3 Review(s)

How secularism has been used to justify the subordination of womenJoan Wallach Scotts 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 polemicthe 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 womens subordination, assigning them to a feminized familial sphere meant to complement the rational masculine realms of polit