What Gender Does to Religious Institutions. Reflections on Women’s Religious Congregations in the Nineteenth Century

Barthélemy, Sarah

Abstract

Recently, significant contributions to the study of religion and gender have been made, as evidenced by Belgian and Dutch literature, amongst others. Joan W. Scott has pointed out that, in these studies, gender is expressed and analyzed as a multi-layered concept – it can represent power, social institutions, or organization. It can express ideas of subjective identity and what is normative. This article explores religious female congregations of the Catholic Church in the first half of the nineteenth century and focuses on power relationships. It unpacks the use of gender in religious history and demonstrates that a gendered history of Catholic institutions is possible even when men define the institutional framework and exclude the women who are, in fact, already a part of it.

Citation

Barthélemy, S. (2021). What Gender Does to Religious Institutions. Reflections on Women’s Religious Congregations in the Nineteenth Century. Trajecta: Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries, 30(2), 243-265. https://doi.org/10.5117/TRA2021.2.002.BART

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 1, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Oct 1, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Deposit Date: Jul 7, 2024
• Journal: Trajecta: Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries
• Print ISSN: 0778-8304
• Electronic ISSN: 2665-9484
• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 243-265
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/TRA2021.2.002.BART
• Keywords: methodology, gender history, Catholic Church, Catholicism, female religious congregations
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2521049
• Publisher URL: https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/TRA2021.2.002.BART