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Gender and Religion: A Closer Look at Inequality in Sacred Architecture

Mona Mirzaie, Stella Murray, and Olivia Shotyk

Separation between the female portion of the western wall.JPG

“Separation between the female portion of the western wall.” Photo: Peter van der Sluijs

Gender segregation – and consequently, gender inequality – have been a constant factor in many religious communities. In the Book of Genesis, the first book of both the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament,  the first humans are introduced as Adam, a man being shaped from the “dust of the ground” and Eve, a woman being made from a rib “taken out of the man”.  This description begins an allegorical gender inequality in Abrahamic religions and the subsequent orientation of both Eastern and Western societies towards man as the ideal human being.

Since the conception of Adam and Eve, religious communities worldwide have continued to be shaped through a patriarchal framework. Women and femininity continue to represent sin, deceit and uncleanliness, due largely to how they are represented in religious texts. Masculinity, on the other hand, is associated with ideas of progress, civilization and politics.

Sacred architecture has followed suit, highlighting the role of men and concepts of masculinity. Even religious professions are male-dominated. Sacred architecture has diminished the presence of women, sometimes to the point of their exclusion. In other cases, women are not excluded, but are relegated to spaces separate from those of men. This is problematic when one considers that segregation of gender is correlated to the lower status of women.

Architectural historian Daphne Spain argues that the spatial segregation of women has kept them from accessing knowledge that has allowed men to hold power. By disregarding women’s roles in religion and religious spaces, society is reaffirming a patriarchal religious narrative that women are less valuable. We argue that sacred architecture is a symbol of power, and that excluding women from such settings prevents them from acquiring positions of power within religious organizations, where they are sadly underrepresented. To show how physical segregation of women in sacred architecture reaffirms the beliefs of women as second-class citizens, we look to examples in Hinduism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam.

Hindu Temples: Who has the right to pray?

SabarimalaRush2010.JPG

“Sabarimala Rush.” Avsnarayan, 2010. Photo: Avsnarayan

Religion is entrenched in Indian culture. While politics symbolizes power, Hinduism symbolizes it to a greater extent. With religion so embedded in politics, the line between the two is sometimes blurred. In a political climate where the Prime Minister is shaping national identity based on the lineage of Hindus and legitimacy of Hindu scriptures, “Hindu first” is becoming a growing movement.

The dispute over access to religious space has become a power dispute within Hinduism as well. If Hindu women cannot fully participate in a Hindu temple’s community, how can they truly possess power?

Currently, Hindu temples in India ban women from the religious process, disempowering them and dissuading them from participating in religious society. In 1991, the Kerala High Court ruled that in order to respect the essential rites of temples whose chief deity is Ayyappan, women should not be allowed to enter outside of the main pilgrimage seasons. The gender restriction is connected to what some call the “myth of Ayyappan.” In this myth, the male god Vishnu takes on a female form to conceive the deity Ayyappan, who shares companionship only with males. Women may only worship this god once male worshippers cease visiting the temple, effectively excluding them from this religious space.

One such temple is the Sabarimala Temple, a site of recent controversy. In 2016, a social media outcry with the hashtag #RightToPray, raised awareness of the discrimination against women in holy places. The Indian Young Lawyers’ Association filed a petition to repeal the exclusion of women of childbearing age from the temple. In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of India ruled that Sabarimala must allow female worshippers to enter the temple and that the exclusion of women from holy sites is unconstitutional.

After the ruling and controversy surrounding women’s rights in India, members of the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association received death threats, A lawyer representing the Sabarimala authorities attempted to explain his client’s position: “You can’t look at the issue from the angle of worshippers alone. It has to be seen from the point of view of the god being worshipped, a celibate”.

Tradition alone cannot explain why women have been banned from the temple, however. Before 1991, women were allowed to enter the Sabarimala temple .  Even after the 2016 ruling allowed women to once again enter this space, local protesters continue to deny them access, reinforcing the view that gender politics, and not tradition, is driving women’s exclusion.

Orthodox Christianity: Avoiding temptation or reinforcing harmful stereotypes?

“Meeting of Russian Orthodox Church Bishops' Council.” President of Russia Office, 2017.

“Meeting of Russian Orthodox Church Bishops’ Council.” Photo: President of Russia Office, 2017.

Orthodox Christian churches provide a further example of religious institutions that have deliberately segregated men and women. Despite the church defending its position as an effort to avoid temptation between sexes, many see this segregation as a means to reinforce gender stereotypes. In most Orthodox churches, congregations are separated  to discuss the different lessons taught to males and females. For example, men talk about coping with lust and pornography, while women discuss body image issues.

