Liberating Domesticity

Abstract

Mainstream feminism has for decades asserted that women’s empowerment requires a radical readjustment of society. Not surprisingly, this view largely disregards empowerment claims made by women in traditional religious systems. In the case of North American Orthodox Judaism, women’s empowerment tends to be spiritual, finding in traditional gender roles a psycho-spiritual antidote to the drudgery of everyday life. In Latin American Pentecostalism, on the other hand, empowerment is more practical, as a woman’s (and thus her family’s) embrace of the religion often leads to increased familial and economic stability. As such, these “liberating traditions” present the private sphere as a legitimate location for women’s emancipation, a reality often lost in the public-centered focus of the contemporary West.