GENDER AND RELIGION

Question 1

Gender and religion

Answer 1

• Despite the fact that religions tend to disadvantage women, statistics suggest that women actually express higher levels of religiosity compared to men.
• They are also more likely to join new religious movements and new age movements.

Question 2

Explanations for gender differences in religiosity

Answer 2

• Socialisation, motherhood and femininity
• Life expectancy
• Status frustration

Question 3

Greeley, 1995
Socialisation, motherhood and femininity

Answer 3

• Suggests that caring tends to be associated with a more religious outlook.
• If women have been socialised to be caring and nurturing then perhaps they are also more likely to be more religious.

Question 4

Miller and Hoffmann,
Socialisation, motherhood and femininity

Answer 4

• Suggest that gender socialization means females are brought up to be more submissive and nurturing than males, and more involved with feelings, cooperation and caring.
• These factors may explain women’s greater involvement in religion

Question 5

Halman and Draulans, 2006
Socialisation, motherhood and femininity

Answer 5

• Note that the role of guardian, looking after the home, family and children, give women a greater focus on the family, and it is women, rather than men, who are more likely to feel it necessary to take charge of their children’s moral development and to introduce them to approved social values, including religious beliefs.

Question 6

Davie, 1994
Socialisation, motherhood and femininity

Answer 6

• Suggests that women associate God with love and forgiveness, which are linked with traditional femininity and family roles.
• In contrast, men associate God more commonly with power and control.
• If women are less concerned with power, this may explain their greater involvement in religion.

Question 7

Davie, 1998
Socialisation, motherhood and femininity

Answer 7

• Argues that women are more exposed to life, death and the changes of life due to their biological involvement through childbirth and through their greater association in paid caring jobs (teachers, nurses and social workers, working with the young, old, sick and vulnerable).
• These are also central issues for many religions; thus, if women are more aware of the vulnerability of human life, they are also more attuned to the spiritual dimensions of human existence.

Question 8

Bruce, 1996

Answer 8

Socialisation, motherhood and femininity
- Suggests that women’s socialization into the nurturing aspects related to traditional femininity and child-bearing experiences make them less goal-oriented or domineering and more cooperative and more caring.
* This would explain their greater involvement not just in the mainstream denominations, but also in religious sects, and the New Age ideas.
* These include ideas such as, natural solutions and therapies associated with well-being like meditation, horoscopes and tarot.

Question 9

Life expectancy

Answer 9

• Women are more likely than men to face social deprivation and marginality, and may experience more disillusionment and alienation from wider society.
• These circumstances mean that women may seek and find some solace in religious groups, and particularly in religious sects and new religious movements which provide theodicies explaining their feelings, as well as solutions and support.

Question 10

Status frustration

Answer 10

• Status frustration may be experienced by some women, who lack personal fulfilment or status as a result of being confined to the home by the constraints of housework and childcare, or are in unsatisfying jobs.
• Religious participation, particularly in religious sects or New Age cults, may help to overcome or compensate for this.

Question 11

Glock & Stark, 1969
(Like Stark & Bainbridge - 1985)

Answer 11

• they argue that people participate in religion because of the ‘compensation’ it offers
  They argue that as women are more deprived, they are more likely to hold religious beliefs
  3 types of deprivation
• Organisimic deprivation: deprived physically - prone to ill health
• Ethical deprivation: tend to be morally conservative, more likely to think the world is in moral decline and so may join a sect to separate themselves from world
• Social deprivation: economically poor - more likely to join a sect as they offer an ‘escape’

Question 12

Brierley, 2005

Answer 12

• Found a decline in women’s participation finding that there was a 16.4% fall in Sunday church attendance for women aged 30-45 between 1990 and 2005

Question 13

Reasons for the decline in women’s participation

Answer 13

• Pressures of home life
• Paid employment
• Feminist values
• Family diversity

Question 14

Pressures of home life

Answer 14

• Pressures of home, family and work are very intense for women
• This age group (30-45) is more likely to have a young family.
  With these responsibilities, religion can seem distant or improbable

Question 15

Paid employment

Answer 15

• 2/3 of women are found to be in paid employment
• 1 in 3 women in this age bracket (30-45) work on Sundays
• This makes it hard to attend church
• Paid employment also gives women a new source of identity beyond those of family and religion

Question 16

Feminist values

Answer 16

*Women have begun to reject traditional subordinate gender roles
*Religion can be seen to be linked with the subordinate treatment of women which may have led many women to reject traditional religion. Conversely NRMs offer to empower their members.

Question 17

Family diversity

Answer 17

• There has been an increase in single parent families, reconstituted families and cohabitating partnerships
• These are all under-provided for / discourage by the church, which may have led some people to reject traditional religion as it is seen to be ‘old-fashioned’