Women, agency and religion: social and legal issues in the Mediterranean public space

Agency and religion play a very specific role in regulating the role and rights of women in the Mediterranean region public sphere. The possibility of women’s agency to determine their own life choices finds opposing dynamics between the two shores of Mare Nostrum. In both secular and religious contexts, new feminist thinking and a new conception of women are emerging to redefine normative and social roles. While constitutional and private law reforms describe an arduous but successful affirmation of gender equality, a new understanding of women’s agency is changing religions from within. Women’s theological reflection emancipates and provides an important framework for interpreting internal dynamics, positions and roles. In external contexts, this process is also transforming religious women’s participation. The Arab Springs has highlighte a new role for Muslim women as agents of political and social change. In Southern Europe, religious women have developed a new form of active parti