Representations of Religion on the British Feminist Webzine The F Word

Kristin Aune

doi:10.18352/rg.10122

Abstract

In 21st century Europe, where religion is a more visible focus in local, national and global politics, how do feminist organisations and groups approach religion? This article explores this through analysis of representations of religion on a prominent British feminist webzine, The F Word. In academic literature and public debates, two dominant viewpoints are articulated in debates on women’s rights, religion and secularism: feminist secularism and religious inclusion. In the context of these debates, the study asks how The F Word writers approach religion, and whether and how their representations of religion reflect these academic and public debates. The analysis identifies four dominant approaches to religion, and two underlying themes, and sets these approaches in their wider social context.

Highlights

In 21st century Europe, where religion is a more visible focus in local, national and global politics, how do feminist organisations and groups approachAune: Representations of Religion on the British Feminist Webzine The F Word religion? Since the 1970s, feminist approaches to religion have arguably taken three main forms (Aune 2015)
‘When we look at the different feminist secular narratives regarding Islam’, van den Brandt (2014: 43) writes, ‘we see how increasingly cultural-religious diversity and Islam interpellate white secular feminists
Involvement in the project prompted new engagement with religion: Feminism often has an antagonistic relationship with religion

Summary

Introduction

In 21st century Europe, where religion is a more visible focus in local, national and global politics, how do feminist organisations and groups approachAune: Representations of Religion on the British Feminist Webzine The F Word religion? Since the 1970s, feminist approaches to religion have arguably taken three main forms (Aune 2015). There is very little academic analysis of mainstream feminist groups’ (that is, groups not centrally concerned with religion) approaches to religion in Europe, two significant studies are Midden’s (2012) analysis of representations of the relationship between feminism and religious and cultural diversity in the Dutch feminist magazine Opzij and van den Brandt’s (2014, 2015) studies of how secular Belgian feminist organisations approach religion. Midden advocates that Muslim women’s standpoints be included and feminism ‘defined in a more inclusive way’ (2012: 233) In her 2014 study of one secular feminist organisation and two feminist humanist writers, van den Brandt (2014: 35) observes the ‘ambivalent relationship between feminism and Islam in Western-Europe’, in which context she uncovers ‘divergent forms of feminist secularity’ (2014: 43) in Flanders, Belgium. ‘When we look at the different feminist secular narratives regarding Islam’, van den Brandt (2014: 43) writes, ‘we see how increasingly cultural-religious diversity and Islam interpellate white secular feminists. The veil bans in Flanders prompted new alliances between secular and religious feminists in the form of two groups, BOEH! and Motief, which emerged to contest headscarf regulation and promote solidarity and inclusion beyond secular/ religious boundaries, contesting assumptions that secularity=emancipation and religion=oppression. Van den Brandt (2015) regards these as signs of hope for European feminist coalition-building across differences

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