Women and Religion in Britain Today: Belonging (Women's Studies)

Little is written about the lived religious lives of women in 21st-century Britain. The authors of this book seek to address this gap by exploring contemporary women's spirituality in Britain. As the authors inhabit different academic fields, we bring together an interdisciplinary collection of voices to address this subject. We examine a range of ways in which religion continues to impact the lives of women in Britain today. The chapters of this book examine the manner in which religion and spirituality continue to impact women's lives, and by doing so, we offer a heterogeneous look at religion in the 21st century. We not only tackle the spirituality of our research participants but, by writing about our experiences as 'women being spiritual', we offer a hybrid academic-practitioner viewpoint. From Islamic marriage laws to the ordination of female Anglican clergy, we focus on the concept of belonging (or not) through culture and the use of female-only spaces and organisations. Belonging is an important social motive; the need for acceptance and belonging is a fundamental concept that drives behaviours. Exploring how we belong grants an understanding of how choices are made, both by the individual and the group.