Abstract
This paper presents findings from research on young adults in the UK from diverse religious backgrounds. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews, and video diaries it assesses how religious young adults understood and managed the tensions in popular discourse between gender equality as an enshrined value and aspirational narrative, and religion as purportedly instituting gender inequality. We show that, despite varied understandings, and the ambivalence and tension in managing ideal and practice, participants of different religious traditions and genders were committed to gender equality. Thus, they viewed gender-unequal practices within their religious cultures as an aberration from the essence of religion. In this way, they firmly rejected the dominant discourse that religion is inherently antithetical to gender equality.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 249-265 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | European Journal of Women's Studies |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 17 Feb 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2017 |
Bibliographical note
The final, definitive version of this paper will be published in European Journal of Women's Studies, 2016 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © Page, S-J & Yip, AK-TFunding: Arts & Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council under the Religion and Society Programme (Award no. AH/G014051/1).
Keywords
- gender equality
- division of labour
- women’s religious leadership
- religious stigmatization
- agency