Tailoring moral lessons by sex promotes gender stereotypes and gender absolutes, with no room for overlap or acknowledgment that both genders can struggle with body image or lust. We argue that the church is reinforcing the message that these “sins” or weaknesses are genetic and therefore cannot be overcome – an example of a “boys will be boys” mentality. Explaining character failings as driven by inherent gender differences becomes a way of excusing moral failures.

Countries with a majority Orthodox population report more conservative views on gender roles than countries with more liberal Christian populations. For example, a majority of Armenians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Russians, and Belarusians agreed that women have a responsibility to society to bear children.  In Orthodox-majority countries, 42% of surveyed residents responded that women should  always obey their husbands, while only 25% of those in countries without an Orthodox majority responded the same way.

This is in part due to the Pauline teachings, which state that women are best suited to nurturing and submissive supporting roles, rather than leadership positions. While Christian women across the world are on average more devout than their male counterparts, conservative social views in Orthodox-majority countries help explain why women are disproportionately underrepresented in the Orthodox Church leadership.

The Orthodox Christian Church, in separating men and women for church services, becomes a site of gendered space. Separating men and women can cause discomfort for families with children, or for mixed-sex partnerships where one person is new to the congregation. In some Orthodox churches, women are not allowed to participate in church life or enter holy places during their menstruation due to their perceived “uncleanliness”. The physical separation of sexes within the Orthodox church is a reminder to women that they play a lesser role in the Church itself.

As in the Hindu example cited above, tradition alone cannot explain discriminatory practices against women in the Christian Orthodox Church. Women deacons existed in the first thousand years of the Orthodox church, yet returning women to positions of power within the church hierarchy is not even a point of discussion today. Today, women participate in the Church only under the authority of male bishops and clergy. 

Muslim Mosques: Separate entrances

"Only For Women"

“Only for Women.” Photo: Quinn Dombrowski, 2010.

Islam has a tradition of separating genders, with women required to pray separated from the men in a prayer space. This division is evident in the Dogramacizade Mosque in Ankara, built in 2007. The women’s prayer space, which is on the mezzanine and out of sight of the main prayer hall, is much smaller than the men’s. Women can see into the main prayer hall through lattices that hide them from the men. The mezzanine segregates the women, while the lattices isolate them visually. The lattice and height of the mezzanine prevent the women from experiencing the glass dome that is intended to increase the worshippers’ spiritual experience. They also cannot see the imam as he leads the service.

Segregation in this mosque starts at the entrance. As in many other mosques, the male mosque-goers enter from the main door on axis with the prayer hall while the females enter from a side door. The infamy of secondary entrances for female worshippers is so great that bloggers have created online visual diaries of such spaces. The lesser entrance reinforces the notion that Muslim women’s religious devotion is not as significant as that of men.

Tradition cannot account for the separation of men and women in the mosque. The director of the New Muslims Project, Batool Al-Toma, said that while it is believed that men and women have always prayed separately, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, both sexes had access to and occupied the same space. Islam began with everyone able to enjoy the same quality of worship.

In 2009, just a few years after Dagramacizade was completed, a very different mosque opened in Istanbul. Sakirin Mosque is believed to be the first mosque designed by a woman, architect Zeynep Fadillioglu. Confronting the male-dominant spatial organization of the mosque, Fadillioglu designed one of the best spots of the mosque for women. Instead of relegating women to an empty corner or a stuffy basement, as is commonly done in mosque architecture, Fadillioglu created a balcony with a clear view of the mihrab, or “door to Mecca”. Crystal droplets of a chandelier hang above women’s heads . The railings of the women’s balcony are of lace-like mesh, with an unusual level of transparency that minimizes the impact of physical segregation. The mosque has become a triumph to Islamic women, a place of equality, and a celebration of worship.

Aspects of the Sakirin Mosque

“Aspects of the Sakirin Mosque.” Photo: Charles Roffey, 2011.

Fadillioglu has gone on to design four more mosques: two in Qatar, and two in Bahrain. Perhaps this is a signal of change; the women’s rights movement has finally come to Islamic traditions.

The possibilities of this change extend far beyond Islamic teachings. As  Daphne Spain argues in her 1994 book, Gendered Spaces, “Status is embedded in spatial arrangements so that changing space potentially changes the status hierarchy and changing status potentially changes spatial institutions.”

When so much power is wrapped up in tradition and in religious beliefs, it is possible to spark change in the treatment of women by changing the way gender roles play out in places of worship. As designers, we have the opportunity to change the power roles expressed in sacred architecture by taking a self-conscious approach to gendered design. We argue that spatial access is a form of women’s agency. Through advocating for equal access to sacred architecture, we advocate for an equality of opportunities between women and men.

About the Authors:

Mona Mirzaie, Stella Murray and Olivia Shotyk are graduate students in the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. Their course “Ethics in the Built Environment”, taught by Professor Alexandra Staub, encouraged them to examine gendered architecture and to take a stance on women’s right to occupy space.

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