10 Gender and Diversity: Intersections of Faith, Religion, and Spirituality

Religion and its associated dimensions of spirituality and faith have long been at the centre of intellectual and academic critical movements, despite often being eschewed from management and organisations. From the secular and modernisation perspectives, religion was mostly seen as a burden impeding countries –and their women– to move forward in an imagined path to real modernisation based on economic and political freedoms (Bruce, 2002; Norris & Inglehart, 2011). On the opposite side of the theoretical spectrum, Marxist Feminist proponents saw religion as an instrument to perpetuate patriarchal values preventing women to fully enter the polity as equal players. Women were positioned as vulnerable and oppressed within the limiting structures of faith. Yet, the world faith developments dialogue and many organisations in the current century seek to affect a worldview transformation, to check unlimited and unsustainable growth and corporate greed through various faith initiatives (Pio et al., 2021). This chapter discusses some approaches, empirical findings, new theorisations, and future challenges for individuals and organisations in understanding of gender, diversity and their intersections with faith, religion and spirituality.