Title: Doing Secularity: How ex-Jehovah’s Witness Women Undo Religion and Redo Gender through Secular Accountability

• In Event: 40820 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Sexuality, Gender, and Religion

Abstract

Scholars of gender and religion have used the doing gender framework to explore how women perform religiosity and create religious identities. Yet, little research has examined how a doing gender framework can be useful to understanding the process of religious disaffiliation for women. This paper provides clarity to Van Den Brandt’s undoing religion, and redoing gender model by paying close attention to accountability in the remaking of gender identities. Using the case of 13 ex-Jehovah’s Witness (JW) women, I argue that ex-JW women invert Avishai’s doing religion process as they shift their gender accountability from religious expectations to secular expectations of their gender. Examining the religious disaffiliation narratives of ex-Jehovah’s Witness women shows how they do secularity after leaving their religious practice and renegotiate secular identities in relation to their previous religious identities.

Author

• Madison Francescia Avila, University of California-Santa Barbara