God Gave Us The Right: Conservative Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, and Orthodox Jewish Women Grapple with Feminism / Edition 1

by Christel Manning

Overview

What does it mean to be a religious conservative, particularly for women, in America today? While it appears that people are returning to conservative religion because they are fed up with the excesses of liberalism, including feminism, a closer look at the lives of religious conservatives reveals a more complex reality. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant communities, Christel Manning explores the diversity among women who have returned to tradition. Arguing that America has undergone profound cultural and economic changes in the last thirty years, which create tension between women's lives and traditional gender roles, she demonstrates that conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and Evangelical Protestants negotiate those tensions in different ways. Manning also shows that women in conservative religious communities share many of the same concerns as secular women.

Manning looks at how the religious communities profiled have been influenced by feminist values and describes the ways in which these women negotiate gender roles at work, religious services, and at home. She explains how they deal with the inconsistencies created by their attempts to integrate feminist and traditionalist norms. In highly accessible prose, Manning examines their attitudes towards the feminist movement, its impact on American culture, and the extent to which the women seek to resist it. God Gave Us the Right explains how these different views of feminism reflect the diverse theologies and historical experiences of the three communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813525990
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

CHRISTEL MANNING is an assistant professor of religion at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Part I. Who Are We Talking to? 
Chapter 1. Stories of Ordinary Women
Chapter 2. The Rhetoric of the Elite
Chapter 3. Three Conservative Religious Communities
Part II. Yes to Feminist Values
Chapter 4. Femininists in Society
Chapter 5. Traditionalists in Church and Synagogue
Chapter 6. But What about the Home? 
Chapter 7. Understanding Inconsistency
Part III. No the the Feminist Movement
Chapter 8. Profeminist or Antifeminist? 
Chapter 9. Conflict with Secular America—Abortion and Homosexuality
Chapter 10. Understanding the Differences
Appendix A
Appendix B
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Margaret Bendroth

Highly accessible...Manning introduces us to some thoughtful women from evangelical Protestant, Orthodox Jewish, and conservative Catholic backgrounds -- analyzing their lives as a complicated blend of modern values and traditional belief. -- Author of Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present

Wade Clark Roof

This book shatters stereotypes and portrays the religious lives of ordinary women as they really are (Wade Clark Roof is J.F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara).

Editorial Reviews

This book shatters stereotypes and portrays the religious lives of ordinary women as they really are.

J. F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society, Department of Religious Studies, - Wade Clark Roof

Manning unravels the broad stereotypes of religiously conservative women as servile and passive. This book brings to life the many dimensions of conservative religions and their relationship to women's feelings about their rights and roles, as well as opinions about the broader women's movement....This book...reveals how these women weave meanings for and from religion and gender issues....Well written and discerning.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Christel Manning's ethnographic study of conservative Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish women is a cautionary tale about the dangers of generalizing about traditionalists/fundamentalists across the lines of historic religious traditions. Her method entailed a study of documents, extensive participant-observation fieldwork, and over seventy-five interviews with women who are members of three anonymous congregations....This work is an impressive scholarly achievement. Those looking for careful Calvin exegesis, detailed analysis, and excellent discussions of contemporary debates about Calvin would be well-advised to read it.

Journal of Religion

Delves into the complex, seemingly contradictory, emotions and behaviors of women who embrace conservative religious traditions as they come to terms with feminism.

author of Rachel's Daughters - Debra Renee Kaufman

Highly accessible....Manning introduces us to some thoughtful women from evangelical Protestant, Orthodox Jewish, and conservative Catholic backgrounds, analyzing their lives as a complicated blend of modern values and traditional belief.

author of Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present - Margaret Bendroth

The points of agreement and disagreement among the members of Manning's three constituencies are provocative and illuminating. Manning argues persuasively that we need to think about cultural conflict in new ways that reflect and expose the complexity and diversity in the traditionalist religious worldview. Recommended.

Choice

Manning (religious studies, Sacred Heart Univ.) has written a comparative study of women who have converted or returned to three different conservative religious communities: Catholic, orthodox Jewish, and evangelical Protestant. Her research challenges the popular view that conservative religious women as united in opposition to secular feminist goals. Through an exploration of these women's views on issues identified with secular feminism, from abortion and homosexuality to women's place in society, Manning shows the diversity of conservative responses. Especially interesting are the ways in which these women's stated attitudes often differ from those of the religious right's official leadership, as well as the degrees to which these women have integrated feminism into their own lives (despite a generally explicit opposition to the feminist movement). Manning observes these women in the context of their respective religious communities and explores their responses to feminism and other challenges of secular society. Suitable for academic libraries and women's studies collections.--Rachel Singer, Franklin Park P.L., IL

Library Journal