the upsurge of spiritual and secular subgroups as a response to “culture crisis”, adding that the disjuncture between old norms and new realities will result in rapid social change and cultural fragmentation which will be manifest as gender role confusion and uncertainty. She argues that because gender roles are important links between culture and personality, developing new scripts for masculine/feminine are important in both religious and secular social movement efforts. This is visible in both cases we have reviewed in this essay. The postcolonial era in Arab countries and the massive migration of Muslims to European countries is the “culture crisis” that has led to new social and cultural realities like Islamic Revival and the Piety Movement. The clash between Islamic worldviews and Western secular society has led to the reinterpretation of meaning, value, and role behavior among Muslim women, who now reclaim agency in their everyday decisions like how to dress in public spaces, how to act around men, and what role to have in society. In the United States, a group of catholic nuns perceived a disconnection between the country’s social frameworks and their religious tradition’s values, pushing them to articulate new forms of involvement in the American community. They perceived that the courses of action undertaken by religious women were not enough for anchoring social arrangements and decided to create a social movement oriented toward putting in practice traditional Christian values and beliefs like charity. The public reaction was unexpected, and it sparked a debate about gender roles because those outside the movement perceived how, however inadvertently, the nuns were creating new female scripts.

        Read began her research curious about which religious affiliation (Christian or Muslim) will show a higher level of traditionalism among Arab American women believers. Nonetheless, the results show that the religious tradition did not account for the differences, but rather that other factors like religiosity were better predictors of gender role attitudes. Her conclusion is that belonging to a community of believers serves to reinforce lifestyles prescribes by that community, and since Christian and Muslim doctrines both teach similar roles for women, the degree of attachment to these communities better predicts gender beliefs among Arab American women (219). However, the two cases analyzed here dispute such conclusion. Both Muslim women who voluntarily follow traditional gendered practices and those who actively question and reject those expectations root their decisions in their religious faith and on their knowledge of the Islamic tradition. Jouili’s work reflects the importance that Muslim women living in Europe place on leading a pious life, whatever different meaning that has for each person. In this sense, women who transgressed traditional Islamic expectations or modern Western ideas of liberation considered themselves religious and highly attached to their tradition of faith. Contrary to what Read would have expected, their religiosity is an important factor in the negotiations and re-interpretations of gender roles vis-à-vis religion and society. The Catholic nuns, who can be thought of as religiously attached as it can get, also challenge Read’s idea. These women provided a reflection about gender roles within the Catholic tradition not only because the Nuns on the Bus is an unprecedented course of action for nuns, but more so because they argued their actions based on the approaches used by Jesus himself and on the official hierarchical mandates of Vatican II. Therefore, it is clear that religiosity and level of attachment to a religious community or set of doctrines is not an impediment to question and alter gender role attitudes. It can, as a matter of fact, be the ideal path to deeper and more meaningful transformations of women’s agency in modern society.

        To conclude, the present essay has compared two different cases of religious women challenging traditional expectations of gender roles and re-interpreting values and meanings in light of their religion and the modern society in which they live in. Even though the two groups of women ascribe to different religious traditions (i.e., Islam and Catholicism) and they are located in different geographical spaces hence deal with different Western societies (i.e., France and the United States), their experiences are similar in how they navigate the tradition and reinterpret gender roles. Fueled by social disjunctions, both groups adopted specific actions that showed society how they are challenging traditional gender expectations, but still valued their religious traditions and even claim faithfulness to the doctrines in the path they decide to follow. The cases analyzed here provide an interesting approach to being a religious woman in modern societies because they challenge traditional religious expectations and Western secular conceptions of incompatibility between religion and modernity.