Keywords
cultural revolution
1968
feminism
Abstract
It is undoubtedly true that a number of British women turned their back on religion, from the beginning of the period of the cultural revolution of the 1960s and onwards. To what might we attribute these defections and the taking up of a new nonreligious identity? Was it the change in sexual mores and the rise of second wave feminism, the increase in women entering higher education opening up new worldviews to them or increasing affluence? This article examines a variety of factors through the eyes of self-identified women atheists/humanists most of whom have lived through that period. It notes that, while these factors may well be significant to different degrees for different women, the turn to atheism, specifically, results largely from women having been damaged by religion and the deep emotional impact thus left behind. The turn to atheism is not a uniform experience as the women are enmeshed in differing types of ‘emotional regime’ which affects how they respond.References
Amarasingam, Amarnath. 2012. "Introduction: What is the New Atheism." In Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam, 1-8. Chicago, Ill: Haymarket
Bagg, Samuel, and David Voas. 2010. "The Triumph of Indifference: Irreligion in British Society." In Atheism and Secularity:Volume 2: Global Expressions, edited by Phil Zuckerman, 91-111. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. 2007. "Atheists: A Psychological Profile." In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, 300-317. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brewster, Melanie Elyse. 2013. "Atheism, Gender, and Sexuality." In The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, edited by Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse, 511-524. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Callum G, and Gordon Lynch. 2012. "Cultural Perspectives." In Religion and Change in Modern Britain, edited by Linda Woodhead and Rebecca Catto, 329-351. London and New York: Routledge.
Brown, Callum G. 2001. The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularization 1800-2000. London and New York: Routledge.
Brown, Callum G. 2006. Religion and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.
Brown, Callum G. 2010. "Women and Religion in Britain: the Autobiographical View of the Fifties and Sixties." In Secularisation in the Christian World, edited by Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape, 159-174. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Brown, Callum G. 2011. "Sex, Religion and the Single Woman c1950-1975: The Importance of a 'Short' Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the Sixties." Twentieth Century British History 22 (2):189-215.
Bullivant, Stephen. 2012. "The New Atheism and Sociology: Why here? Why now? What next?" In Religion and the New Atheism: a Critical Appraisal, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam, 109-124. Chicago: Haymarket.
Catto, Rebecca, and Janet B Eccles. 2013. "(Dis)Believing and Belonging: Investigating the Narratives of Young British Atheists." Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 49 (1):37-63.
Cimino, Richard, and Christopher Smith. 2010. "The New Atheism and the Empowerment of American Freethinkers." In Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Approach, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam, 139-156. Chicago, IL: Haymarket.
Cliteur, Paul. 2009. "The Definition of Atheism." Journal of Religion and Society 11:1-23.
Davie, Grace. 2015. Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
DeVaus, David, and Ian McAllister. 1987. "Gender Differences in Religion: A Test of the Structural Location Theory." American Sociological Review 52 (4):472-481.
Droogers, André. 2014. "The World of Worldviews." In Methods for the Study of Religious Change: From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies, edited by André Droogers and Anton van Harskamp, 17-42. Sheffield: Equinox.
Eccles, Janet B. 2012. "The Religious and Non-Religious Commitments of Older Women in the UK: Towards a New Typology." Journal of Contemporary Religion 27 (3):469-484. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2012.722296.
Eccles, Janet, and Rebecca Catto. 2017. "(Secular)Sacred Space: Its Significance in the Formation of British Atheist Identities." In Materiality and the Study of Religion, edited by Timothy Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie, 151-165. London and New York: Routledge.
Feltey, Kathryn M, and Margaret M Poloma. 1991. "From Sex Differences to Gender Role Beliefs:Exploring Effects on Six Dimensions of Religiosity." Sex Roles 25 (3/4):181-193.
Furseth, Inger. 2010. "Atheism, Secularity, and Gender." In Atheism and Secularity: Volume I: Issues, Concepts, and Definitions, edited by Phil Zuckerman, 209-227. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Gelder, Alison, and Phillip Escott. 2001. Faith in Life: A Snapshot of Church Life in England at the Beginning of the 21st Century. London: Churches Information for Mission.
Hornsby-Smith, Michael. 1987. Roman Catholics in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Paul. 1994. "Introduction: Britain, 1900-1990." In Twentieth-Century Britain: Economic, Social and Cultural Change, edited by Paul Johnson, 1-18. London: Longman.
Knott, Kim, Elizabeth Poole, and Teemu Taira. 2013. Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Lee, Lois. 2012a. "Research Note: Talking about a Revolution:Terminology for the New Field of Non-religion Studies." Journal of Contemporary Religion 27 (1):129-139.
Lee, Lucy. 2012b. "Religion: Losing Faith." In British Social Attitudes 28, edited by Alison Park, Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice, Miranda Phillips and David Utting, 173-184. London: Sage.
Mahlamäki, Tiina. 2012. "Religion and Atheism from a Gender perspective." Approaching Religion 2 (1):58-65.
