In this collection of articles, Kari Elisabeth Børresen and Kari Vogt point out the convergence of androcentric gender models in the Christian and Islamic traditions. They provide extensive surveys of recent research in women's studies, with bio-socio-cultural genderedness as their main analytical category. Matristic writers from late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are analysed in terms of a female God language, reshaping traditional theology. The persisting androcentrism of 20th-century Christianity and Islam, as displayed in institutional documents promoting women's specific functions, is critically exposed. This volume presents a pioneering investigation of correlated Christian and Islamic gender models which has hitherto remained uncompared by women's studies in religion.This work will serve scholars and students in the humanistic disciplines of theology, religious studies, Islamic studies, history of ideas, Medieval philosophy and women's history.

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I Survey of recent research.- Women's Studies of the Christian Tradition.- Etudes relatives aux femmes et à leer rôle dans les cultures musulmanes du VIIeau XVesiècle.- II Matristics: Late Antique, Early Christian and Islamic Foremothers.- "The Hierophant of Philosophy" - Hypatia of Alexandria.- La moniale folle du monistère des Tabennésiotes.- The Desert Mothers: Female Asceticism in Egypt from the 4th to the 6th Century.- "Becoming Male": a Gnostic, Early Christian and Islamic Metaphor.- III Matristics: Mothers of the Church.- Ancient and Medieval Church Mothers.- Birgitta of Sweden: a Model of Theological Inculturation.- Julian of Norwich: a Model of Feminist Theology.- Caritas Pirckheimer et Vittoria Colonna.- IV Féminologie institutionelle.- Image ajustée, typologie arrêtée: Analyse critique deMulieris dignitatem.- Catholicisme et Islam: Une réthorique apologétique commune à propos de la femme.