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Religion and social groups - Coggle Diagram
Religion and social groups
Women and the new age
Women associated with 'nature' :
Women are assigned a 'healing' role... ex, childbirth
Bruce
... 'child-rearing makes women...'
...less aggressive and goal-oriented
...more cooperative and caring
Men wish to achieve - women wish to feel
Could be why they are attracted to New age movements?
New ages movements celebrate 'healing' and the 'natural'
Gives women a sense of 'high status'/'worth'
Heelas and Woodhead
found that 80% of participants in hollistic milieu (Kendal) were female
New age emphasises importance of 'authenticity'
Doesn't necessitate acting out roles
Women are attracted because they are more likely to view gender roles as 'restrictive'
'The individual sphere'
Women in paid work experience 'role conflict'
Instrumental role in public sphere
Expressive role in private sphere
Woodhead
argues that the new age adds a third sphere
Hence, the 'individual sphere'
The individual sphere is concerned with...
Individual anatomy
Personal growth
Bypasses role conflict
Creates a new identity for women
Gives women a sense of 'wholeness'
Callum
argues...
New age religions exphasise subjective experience over external authority
New age appeals to women's wish for autonomy
HOWEVER
women may also be drawn to fundamentalism because of gender role certainty
Bruce
identifies class differences
Working class women believe in...
Women being given a passive role
An all-powerful God
Fatalistic ideas
Superstition
Horoscopes
Lucky charms
Middle class women believe in...
Control of their own destiny
Recent trends
Women's rejection of traditional subordinated gender roles
Lead them to reject tradition religion at the same time
Decline in participation in religious activities in the UK
Pentecostal gender paradox
Rapid growth
Regarded as patriarchal
Men: Head of household & heads of church
Pentecostalism has proved attractive to women
Created the Pentecostal gender paradox
Reasons
in latin america
Widespread culture of machismo
20-40% of income on:
alcohol
tabacco
gambling
prostitutes
Explanation
Men are pressured to drop machismo
By pastor and church community
Raises standard of living for women and children
Less growth in the West
It does not offer women anything
Carol Drogus (1994)
Offical Pentacostal doctrine grants men control
Equal relationships are often encouraged
Particularly significicant growth in latin america
Risk, socialisation and roles (Miller and Hoffman)
Risk: men less risk-averse than women
Take the chance that religion is : :red_cross:
Socialisation: women socialised to be passive, caring and obedient
Qualities are valued by religion
Women more likely to work part-time/be caregivers
More time for religion
Greeley
: Being caregivers increase women's religiosity because it involves responsibility for their welfare
Davie
: women are closer to birth and death
closer to ultimate questions
Paid work
Bruce:
religion has been pushed out of the workplace (where men tend to be) and into the home (where women tend to be)
Women more concerned with private sphere of family and personal life
Making women more religious
However,
Brown
says women were withdrawing from religion in the 1960’s due to more women taking on masculine roles in the public sphere.
Despite the decline, women were religious than men because:
Religion have values of caring
Churches became feminised (due to men's withdrawal from religion)
Woodhead
: introduction of women priests in 1994 and women bishops in 2015 reinforced this
Ethnicity
UK: Multi-ethnic & religious
72% christians
Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs
religious participation higher in minorities
However, still decline
especially in 2nd gen
Reasons
Cultural Defence
Bruce
:place_of_worship: offers support in hostile environment
Bird
Commnuity solidarity
Cope with oppression and racism
Brierley
:arrow_up: of :church: catering for specific nationalities & languages
Cultural Transition
Herberg
High lvls of religious participation in 1st gen immigrants
Ease transition with support and sense of community
Bruce
Similar pattern as Herberg for :flag-ie:, :flag-jm:, muslim and hindu into :flag-gb:
CLASS
Marxist and neo-Marxist explanation
Sects: socially disadvantaged
Denominations: upper working and lower middle class
Cults: successful people who have more time
No official figures
AGE
Trend
For any given group (apart from aged 65 and over), there is an ongoing fall in church attendance
Brierley:
By 2025, 15-19 y/o will be 2.5% of all churchgoers and half of all English churches have no one under 20
Under 15 y/o more liekly to go to church but this is is bc they are forced, but this will go down soon
English Church Census provides this data
Reasons for age differences
The ageing effect (Kendal project, Heelas)
Ppl become more interested in spirituality as they age -> more likely to go to church
The period of cohort effect
Depend on the period they were born in, i.e war or rapid social changes
Secularisation
Voas and Crocket
: Secularisation is the main reason
Arweck and Beckford
: 'virtual collapse of religious secularisation'
in 1950s, traditional Sunday schools enrolled a third of 14y/o but now all has disappeared
Voas: even parents have only a 50/50 chance of raising their child to be a churchgoer as an adult