Religion, political participation and civic engagement: women’s experiences

Introduction The role that religion plays in shaping political and civic behaviour has received significant attention in recent years (see, for example, Norris and Inglehart, 2005). Religion's influence on political behaviour has been well established (Layman, 1997). Burns et al (2001, p 231) suggest that ‘religious institutions are a crucial component of civic society’. Within this area of research, however, women have received less focused attention. This stems perhaps from religion's longstanding negative impact on women's equality, and the traditional roles that it can assign to them in both the public and the private sectors (Woodhead, 2001; Inglehart and Norris, 2003). Extant research has revealed the specific ways in which women are sometimes able to benefit and find individual agency within the most patriarchal of religious institutions (see, for example, Ammerman, 1987). Within many such institutions, women can receive the stimulus and claim the agency necessary for participating in political and civil arenas (Caiazza, 2005; O’Neill, 2006). A comprehensive understanding of the connections between religion, political participation and civic engagement requires an examination of women's experiences in faith communities (Burns et al, 2001; Inglehart and Norris, 2003). This chapter moves in that direction by examining the connection between religion and spirituality and women's political and civic engagement. The distinction between religion and spirituality is an important one. Much of the research examining political behaviour focuses on religion , that is, the set of beliefs and practices related to an organised and communal belief system, rather than faith or spirituality , which involves the more personal and subjective elements of such organised systems. The former has been shown to affect women's political attitudes and behaviour in multiple ways. Women's private roles as wives and mothers and, more publicly, as protectors of society's morality, reflect the prescriptions found within various religions. First-wave ‘maternal’ feminism in Canada was intimately connected to women's participation in religious organisations, helping to explain not only their acceptance of private and public roles but also the focus on good works, charity and social reform designed to raise the moral standard of early 20th-century Canada (Newman and White, 2006). Women's memberships of religious organisations continue to account for a large portion of their volunteering activities (O’Neill, 2006).

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