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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • Sitting en banc, the 5th Circuit overturned a panel decision declaring a Louisiana law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms of the state’s public schools and universities unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that the dispute was not yet ripe for review.
  • A Woman’s Concern, Inc. v. Healey, (D MA, Feb. 17, 2026) was an action brought by Your Options Medical Centers (YOM), a religiously affiliated pregnancy resource center, wherein they alleged that the state of Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health violated their free speech, free exercise and equal protection rights when it disseminated information critical of pregnancy resource centers. This week, the federal district court for the District of Massachusetts rejected this claim, primarily reasoning that YOM was not targeted for actual or threatened enforcement action.
  • President Trump posted a Presidential Message on Ash Wednesday, calling for all Americans to remember that the Lenten themes of the “prayer, fasting, and almsgiving have been foundational to our strength from the earliest days of our national story.”
  • The Department of Justice announced that it is opening Title IX investigations into three Michigan school districts “to determine whether they have included sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) content in any class for grades pre-K-12.” If the districts are including such content, “the investigations will examine whether the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out of such instruction.”
  • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released its “Annual Report on the State of Religious Liberty in the United States.” “The report summarizes developments on national questions and federal policies affecting religious liberty in the U.S., including the role of religion in American public life, and the challenges and opportunities of the present moment.”
  • Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received a draft constitution “that aims to transition the PA to a full-fledged state”. The draft contains a number of provisions on religion and religious freedom.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Bradley, “Women and Violence in India”

In February, I.B. Tauris released “Women and Violence in India: Gender, Oppression, and the Politics of Neoliberalism,” by Tamsin Bradley (University of Portsmouth).  The publisher’s description follows:

India’s endemic gender-based violence has received increased international scrutiny and provoked waves of domestic protest and activism. In recent years, related Screen Shot 2017-04-06 at 8.29.47 PMstudies on India and South Asia have proliferated but their analyses often fail to identify why violence flourishes. Unwilling to simply accept patriarchy as the answer, Tamsin Bradley presents new research examining how different groups in India conceptualise violence against women, revealing beliefs around religion, caste and gender that render aggression socially acceptable. She also analyses the role that neoliberalism, and its corollary consumerism, play in reducing women to commodity objects for barter or exchange. Unpacking varied conservative, liberal and neoliberal ideologies active in India today, Bradley argues that they can converge unexpectedly to normalise violence against women. Due to these complex and overlapping factors, rates of violence against women in India have actually increased despite decades of feminist campaigning.

This book will be crucial to those studying Indian gender politics and violence, but also presents new data and methodologies which have practical implications for researchers and policymakers worldwide.

Posted on by Liam Ray

Ulrich, “A House Full of Females”

In January, Penguin Random House released A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard University). The publisher’s description follows:

Mormon Book CoverFrom the author of A Midwife’s Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for History, and The Age of Homespun–a revelatory, nuanced, and deeply intimate look at the world of early Mormon women whose seemingly ordinary lives belied an astonishingly revolutionary spirit, drive, and determination.

A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, minute-books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never-before-told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon “plural marriage,” whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, fifty years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress, and who became political actors in spite of, or because of, their marital arrangements. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, writing of this small group of Mormon women who’ve previously been seen as mere names and dates, has brilliantly reconstructed these textured, complex lives to give us a fulsome portrait of who these women were and of their “sex radicalism”–the idea that a woman should choose when and with whom to bear children.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Chowdhury, “Islam and Women’s Income”

Next month, Routledge will release “Islam and Women’s Income: Dowry and Law in Bangladesh,” by Farah Deeba Chowdhury (York University).  The publisher’s description follows:

This book examines the interrelationship between law, culture, patriarchy and religion 9781138228467in the context of contemporary Bangladesh. It explores the role of Islam in society and politics generally, and its influence on gender equality in particular. The work focuses on the situation of married women. Taking a socio-legal approach, it analyses the changing nature of the dowry practice and its relation to women’s increasing paid labour force activity. Despite anti-dowry legislation, it is argued here that the dowry system continues in the form of the appropriation of wives’ income. The work calls for legal recognition of this action and the amendment of the Dowry Prohibition Act 1980 as a result of the changing social realities that are taking place in the lives of Bangladeshi women. An Islamic approach is applied to equality between men and women in addressing and analysing these issues. The book includes international comparisons on gender equality and discusses the role of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Descrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as well as the dowry system in South Asia.

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Elgousi, “Women’s Rights in Authoritarian Egypt: Negotiating Between Islam and Politics”

In April, I.B. Tauris will release “Women’s Rights in Authoritarian Egypt: Negotiating Between Islam and Politics” by Hiam Salaheldin Elgousi (University of Leeds). The publisher’s description follows:

During the uprisings of late 2010 and 2011 which took place across the Middle East and North Africa, women made up an important part of the crowds protesting. Women’s rights were central to the demands made. However, despite this, in the ensuing social and political struggles, these rights have not progressed much beyond the situation under previous governments. Hiam El-Gousi’s book offers an examination of the status of women under Egypt’s various authoritarian regimes. In exploring the role played by religious scholars in helping to define women’s status in society, she focuses on personal status laws and health rights. In examining the issue of women’s rights El-Gousi begins with an account of feminism in Egypt: the centre of feminist thought in the Middle East at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Based on extensive research in the country, especially at grassroots level, El-Gousi goes on to analyse the constitutional and legislative rulings which have affected the lives and rights of Egyptian women. This book will become a vital primary resource for those studying feminism in the wider Middle East and North Africa.

