A Discussion with Marc Gopin, Director, Center on Religion, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution

Excerpt:   A first and important priority is to reframe the discussion around who participates, because that is the key to engaging women more actively. What works and is meaningful is to focus on “religious representatives”. This makes it possible to reframe who is empowered and authorized to represent a religion. Using language and tests of eligibility that focus on women “religious leaders” is simply a non-starter at the global level, because of the barriers that block women’s participation in several traditions. It is important to look for women clerics, to have affirmative action to bring them in, but that should not be the central focus, and it simply excludes, for example, most of Islam and Orthodox Judaism. Some refer to “religious actors” but to me that tends to trivialize their roles and work and it lacks clarity.

A real key to social change here is thus a change in construct that can open up doors to more effective religious programming and jettison some of the current obstacles. The same principle applies for youth, because that too involves bringing in those who are not necessarily in formal positions of power. Looking for religious representatives gives us the freedom to look at interesting and important work women are doing even in the most conservative settings.