The purpose of this study is to with a gender perspective examine how often men and women are mentioned and how they are being portrayed in the religions Islam and Judaism in textbooks made for religious studies. To examine this a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis on three textbooks have been made and the following questions have been answered. How often are men and women being mentioned in the chapters about Islam and Judaism? Can the distribution be seen as even/equal between the genders? And how are women and men being portrayed in the chapters? Are they being portrayed and talked about in an equal way?

Earlier studies have shown that it’s mostly men that are being mentioned and written about in both religious history and in textbooks made for religious studies. The religious texts are being interpreted by men and also written by and for men. This makes the man a kind of prototype for the religious person while the women have been and partly still is invisible in these contexts.

The study concludes that men are being mentioned more often than women in the textbooks, which doesn’t compare with the goals set for a quantitative gender equality. It also concludes that the men are being portrayed as the active religious man while the women is being positioned beside the men, which makes the female religious practice partly invisible. To position the women beside the men is also to give them a subordinate and an outmoded role.