Gender and Christianity in Modern Europe: Beyond the Feminization Thesis

by Patrick Pasture (Editor), Jan Art (Editor), Thomas Buerman (Editor)

Overview

Since the 1970s the feminization thesis has become a powerful trope in the rewriting of the social history of Christendom. However, this 'thesis' has triggered some vehement debates, given that men have continued to dominate the churches, and the churches themselves have reacted to the association of religion and femininity, often formulated by their critics, by explicitly focusing their appeal to men.In this book the authors critically reflect upon the use of concepts like feminization and masculinization in relation to Christianity. By presenting case studies that adopt different gendered approaches with regard to Christian, mainly Catholic discourses and practices, the authors capture multiple ‘feminizations' and ‘masculinizations' in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. In particular, it becomes clear that the idea that Christianity took on ‘characteristically feminine' values and practices cannot withstand the conclusion that what is considered ‘manly' or ‘feminine' depends on time, place, and context, and on the reasons why gendered metaphors are used.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789058679123
Publisher:	Leuven University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2012
Series:	KADOC Studies on Religion, Culture and Society , #10
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Beyond the feminization thesis.: Gendering the history of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Patrick Pasture 7

The Catholic poor relief discourse and the feminization of the Caritas in early nineteenth-century Germany Bernhard Schneider 35

Celibate or married priests? Polemical gender discourse in nineteenth-century Catholicism Angela, Berlis 57

The Cult of the Virgin Mary, or the feminization of the male element in the Roman Catholic Church? A psycho-historical hypothesis Jan Art 73

The 'Sportsman' and the 'Muscular Christian'. Rival ideals in nineteenth-century England Hugh McLeod 85

Lions and lambs at the same time! Belgian Zouave stories and examples of religious masculinity Thomas Buerman 107

'From that moment on, I was a man!'. Images of the Catholic male in the Sacred Heart devotion Tine Van Osselaer 121

Repertoires of Catholic manliness in the Netherlands (1850-1940). A case study of the Dutch Dominicans Marit Monteiro 137

The boys of Saint Dominic's.: Catholic boys' culture at a minor seminary in interwar Holland Marieke Smulders 157

Female soldiers and the battle for God.: Gender ambiguities and a Dutch Catholic conversion movement, 1921-1942 Marjet Derks 173

A feminized Church?: German Catholic women, piety, and domesticity, 1918-1938 Michael E. O'Sullivan 191

Bibliography 212

Index 236