Women of Faith and the Quest for Spiritual Authenticity

<p>Drawn from over fifty-eight individual in-depth qualitative interviews with women of faith in Malaysia and Britain <i>Women of Faith and the Quest for Spiritual Authenticity</i> is a multifaith multicultural and cross-cultural comparative focus that explores women’s religious expressions as derived from practising Buddhists Hindus Christians Muslims Jews Wiccans and Druids among others. </p><p>Despite social advances towards women’s emancipation and the lacerating critiques from feminist theologians across the Abrahamic religions and beyond women’s religious experiences remain submerged beneath the weight of patriarchal religious leadership and ongoing masculinised dogmatic interpretations. Even feminism itself has yet to move the spiritual onto their main agenda of inequity in women’s lives. This extensive feminist research monograph challenges these exclusions to centre and amplify women’s voices in speaking powerfully of their religious experiences interpretations and practices. </p><p>This is an ecumenical and entertaining ethnography where women’s narratives and life stories ground faith as embodied personal painful vibrant diverse illuminating and shared. This book will of interest not only to academics and students of the sociology of religion feminist and gender studies politics ethnicity and Southeast Asian studies but is equally accessible to the general reader broadly interested in faith and feminism.</p>