Gender Equality Projects promoting gender equality within the development sector have been especially impacted by assumptions about religion. There has been and continues to be an underlying presumption that religious actors are inherently antagonistic towards gender equality, that religious narratives reinforce patriarchal norms and social structures, and that if individuals and communities identify themselves (or are identified by others) by their religious affiliation, this automatically precludes action on gender equality, or at the very least improving the situation of women and LGBTQI+ people will be slow and face

Religion in International Aid and Humanitarianism 73 multiple obstacles. A strong binary opposition between religion and gender equality is present within development and humanitarianism, shaped by secular feminist attitudes: religion and gender equality cannot co-exist. Religious actors and institutions will oppose gender equality. These implicit assumptions are premised on the understanding of religion as traditional, oppressive, and homogenous (Daulatzai 2004).

It cannot be denied that religious actors, identities, and narratives have often either opposed gender equality or been deployed in opposition to efforts to promote the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people. Yet to approach all religious actors with the prior assumption that they uphold patriarchal values and gender inequality is both limiting and misleading. It is limiting in the sense that religious actors are often highly influential in their communities and consequently are often key to transforming social attitudes around gender identities and gender roles (Bartelink 2021). It is misleading in that it overlooks the important work being done by many self-identified religious actors to challenge and overturn patriarchal structures, traditional gender norms, and damaging attitudes towards sexuality and gender-based violence that are particularly harmful for women and LGBTQI+ people. It also precludes critique of secular agencies, organisations, and contexts that also struggle with

The problem is not religion, and nor is it secularism. Sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy are the problems in and of themselves. These problems and attitudes exist in all contexts, though they are arguably more subtle and insidious in some contexts than in others. They are often entangled with other social and political factors and ways of thinking, including religion, but they cut across the artificial distinction of religion and secular (Scott 2018). Below, I include a brief discussion of the work of religious actors in development that provides an example of efforts to disrupt and challenge these assumed links between religion and conservative, traditional, patriarchal gender attitudes, one an international FBO, the other a national organisation working with diverse local communities in Indonesia.