Gender-critical Studies in Religious Studies

Abstract

In 1960, Valerie Saiving published an essay entitled Human Situation: A Feminine View.1 This essay is an examination of religion which places women's experience at the centre of its analysis, the cen tral premise of feminist scholarship. Although this feminist analysis of religion was published three years before Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the publication credited with signalling the beginnings of what is commonly spoken of as the second wave of feminist consciousness, Religious Studies has lagged behind other academic disciplines in incor porating the gender-critical analyses engendered by the feminist move ment into its mainstream. Those engaged in gender-critical studies, which until very recently have focussed almost exclusively on women, have been equally reluctant to incorporate religion into their analyses. Methodology in Religious Studies: The Interface with Women's Studies, Feminism in the Study of Religion, and Women, Gender, Religion explore the intersec tion of gender-critical studies and the academic study of religion. As their titles suggest, they present three related, yet distinct and often competing perspectives. Randi R. Warne, a Canadian feminist scholar in Religious Studies and a long-time advocate of gender-critical analy ses in the academic study of religion, has written extensively on the relationship between gender-critical studies and Religious Studies in