Margins
Man's Dominion book cover
Man's Dominion
The Rise of Religion and the Eclipse of Women's Rights
2011
First Published
4.16
Average Rating
230
Number of Pages
In this feminist critique of the politics of religion, Sheila Jeffreys argues that the renewed rise of religion is harmful to women’s human rights. The book seeks to rekindle the criticism of religion as the founding ideology of patriarchy. Focusing on the three monotheistic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, this book examines common anti-women attitudes such as ‘male-headship’, impurity of women, the need to control women’s bodies, and their modern manifestations in multicultural Western states. It points to the incorporation of religious law into legal systems, faith schools, and campaigns led by Christian and Islamic organisations against women’s rights at the U.N., and explains how religious rights threaten to subvert women’s rights. Including highly-topical chapters on the burka and the covering of women, and polygamy, this text questions the ideology of multiculturalism which shields religion from criticism by demanding respect for culture and faith, whilst ignoring the harm that women suffer from religion. Man’s Dominion is an incisive and polemic text that will be of interest to students of gender studies, religion, and politics.
Avg Rating
4.16
Number of Ratings
44
5 STARS
52%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
7%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
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Author

Sheila Jeffreys
Sheila Jeffreys
Author · 14 books

Sheila Jeffreys writes and teaches in the areas of sexual politics, international gender politics, and lesbian and gay politics. She has written six books on the history and politics of sexuality. Originally from the UK, Sheila moved to Melbourne in 1991 to take up a position at the University of Melbourne. She has been actively involved in feminist and lesbian feminist politics, particularly around the issue of sexual violence, since 1973. She is involved with the international non-government organization, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, in international organising. She is the author of The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880-1930 (1985/1997) Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution (1990), The Lesbian Heresy: A Feminist Perspective on the Lesbian Sexual Revolution (1993), The Idea of Prostitution (1997), Unpacking Queer Politics: a lesbian feminist perspective (2003) and Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (2005).

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