Conference, Faith, Gender and Culture

 The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (USA) and Henry Martyn Institute (India) organised a South East Asia Conference on Gender Justice on the theme "Faith, Gender and Culture: Reimagining Just communities ", in Hyderabad. This was a very interesting conference for Feminists by and large have ignored religion and what it means to women. Today  gender injustice is  a matter of critical concern and challenge within our communities. This Conference saw the participants coming from  Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, and the United States.This was an attempt at  speaking and listening to one another. My paper was on  Hinduism and gender, Shahida Murtaza focused on   Islam and gender. There were also talks  and papers on Sikhism and women by Dr. Raminder Kaur and Christianity and women by Dr. Shiluinla Jamir.  It was interesting to note that inspite of the difference in  relgions there was a commonality  with regards to women for all these religions were interpreted and developed in  a patriarchal society.