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WOMEN AND RELIGION IN THE WEST What is the relationship between women and secularization? In the West, women are abandoning traditional religion. Yet they continue to make up the majority of religious adherents. Accounting for this seeming paradox is the focus of this volume. If women undergird the foundations of religion but are leaving in large numbers, why are they leaving? Where are they going? What are they doing? And what’s happening to those who remain? Women and Religion in the West addresses a neglected yet crucial issue within the debate on religious belonging and departure: the role of women in and out of religion and spirituality. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship between gender and secularization, the book moves its focus to in-depth examination of women’s experiences based on data from key recent qualitative work on women and religion. This volume addresses not only women’s place in and out of Christianity (the normal focus of secularization theories) but also alternative spiritualities and Islam, asking how questions of secularization differ between faith systems. This book offers students and scholars of religion, sociology, and women’s studies, as well as interested general readers, an accessible work on the religiosity of western women and contributes fresh analyses of the rapidly shifting terrain of contemporary religion and spirituality.
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION IN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE SERIES IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BSA SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION STUDY GROUP BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Series editor: Pink Dandelion and the publications committee Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series editors: Douglas Davies and Richard Fenn The British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group began in 1975 and provides the primary forum in Britain for scholarship in the sociology of religion. The nature of religion remains of key academic interest and this series draws on the latest worldwide scholarship in compelling and coherent collections on critical themes. Secularisation and the future of religion; gender; the negotiation and presentation of religious identities, beliefs and values; and the interplay between group and individual in religious settings are some of the areas addressed. Ultimately, these books reflect not just on religious life but on how wider society is affected by the enduring religious framing of human relationships, morality and the nature of society itself. This series is part of the broader Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series edited by Douglas Davies and Richard Fenn. Other titles published in the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Series Reading Religion in Text and Context Reflections of Faith and Practice in Religious Materials Edited by Elisabeth Arweck and Peter Collins ISBN 978-0-7546-5482-7 (Hbk) Materializing Religion Expression, Performance and Ritual Edited by Elisabeth Arweck and William Keenan ISBN 978-0-7546-5094-2 (Hbk) A Sociology of Spirituality Edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter C. Jupp ISBN 978-0-7546-5458-2 (Hbk) Religion and the Individual Belief, Practice, Identity Edited by Abby Day ISBN 978-0-7546-6122-1 (Hbk)
Women and Religion in the West Challenging Secularization
Edited by
KRISTIN AUNE University of Derby, UK SONYA SHARMA University of British Columbia, Canada GISELLE VINCETT University of Edinburgh, UK
© Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Giselle Vincett 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Giselle Vincett have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors o