Currently, there is simply nothing within religious studies that takes this proposal seriously and explores what dividends it might pay.
What Matters?
I conclude with a declaration. One ought to praise the labours and
achievements of the gender-critical turn in the study of religions, and one
ought to understand the genealogy of that critique. Much is owed to the
legacy of Kant, and much is owed to the feminist struggle for a liberated
world. Regrettably, the former increasingly constrains the aspirations of
the latter. Antirealism is ill-suited to the liberation of the world. The time is
crying out for a renewed thinking of the things-in-themselves and a revived
metaphysical realism. This need not entail naive or immature realism; the
errors of the past can be retained in memory. But it may need to be
speculative. There can be no paradigm shift in the study of religion or
gender until genuinely ontological questions are addressed.
