9780691160641-0691160643-Sex and Secularism (The Public Square)

Sex and Secularism (The Public Square)

ISBN-13: 9780691160641
ISBN-10: 0691160643
Author: Joan Wallach Scott
Publication date: 2017
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Hardcover 240 pages
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Book details

ISBN-13: 9780691160641
ISBN-10: 0691160643
Author: Joan Wallach Scott
Publication date: 2017
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Hardcover 240 pages

Summary

Sex and Secularism (The Public Square) (ISBN-13: 9780691160641 and ISBN-10: 0691160643), written by authors Joan Wallach Scott, was published by Princeton University Press in 2017. With an overall rating of 3.6 stars, it's a notable title among other Historical Study & Educational Resources (Women in History, World History, Political, Philosophy, Feminist Theory, Women's Studies) books. You can easily purchase or rent Sex and Secularism (The Public Square) (Hardcover) from BooksRun, along with many other new and used Historical Study & Educational Resources books and textbooks. And, if you're looking to sell your copy, our current buyback offer is $0.53.

Description

How secularism has been used to justify the subordination of women

Joan Wallach Scott’s acclaimed and controversial writings have been foundational for the field of gender history. With Sex and Secularism, Scott challenges one of the central claims of the “clash of civilizations” polemic―the false notion that secularism is a guarantee of gender equality.

Drawing on a wealth of scholarship by second-wave feminists and historians of religion, race, and colonialism, Scott shows that the gender equality invoked today as a fundamental and enduring principle was not originally associated with the term “secularism” when it first entered the lexicon in the nineteenth century. In fact, the inequality of the sexes was fundamental to the articulation of the separation of church and state that inaugurated Western modernity. Scott points out that Western nation-states imposed a new order of women’s subordination, assigning them to a feminized familial sphere meant to complement the rational masculine realms of politics and economics. It was not until the question of Islam arose in the late twentieth century that gender equality became a primary feature of the discourse of secularism.

Challenging the assertion that secularism has always been synonymous with equality between the sexes, Sex and Secularism reveals how this idea has been used to justify claims of white, Western, and Christian racial and religious superiority and has served to distract our attention from a persistent set of difficulties related to gender difference―ones shared by Western and non-Western cultures alike.

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