Categories: uncategorized
Date: 14 January 2007 14:37:29
The dissertation is starting to nudge forward again, but I am becoming increasing frustrated with the lack of existing literature on the subject. I think I am getting so annoyed because at the moment I am also teaching my students about the development of Feminist sociological theory and I can see that so much of what that was about has been lost or ignored, particularly within theology.
When Oakley did her study on housework and then motherhood it was because Sociology as a discipline had been predominantley been done by men about men. Similarly reading through Ruether, Daly, Hampson and others that seems to have been part of their motivation about feminist theology. So why is it that there seems to be precious little done by feminist theorists (in the Sociology of Religion or in Theology) that seems to reflect upon the reality of everyday women's lives?
It seems that much of the feminist theory in this area is extremely high brow and very middle class (unless coming from and relating to "the other" in the Southern Hemisphere) and that it is so far removed from the experience of the average woman in the pew, who is not seeking to move forward into ministry or may not have issues with the gendered language of the church, that it is useful but elitist.
Feminist theory should be about reclaiming the experience of women and seeking to explore, analyse and give voice to that experience - so why does it only appear to be about reclaiming the experience of a certain group of educated women, in their academic / ecclesiastical bubble?
That said I am ready to be proved wrong and so if anybody does happen to have any remotely theological texts or sociological texts that they can recommend which explicitly address or have chapters which explicitly address the issue of lone parents in church congregations (apart from the Worth and Tufnell or Tufnell, Horden and Beardshaw) I would appreciate the tip. That said the dissertation is nudging forward; I would just prefer a few more texts - that are academic and relate directly to the subject - to look at.