The Limited Empowerment of Women in Black Spiritual Churches: An Alternative Vehicle to Religious Leadership

Women's Role in Historic Religious and Political Movements

“…It is reasonable to believe that these factors were significant for the mobilization of women to religious collective action. This finding supports other studies, which have suggested that the increasing proportion of females in religious groups tends to be related to opportunities and equality available to women (Baer 1994;Wright 1994).…”

“…Further, work has been conducted on the role of women in English religious life (Cowman 1996), the status of women among early Spiritualists, Anabaptists, Quakers, and radical Puritans (Baer 1994;Irwin 1979), Shakers (Bainbridge 1982), and various communitarian groups (Wright 1994). With the exception of a few, (Baer 1994;Stark 1997;Wright 1994), most of these studies tend to describe the role of women within the various religious movements. They seldom attempt to explain their attractiveness to women, nor do they focus upon the possible effects of female participation on movement success or failure.…”

“…By doing so, the focus is shifted away from the qualities of the women toward the qualities of the movement's organization. In fact, some studies (Baer 1994;Wright 1994) have linked the proportion of females in religious groups to organizational factors, such as opportunities and equality available to women.…”

Shouldering the Burden of Redemption: How the ““Fashion”” of Wearing Capes Developed in Ultra-Orthodox Society

“…Studies have shown that these movements, to emphasize their separateness from the general society and their self-identity as a counterculture, may criticize the society's accepted genderbased division of labor and its prevalent perceptions of women's status. 59 Similarly, most of the groups that the cape-wearers belong to are interested in highlighting their separateness and therefore subscribe to traditional gender roles, in contradistinction to the prevalent trend in Western societies. Under these conditions, the women have only limited channels for demonstrating their religious and spiritual abilities, empowering themselves and attaining self-fulfillment.…”

Spirit-Writing and the Development of Chinese Cults

“…In one case, however, woraen adopted deities which had fallen out of fashion as the males assimilated Westem religious culture, and were the principal shamans of these dtitir ~~en the men returned to them during a nativistic reaction against Westem culture during ah antt colonial revok (Lewis 1989: 127). Female shamans have lost ground to male religious leaders, howevr durlng the instttuttonalization of some shamanistic movements (eg., Baer 1993).…”