Girls & Gods Review: Feminism & Religion

Girls & Gods effectively, bluntly, and fairly engages in discussions with women to ask a very complicated question: can feminism and religion coexist?

Though there is a loose thread connecting all these discussions together, the focus is mainly on collecting perspectives from different kinds of feminists, from the purely secular to the old-school faithful, driven by a very opinionated Shevchenko.

What conclusion does Girls & Gods ultimately come to? Well… nothing concrete. But that feels very much by design, especially when the subject matter is so complicated that no single film could cover everything there is to say. There is certainly a lean towards Shevchenko’s worldview, which heartily rejects religion in all forms and never comes to fully grasp how anyone can be feminist while believing in a higher power. That’s just an inevitability when one passionate person is leading the charge. (Well, her and directors Arash T. Riahi and Verena Soltiz.) But at no point does the documentary ever feel like it’s pushing you to take her side, because it doesn’t give any one of its interviewees the short end of the stick. 

And, most importantly, those interviewees give genuinely challenging insight, rather than coming across like close-minded, cherry-picked strawwomen for Shevchenko to easily shoot down. She pushes back in debates, but so do they, and for the most part, I didn’t pick up on any disrespect on her behalf. Maybe you could criticize her for how almost callously she acts towards Judaism or Islam in their entireties, which would be fair. But I didn’t get the sense that she felt that way towards any individual women within those groups.

This review is not the place to go if you want a competent breakdown of the roots of religion and how/whether they’ve created systemic oppression. But I think most people know that, at the very bare minimum, religion has been used as a means of manipulating people, silencing voices, and climbing over innocents for power, or genuinely misinterpreted to a psychotic degree. The questions from there are what Girls & Gods seeks to explore. Some feminists believe the fault lies solely within those individuals who twist such religions, while some denounce the religions themselves. Some believe there are ways that religion was born from good, got twisted, and can be reclaimed for its noble purpose, but others feel they are inherently evil and therefore can never be salvaged.

Abortion, the patriarchy, hijabs, sexuality, and the separation of church and state all have their own segments dedicated for discussion, and they all came with arguments that often got my gears turning. For example, one woman explains how wearing a hijab – clothing commonly seen as oppressive for women to wear – actually makes her feel empowered and protected, in the same way seatbelts protect people in cars. But then, it’s clearly expressed how and why hijabs are used in conjunction with religion, and the damage they can do to other women’s senses of expressive freedom. Another feminist states her belief that a woman should be proud to give birth and reject abortion, since birthing makes them biologically unique from men. But this same person also acknowledges that exceptions can be made.

When you hear every viewpoint laid out on the table, you’re free to interpret the people saying them however you want. Are you seeing women and feminists find true purpose in their faith, or are they all examples of how said faith has fed off people’s naivetes in order to remain intact for centuries? In the same way a narrative film like Women Talking can dig into the nuances and grey areas of what it means to be a woman in the world, so too does Girls & Gods as a documentary. If you believe in freedoms and rights for all women, and if you’re willing to hear out anyone you respectfully disagree with regarding how to attain those freedoms, you’ll very likely find something valuable to think about in this movie.

That commonality is what Girls & Gods is about. And it signifies so with an ending that, after crossing the wide spectrum of different waves of feminism, bridges the divides between them by illustrating one singular truth: every feminist we’ve seen, no matter how different, is trying to achieve the same thing. They all want equality for women. Inna Shevchenko herself understands this as she takes part in a visual that I frankly wouldn’t have thought she would at the start of the film. Through almost no spoken words, the film’s conclusion brings everything full circle and reminds its viewers that, as clichéd as it may sound, we’re all in this together.

If there’s one thing to fully criticize, it’s that Girls & Gods may be a little too inside baseball for anyone unfamiliar with religion’s most common criticisms. They’re obviously brought up, but it’s somewhat taken for granted that you’re starting the movie with Shevchenko’s level of understanding on the tumultuous birth and history of these institutions. This should not be your go-to, end-all-be-all educational resource. It’s more of a mirror to all well-meaning voices of feminism… but a really effective one. And though it may not be enticing for a world dead-set on painting every issue as having objectively one clear answer, it’s far more interesting and meaningful because of its more comprehensive approach.

Girls & Gods had its World Premiere at CPH DOX on March 23, 2025 and will be screened again on March 24-26.