Virtual Thematic Workshop on Religion and Peacebuilding: Exploring Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts

Concept
March is Women’s month. The International Women’s Day 2021 has chosen the theme #choosetochallenge. It is a call to everyone – women and men – to challenge anything that hinders women from flourishing. Among the hindrances are inequity and gender bias. ICF, being a project that seeks to empower young people to build peace in their localities, resonates with the call.

ICF responds to the call by organizing a virtual seminar-workshop on Religion and Peacebuilding. This activity will focus on the religion’s sacred texts. ICF chooses to challenge young people to discover the hardly discussed aspects of religions. Religions and their respective scriptures teach peace. Yet, these scriptures also have “hidden” enslaving dimensions that create unpeace, especially for women. As adherents regard the scriptures as the word of the Divine, many of these subjugating texts remain uncontested. In some cases, adherents misinterpret the supposedly liberating teachings for their interests. Religion can only be a resource for peace when it interrogates the enslaving dimension of their respective traditions and scriptures. This requires an awareness of the scriptures’ androcentric and misogynistic parts that reinforce the patriarchal system in many Asian cultures and societies. Certainly, there will be no peace if society does not treat women justly as human beings.

To concretize its response to the call #choosetochallenge, ICF will hold a seminar-workshop on “Religion and Peacebuilding: Exploring Patriarchy, Androcentrism, and Misogyny in the Sacred Texts.” The sessions are set the four (4) Thursdays of March 2021. Why hold the session on Thursdays? ICF chooses to hold the virtual seminars on Thursdays to carry on with the campaign of the World Council of Churches called #ThursdaysinBlack. WCC calls upon women and men to wear black on Thursdays to indicate one’s commitment to be part of the global movement in “resisting attitudes and practices that permit rape and violence, and to “show respect for women who are resilient in the face of injustice and violence.” (https://www.oikumene.org/en/get-involved/thursdays-in-black)

What is ICF?
The Interfaith Cooperation Forum is a project of Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs based in Hong Kong. Its overarching goal is to equip young people in Asia with knowledge and skills so that they will be able to contribute to the peacebuilding efforts in their communities. Before the pandemic, ICF held its activities face-to-face, in different countries. The participants, usually 15-20 young people from different religious traditions would gather physically. The ICF alumni, those young people who have gone through any of the ICF-initiated activities, would help in organizing the activity when it is held in their respective country. Since a physical gathering is impossible during the pandemic, ICF has since organized virtual gatherings and made it open to participants and interested persons coming from different countries and the public.

Objectives:
This virtual seminar-workshop aims that the participants — women and men — from various religious traditions
will be able to –

1.  open up to explore the role of women according to the sacred texts;
2.  identify accounts or stories in the sacred texts that are oppressive to women;
3. explain the impact of patriarchy, androcentrism, misogyny in religions to the efforts to build peaceable communities; and
4. for those interested, create a doable proposal on how to help their respective communities examine or wrestle with the androcentric and misogynist texts of religions’ scriptures that reinforces patriarchal culture.

Who can participate in the Virtual Seminar?

The Public
ICF welcomes anyone – women and men – interested to join the Virtual Seminar-Workshop sessions. The interested person, however, needs to inform ICF ahead of time by registering and indicating the sessions they wish to attend. ICF will send the invitation and link to those who signify their interest.

Please register under the following link two days prior to the session you are interested in:
Registration for Nonregular Participants

For those interested to join as Regular Participants
ICF welcomes twenty young people from Asia to join as regular participants of the Virtual Seminar- Workshop. ICF will maintain a balance of gender and religious affiliations. It behoves the regular participants to –

1. enter the room on time;
2. read the provided materials as a preparation for each session;
3. submit a reflection paper after each session;
4. share their reflections during the participant-led discussion from 07:00- 09:00 pm on Tuesdays after each Thursday session, and implement their proposal (see objective #4) individually or as a group in their respective locations.

Please register until March 1st to attend as a regular participant:
Registration for Regular Participants

ICF will help defray the cost of the internet connection for those who complete all the sessions with the Resource Persons and the Participant-led discussions. Those who submit proposals in line with Objective #4 will receive a minimal subsidy for the activity that they plan to do.

Suggested Flow of the Sessions
*Virtual room will be open 15 minutes for the preliminaries — orientation on house rules, announcements, and introduction of participants.