The gendering of heterosexual religious young adults’ imagined futures

Sarah-Jane Page,Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip

doi:10.1080/13537903.2019.1621542

Sarah-Jane Page, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2019.1621542

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Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article draws from a mixed-methods project that examined religion, youth, gender, and sexuality among young women and men aged between 18 and 25, from various religious traditions, and living in the UK. It charts how unmarried heterosexuals imagined their future lives in relation to marriage and parenthood. We deploy conceptual literature on ‘imagined future’, which is under-used in the sociology of religion, to explore what difference, if any, religious belonging makes to the futures the participants imagined. We assert that religion is part of their cultural tapestry, which broadly informed their values and actions. In other words, religion, as a component of culture, provides a ‘toolkit’ which they used in imagining futures that they deemed meaningful. This article contributes significantly to literature on gender and religious cultures and imagined future, highlighting the complex and interweaving role religion played in the way young adults in this study imagined their future gendered lives.

Highlights

Gender norms have significantly changed in recent decades, demonstrated by women’s increased economic and sexual freedom
We deploy conceptual literature on ‘imagined future’, which is under-used in the sociology of religion, to explore what difference, if any, religious belonging makes to the futures the participants imagined
Associating religion exclusively with conservatism on issues of gender and sexuality misses the counter-narratives in evidence from liberal religious strands, and neglects the nuances manifested in the way individuals navigate their everyday religious lives (Ammerman 2014; McGuire 2008; Nynäs and Yip 2012; Yip and Page 2013)

Summary

Introduction

Gender norms have significantly changed in recent decades, demonstrated by women’s increased economic and sexual freedom. Religion is often constructed as a conservative force, militating against gender and sexual liberation (Inglehart and Norris 2003, 50; Stuart 2010, 430; Taylor and Snowdon 2014, 1), demonstrated recently in the UK by religious opposition to samesex marriage and women bishops. This construction, ignores two important points: the continuing and often implicit regulation of gender and sexuality within liberal secular spaces and the fact that a conservative response does not comprehensively represent the multiple reactions to gender and sexuality issues in religious spaces (Page and Yip 2017a, 261; Young, Shipley, and Trothen 2015, 3–4; Shipley 2015, 110–112). Associating religion exclusively with conservatism on issues of gender and sexuality misses the counter-narratives in evidence from liberal religious strands, and neglects the nuances manifested in the way individuals navigate their everyday religious lives (Ammerman 2014; McGuire 2008; Nynäs and Yip 2012; Yip and Page 2013)

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