the surprising history of the American catholic feminist movement
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Henold, Mary J.
- Publish Year
- 2008
- Shelfmark
- VS 8 2008
- Thesaurus
- rooms-katholicisme, feminisme, vrouwenbewegingen, seksisme, religieuzen, Verenigde Staten, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, 20e eeuw
- Description
- In 1963, as Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique appeared and civil rights activists marched on Washington, a separate social movement emerged among American Catholics. Thousands of Catholic feminists—both lay women and women religious—marched, theologized, and prayed together, building sisterhood and confronting sexism in the Roman Catholic Church. In this history of American Catholic feminism, Henold explores the movement from the 1960s through the early 1980s, showing that although Catholic feminists had much in common with their sisters in the larger American feminist movement, Catholic feminism was distinct and had not been simply imported from outside. Catholic feminism grew from within the church, rooted in women's own experiences of Catholicism and religious practice. She identifies the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), an inspiring but overtly sexist event that enraged and exhilarated Catholic women in equal measure, as a catalyst of the movement within the church. Catholic feminists regularly explained their feminism in terms of their commitment to a gospel mandate for social justice, liberation, and radical equality. They considered feminism to be a Christian principle.