Women's Role in Historic Religious and Political Movements

Sociology of Religion, Spring, 2001 by Inger Furseth

Inger Furseth [*]

This article will compare the role of women in four historic religious and political movements in Norwegian history during the period 1780-1860. The Lofthus revolt and the Thrane movement are die political movements under study, and the Hauge movement and Norwegian Methodism are the religious movements. Within each movement, two issues are considered. First, there is an examination of the differential participation of women in the movements, where consideration is given to how the religious movements were more successful in mobilizing women. Second, the effects of female participation in the religious movements are assessed in relation to recruitment and stability. In the empirical analysis, primary and secondary historical sources related to the period between 1780 and the decade of the 1860s are utilized. The main findings are: (1) ideological inducements for women to participate and available roles for women in the organizational structures are important explanations for female participation in the religi ous movements; (2) female participation within the religious movements led to more widespread diffusion and recruitment; and (3) women provided the religious movements with a relatively high degree of stability, because they enabled the use of family formation as a movement strategy and secured continuity through the socialization of new members.

INTRODUCTION

Historians, and specifically church-historians, have long noted that women have participated in large numbers in religious movements, as far back as early Christianity (Stark 1997). Female participation in religious movements is striking when compared to their relative absence in political movements until the 20th century. Norwegian scholars have recognized the high degree of female participation in 1700-1800 native religious movements (Aarflot 1967; Bang 1910; Heggtveit 1905-20, I; Molland 1979, I; Oftestad et al. 1991; Pryser 1993; Thorkildsen 1926) and their absence in political movements during the same period (Bjorklund 1951; Bull 1985; Koht 1917, 1926; Pryser 1977; Sverdrup 1917). It is recognized by historians and church-historians that, until the 1900s, Norwegian religious movements were more appealing to women than were political movements, however no serious efforts to explain or to analyze the effects of these phenomena have been made.

Numerous studies on the role of women in pre-20th century religious movements have been conducted. In Scandinavia, there are studies on women in various mission organizations (Tjelle 1990; Schau 1982, 1984, 1985; Seland 1999), Lutheran lay movements and organizations (Fiske 1980; Golf 1998; Slettan 1986), and the temperance movement (Rydbeck 1993). There are studies of the role and place of women in early Christianity (Laporte 1982; Stark 1997). Further, work has been conducted on the role of women in English religious life (Cowman 1996), the status of women among early Spiritualists, Anabaptists, Quakers, and radical Puritans (Baer 1994; Irwin 1979), Shakers (Bainbridge 1982), and various communitarian groups (Wright 1994). With the exception of a few, (Baer 1994; Stark 1997; Wright 1994), most of these studies tend to describe the role of women within the various religious movements. They seldom attempt to explain their attractiveness to women, nor do they focus upon the possible effects of female particip ation on movement success or failure.

Women's responsiveness to religion has been described in several studies of 20th century religiosity. Census data from 1926 showed that a majority of cult members, as well as members of most mainline denominations in the United States, were women. Many new religious movements which appeared in the 1970s also demonstrated the same pattern of the majority of members being female (Finke and Stark 1994: 10, 35; Howell 1998; Stark and Bainbridge 1985: 237, 413). Women of all ages have continued to outscore men on most measures of religiosity (Francis and Wilcox 1998; Miller and Hoffmann 1995; Ozorak 1996). This tendency is also found in Great Britain, Germany, Norway and Denmark (Botvar 1993; Gundelach and Riis 1992). Gender differences in religiosity are not limited to the north-western part of the world. A recent study in Latin America (Martin 1990:182) showed that women tended to join Protestantism before men.

There have been attempts to explain why women frequently seem to be more responsive to religion than men. Two main groups of theories have emerged in the social science literature (Francis and Wilcox 1998: 462-463; Miller and Hoffmann 1995: 63). The first stresses social or contextual influences which shape different responses to religion among men and women. This group may be divided into two categories: gender role socialization theories (Miller and Hoffmann 1995; Thompson 1991) and structural location theories (Glock, Ringer, and Babbie 1967). The second group of theories concentrate on personal or individual characteristics which differentiate between men and women. Gender orientation theories belong in this category (Aidala 1985; Francis and Wilcox 1998). These main groups of theories either emphasize alleged characteristic traits of the participants or they focus upon their location in the social structure. The approach of this article is to shift the emphasis from asking "why" women participate in rel igious movements to "how" movements mobilize women into collective action. By doing so, the focus is shifted away from the qualities of the women toward the qualities of the movement's organization. In fact, some studies (Baer 1994; Wright 1994) have linked the proportion of females in religious groups to organizational factors, such as opportunities and equality available to women.