Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Drawing on life story research in the UK and the Netherlands, this article foregrounds women’s experiences of sexual embodiment in leaving religion. It approaches religious exit as a trajectory of transformation entangled with power and relationality. The article considers sexual embodiment as shaped by discourses of boundary-making that construct notions of religion, gender, sexuality and race. From this perspective, the article analyses women’s sexual stories of religious exit focusing on modesty, purity, sex and abuse. Its main argument is that women’s trajectories are involved in undoing religion and redoing gender, sexuality and race. The article encourages scholars of leaving religion to take gender, sexuality, race and embodiment seriously as formative for religious exit. Moreover, it calls for scholars of (lived) religion and gender to pay more attention to those who cannot or do not stay.
Source: Religion
Author: Nella van den Brandt
Institution: Coventry University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4405107549