Key Categories in the Study of Religion - Contexts and Critiques - Rebekka King
16. “There is No Place for the State in the Bedrooms of the Nation”: The Case of Québec’s Bill 21
Key Categories in the Study of Religion - Contexts and Critiques - Rebekka King
Jennifer Selby [+]
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Jennifer A. Selby is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and affiliate member of Gender Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Her research, teaching, and supervision broadly consider Muslim life in contemporary France and Canada and the nature of secularism. She is the author of Questioning French Secularism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and co-editor of Debating Sharia: Islam, Gender Politics, and Family Law Arbitration (University of Toronto Press, 2012).
Description
What happens if we take Megan Goodwin’s argument that “Every piece of writing about religion offers a theory of what religion is and what it does” and substitute “secularism” for “religion”? And, how do theories of secularism necessarily relate to gender? This chapter problematizes Goodwin’s “religion/gender” theoretical lens in relation to 2019 legislation on secularism in Québec, Canada. Selby argues that Law 21’s ambiguity around acceptable religion in its focus on religious signs and narrow version of gender equality do a lot of work in delineating acceptable gender norms.