March 2019

sEVENTH PANEL DISCUSSION OF FER DISCOURSES:
"Which sex has God?"


The seventh panel discussion of FER Discourses Initiative was held on 13 of March, 2019. The panel opened the area of the interdisciplinar discussion about the topic named ''Which sex has God?''. Aynura Akbas (MA of History) was the keynote speaker. She recently returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina after graduation on transformation of the female Muslim identities and the role of the conflict in this process. Aynura Akbas investigated the topic multiperspectively, pointing out the way the Western culture has a long tradition about talking and thinking God through the male sex. She stressed that feminists both female and male scientists in the field of theology are saying that the concept of God anthropomorphized through the male sex and symbol of the Father is influencing the general position of the women in society in comparison with regard to men.

The feminist approach, according to Aynura Akbas, is based on the critics of the androcentric image of God concept in the Western culture. The feministic argument says that any picture about God that is normed on male identity actually affirms and points out male sex as closer and more similar to something relating to divine. Due to, as she pointed, women that accept anthropomorphised God image being male sex God, can internalize personal gender identity as inferior and in that way they can percieve it as being incompatible with what God is. But, by caring analysis and deanthropomorphic reconstruction of God image, equality and dignity of all people can be promoted.