This study examines the relationship between religious edicts and gender roles. Specifically, this study empirically
focuses on, under what conditions do religious edicts shape gender roles, either prescribing or proscribing them. In
contrast to other studies, this study considers how women's mobilization in particular societies moderates the effects
of religious edicts or surpasses them, providing additional social space to deal with the construction of gender roles.
Using literature that focuses on effects of religious edicts and formations of gender roles, this paper uses a
comparative-case approach, looking at Turkey (high women mobilization), Iran (moderate women mobilization),
and Afghanistan (weak women mobilization). Therefore, religious edicts and women's movements in a particular
society are key causal factors determining gender roles in a society. The study concludes that the religious edicts
have a huge effect on gender roles in society if the women's movement is obsolete or weak in mobilization; but if
the women's movement is of equal or greater strength than the religious edict, then religious edicts has little to no
effect in promoting gender roles