WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE: CLAIMS IN CONFLICT

Book Details

• Author: Alison L. Boden

• Publisher: Rawat Publications

• Language: English

• Edition: 2025

• ISBN: 9781349961221

• Pages: 236 pages

• Cover: Hardback

• Sale Territory: India Only

About the Book

This compelling study by Alison L. Boden explores the tensions between advocating for women’s human rights and maintaining religious integrity, particularly within the sphere of family religious ideology. The book critically examines how theological resistance and various political and social constraints can inadvertently render the human rights framework inadequate or even counterproductive when applied to religious women.

Boden raises crucial philosophical and legal questions around relativism, privacy, and individual agency, showing how these issues intersect and clash with both international human rights discourse and deeply rooted religious traditions. The work sheds light on the structural and ideological challenges religious women face when seeking autonomy and rights, arguing that rights-based advocacy alone may fall short without deeper cultural and theological engagement.

Grounded in both religious scholarship and human rights analysis, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of gender studies, religious studies, human rights law, theology, and sociology. It offers a nuanced, critical lens for rethinking how rights are understood and advanced in diverse religious contexts.

Contents Overview

• A Conflict of Rights Claims

• Hierarchies of Rights Claims

• Theological Challenges to Religious Women’s Rights

• The Question of Relativism

• The Question of Privacy

• The Question of Agency

• Religion, Rights and Change

About the Author

Alison L. Boden is a United Church of Christ minister and currently serves as Dean of Religious Life and the Chapel at Princeton University, USA. Her work sits at the intersection of theology, human rights, and gender justice, providing critical insight into the complex realities faced by religious women in contemporary society.