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Boe, “Family Law in Contemporary Iran: Women’s Rights Activism and Shari’a”

Last month, I.B.Tauris released “Family Law in Contemporary Iran: Women’s Rights Activism and Shari’a” by Marianne Boe (University of Bergen). The publisher’s description follows:

Passed into law over a decade before the Revolution, the Family Protection Law quickly drew the ire of the conservative clergy and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. In fact, it was one of the first laws to be rescinded following the revolution. The law was hardly a surprising target, however, since women’s status in Iran was then – and continues now to be – a central concern of Iranian political leaders, media commentators, and international observers alike. Taking up the issue of women’s status in a modern context, Marianne Boe offers a nuanced view of how women’s rights activists assert their rights within an Islamic context by weaving together religious and historical texts and narratives. Through her substantial fieldwork and novel analysis, Boe undermines both the traditional view of ‘Islamic Feminism’ as monolithic and clears a path to a new understanding of the role of women’s rights activists in shaping and synthesizing debates on the shari’a, women’s rights and family law. As such, this book is essential for anyone studying family law and the role of women in contemporary Iran.

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Weiss, “Interpreting Islam, Modernity, and Women’s Rights in Pakistan”

This month, Palgrave Macmillan releases “Interpreting Islam, Modernity, and Women’s Rights in Pakistan” by Anita M. Weiss (University of Oregon). The publisher’s description follows:

In Pakistan, myriad constituencies are grappling with reinterpreting women’s rights. This book analyzes the Government of Pakistan’s construction of an understanding of what constitutes women’s rights, moves on to address traditional views and contemporary popular opinion on women’s rights, and then focuses on three very different groups’ perceptions of women’s rights: progressive women’s organizations as represented by the Aurat Foundation and Shirkat Gah; orthodox Islamist views as represented by the Jama’at-i-Islami, the MMA government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2002-08) and al-Huda; and the Swat Taliban. Author Anita M. Weiss analyzes the resultant “culture wars” that are visibly ripping the country apart, as groups talk past one another – each confident that they are the proprietors of culture and interpreters of religion while others are misrepresenting it

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Johnson, “Monastic Women and Religious Orders in Late Medieval Bologna”

Next month, Cambridge will publish Monastic Women and 9781107060852Religious Orders in Late Medieval Bologna, by Sherri Franks Johnson (University of California, Riverside). The publisher’s description follows.

Sherri Franks Johnson explores the roles of religious women in the changing ecclesiastical and civic structure of late medieval Bologna, demonstrating how convents negotiated a place in their urban context and in the church at large. During this period Bologna was the most important city in the Papal States after Rome. Using archival records from nunneries in the city, Johnson argues that communities of religious women varied in the extent to which they sought official recognition from the male authorities of religious orders. While some nunneries felt that it was important to their religious life to gain recognition from monks and friars, others were content to remain local and autonomous. In a period often described as an era of decline and the marginalization of religious women, Johnson shows instead that they saw themselves as active participants in their religious orders, in the wider church and in their local communities.

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Schroeder, “Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation”

Next month, Oxford will publish Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics9780199991044_140 and Biblical Interpretation, by Joy A. Schroeder (Capital University and Trinity Lutheran Seminary). The publisher’s description follows.

Joy A. Schroeder offers the first in-depth exploration of the biblical story of Deborah, an authoritative judge, prophet, and war leader. For centuries, Deborah’s story has challenged readers’ traditional assumptions about the place of women in society. 

Schroeder shows how Deborah’s story has fueled gender debates throughout history. An examination of the prophetess’s journey through nearly two thousand years of Jewish and Christian interpretation shows how the biblical account of Deborah was deployed against women, for women, and by women who aspired to leadership roles in church and society. Numerous women—and men who supported women’s aspirations to leadership—used Deborah’s narrative to justify female claims to political and religious authority. Opponents to women’s public leadership endeavored to define Deborah’s role as ”private” or argued that she was a divinely authorized exception, not to be emulated by future generations of women.

Deborah’s Daughters provides crucial new insight into the the history of women in Judaism and Christianity, and into women’s past and present roles in the church, synagogue, and society.

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Larson, et al. (eds.), “Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law”

Next month, I.B. Tauris Publishers will publish Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Process edited by Lena Larsen, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Christian Moe and Kari Vogt.  The publisher’s description follows.

This book examines how male authority is sustained through law and court practice, the consequences for women and the family, and the demands made by Muslim women’s groups. Examining the construction of male guardianship (qiwama, wilaya) in the Islamic tradition, it also seeks to create an argument for women’s full equality before the law. Bringing together renowned Muslim scholars and experts, anthropologists who have carried out fieldwork in family courts, and human rights and women’s rights activists from different parts of the Muslim world, from Morocco to Egypt and Iran, this book develops a framework for rethinking Islamic Law and its traditions in ways that reflect contemporary realities and understandings of justice and gender rights.