Abstract
In a religious community, gender is layered with theological understandings about the meaning of the difference between men and women and is illustrated through notions about and practices of marriage. Exhibited in the socialization of children or the ritual embedded in worship activity, gender is one lens that helps us comprehend the lives of religious individuals in the context of religious society. Gender is, according to Michael S. Kimmel, “a central, primordial experience, one that permeates every aspect of social life, constructing the values, attitudes, and behaviors that constitute cultural experience. Whereas biological sex referred to males and females, gender refers to the socially constructed meanings that are attached to those sexes. Gender varies from culture to culture, within any culture over time, among various subgroups, and over any individual’s lifetime. Gender is socially constructed” (Kimmel and Kimmel 1997, 1).
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© 2014 Henrik Bogdan and James R. Lewis
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Bradley, M.S. (2014). Gender among the Branch Davidians. In: Bogdan, H., Lewis, J.R. (eds) Sexuality and New Religious Movements. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137386434_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137386434_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-68146-4
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