Women & Fundamentalisms

AWID publications on fundamentalism, the effects on women and how to deal with this

Tags: Promoting Pluralism
Additional tags: Gender fundamentalism AWID

AWID, the Association for Women's Rights in Development, launched an initiative that focuses on fundamentalism in 2006. The project is entitled "Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms: An advocacy-research project". It explores various forms of fundamentalism and the effects on the position, rights and freedoms of women. From all over the world, AWID has gathered examples from women organisations and activists about how they approached the situation in their own countries. The initiative has published three papers, which can be downloaded here.

AWID was established in 1982 as a US membership organisation of academics, foundations, voluntary associations and policy makers committed to women and development issues. Since the 1980s, the organisation has expanded and developed into a truly international organisation that actively contributes to knowledge production and sharing and networking for action around key issues of women's rights and development globally.

The AWID initiative entitled "Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms: An advocacy-research project" is considered a project of strategic priority . It is perceived that fundamentalist forces are gaining ground around the world, curtailing the rights and freedoms of women. After a series of workshops, also in cooperation with Women Living under Muslim Law (WLUML), women rights activists identified key challenges and strategies to be addressed within this initiative. The AWID Initiative then took off in 2006.

The initiative targets various forms of religious fundamentalism and how this affects women's lives and their rights and freedoms in particular. AWID aims to study, develop and share strategies that can overcome the limiting effects of fundamentalism for the space of women. Activities are supported by the Knowledge Programme on Promoting Pluralism.

AWID has published three papers that focus on definitions of religious fundamentalism and whether the term is a useful one, myths about religious fundamentalisms and the impact of religious fundamentalisms on women.

Shared insights: women's rights activists define religious fundamentalisms.

Religious Fundamentalisms Exposed.

Religious fundamentalisms on the rise: a case for action.