Symposium: Religion and Gender

Gender democracy issues and ways of achieving gender democracy have been discussed and developed by states and organisations in Europe since the late 1990s. One of the aims is to establish appropriate structures to enable women and men to become equally involved in the decision-making processes and benefit from the outcome.

Religions are also institutional systems with patriarchal structures for the most part. Over the past few years, they have rekindled a mobilising force in Europe. In this context institutional scopes, freedom of religion on the one hand,gender equality and equal treatment on the other hand have to be reconsidered and overhauled in their interaction and realization.The conference broaches the issue of the relationship between the state, religion and gender taking the EU states of Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany as an example.

What significance has been attributed to the right of religious freedom and right of tendency (“Tendenzschutz”) under feminist and gender-democratic aspects? What means of dialogue and recognition of various opinions exist within a state as well as among the EU member states? What methods of resolving target conflicts exist? On the basis of which principles and norms does the relationship between state and religion exist in the various countries? What framework does the EU purport for the legal recognition and protection of gender and religion? How do masculinity and femininity constructions and religions influence one another? How do religious organisations and groups participate in the debate surrounding gender and democracy? How do they implement gender-democratic principles specifically on the local level?

For this reason, the aims of the conference are especially:
- to provide an overview of the legal situation in terms of how the relationship between state and religion is regulated in the project countries concerned as well as at European level;
- to illustrate masculinity and femininity constructions in religions and to discuss their impact on socio-political activities and attitudes;
- to highlight the interactions between political institutions and religious communities;
- to draw conclusions for the formation of equality and gender policies.