International Journal of Gender & Women's Studies

The Sacred and the Secular: Separation of Church (Mosque) and State & Implications for Women’s Rights
Shawna E. Sweeney

Abstract
This study is a cross-national, longitudinal exploration of the relationships between religion, state, and three key dimensions of women’s rights – economic, social, and political – on a sample of 158 countries from 1981 to 2005 controlling for alternative explanations of women’s rights. A five point ordinal indicator of the level of institutional secularism is developed to evaluate these relationships. The components of this indicator are also disaggregated to determine their individual effects on each category of women’s rights. This is important since core theories are lacking on how the various components of religion affect women's rights together or in isolation. A key finding is that secular institutional arrangements promoteallthree types of women’srights while religious in cursionsin the political spherereduce protection of theserights. Furthermore, countries with Islamic legal systems and those with predominant religions tend to discriminate against women in the enjoyment of their rights. Taken together, the findings reveal that limiting the influence of religion in politics seems to be the key to the expansion of women’s rights in most societies.

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