Catholic mothers and daughters: Resilient conversations
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, conversations between a group of white, middle class, adult Australian mothers and daughters are examined to disclose the symbolic dimensions that mark girlhood, womanhood, motherhood and the mother–daughter dyad within Catholic discourse. In their conversations, women unravel and produce understandings of themselves as women, and as mothers and daughters that operate at both a symbolic and real material level. The women in their intergenerational dialogue depict a visceral account of Catholic desire, guilt, pleasure, piety and anger. They offer insights into the curious patriarchal religious rituals; logic and superstition that shaped their Catholic upbringings and that still permeate their adult lives. For it becomes evident that they are still affected by, and living out, the intensity of this religious force. By constructing traces of the Catholic mother–daughter nexus which relates back to women's conversations, the intention is not to construct a closed off space but, rather, to construct a place in which women actively talk, listen and read, and by so doing come to a better understanding of their own social gendered embodied selves
Source: Culture and Religion
Author: Anne Keary
Institution: Deakin University
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2012441063