McLeod, Hugh. 2007. The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Merino, Stephen M. 2012. "Irreligious Socialization? The Adult Religious Preferences of Individuals Raised with No Religion." Secularism and Nonreligion 1:1-16.
Mumford, Lorna. 2015. "Living Non-Religious Identity in London." In Atheist Identities: Spaces and Social Contexts, edited by Lori G. Beaman and Tomlins Steven, 153–70. Switzerland: Springer International.
Namazie, Maryam. 2009. "When the Hezbollah came to my school." In Fifty Voices of Disbelief: Why we are atheists, edited by Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk, 270-273. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
Overall, Christine. 2007. "Feminism and Atheism." In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, 233-249. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pasquale, Frank L. 2010. "A Portrait of Secular Group Affiliates." In Atheism and Secularity: Volume 1: Issues, Concepts, and Definitions, edited by Phil Zuckerman, 43-87. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Redfern, Catherine, and Kristin Aune. 2013. Reclaiming the F-word: Feminism today. London and New York: Zed Books.
Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. 2010. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sandbrook, Dominic. 2006. Never had it so good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles. London: Abacus.
Vincett, Giselle, Sonya Sharma, and Kristin Aune. 2008. "Introduction: Women, Religion and Secularization: One Size does not Fit All." In Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization, edited by Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Giselle Vincett, 1-19. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Voas, David, and Siobhan McAndrew. 2012. "Three Puzzles of Non-religion in Britain." Journal of Contemporary Religion 27 (1):29-48. doi: DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2012.642725.
Wolffe, John. 1994. "Religion and 'Secularization'." In Twentieth-Century Britain:Economic, Social and Cultural Change, edited by Paul Johnson, 427-441. London: Longman.
Woodhead, Linda. 2006. "Gender Differences in Religious Practice and Significance." In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by James A Beckford and N.J Demerath III, 550-570. Thousand Oaks and London: Sage.
Woodhead, Linda. 2008. "'Because I'm worth It': Religion and Women's Changing Lives in the West." In Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization, edited by Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Giselle Vincett, 147-161. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Zuckerman, Phil. 2007. "Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns." In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, edited by Michael Martin, 47-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
License
Manuscript authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions for any copyrighted materials included within manuscripts. The authors must provide permission letters, when appropriate, to the Society Register Editors.
In addition, all published papers in Society Register are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported License.
1.1 The Author hereby warrants that he/she is the owner of all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Work and that, within the scope of the present Agreement, the paper does not infringe the legal rights of another person. The owner of the copyright work also warrants that he/she is the sole and original creator thereof and that is not bound by any legal constraints in regard to the use or sale of the work.
1.2. The Publisher warrants that is the owner of the PRESSto platform for open access journals, hereinafter referred to as the PRESSto Platform.
2. The Author grants the Publisher non-exclusive and free of charge license to unlimited use worldwide over an unspecified period of time in the following areas of exploitation:
2.1. production of multiple copies of the Work produced according to the specific application of a given technology, including printing, reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means (reprography) and digital technology;
2.2. marketing authorisation, loan or lease of the original or copies thereof;
2.3. public performance, public performance in the broadcast, video screening, media enhancements as well as broadcasting and rebroadcasting, made available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them;
2.4. inclusion of the Work into a collective work (i.e. with a number of contributions);
2.5. inclusion of the Work in the electronic version to be offered on an electronic platform, or any other conceivable introduction of the Work in its electronic version to the Internet;
2.6. dissemination of electronic versions of the Work in its electronic version online, in a collective work or independently;
2.7. making the Work in the electronic version available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, in particular by making it accessible via the Internet, Intranet, Extranet;
2.8. making the Work available according to appropriate license pattern CC BY-NC 4.0 as well as another language version of this license or any later version published by Creative Commons.
3. The Author grants the Publisher permission to reproduce a single copy (print or download) and royalty-free use and disposal of rights to compilations of the Work and these compilations.
4. The Author grants the Publisher permission to send metadata files related to the Work, including to commercial and non-commercial journal-indexing databases.
5. The Author represents that, on the basis of the license granted in the present Agreement, the Publisher is entitled and obliged to:
5.1. allow third parties to obtain further licenses (sublicenses) to the Work and to other materials, including derivatives thereof or compilations made, based on or including the Work, whereas the provisions of such sub-licenses will be the same as with the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Creative Commons sub-license or another language version of this license, or any later version of this license published by Creative Commons;
5.2. make the Work available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, without any technological constraints;
5.3. appropriately inform members of the public to whom the Work is to be made available about sublicenses in such a way as to ensure that all parties are properly informed (appropriate informing messages).
6. Because of the royalty-free provision of services of the Author (resulting from the scope of obligations stipulated in the present Agreement), the Author shall not be entitled to any author’s fee due and payable on the part of the Publisher (no fee or royalty is payable by the Publisher to the Author).
7.1. In the case of third party claims or actions for indemnity against the Publisher owing to any infractions related to any form of infringement of intellectual property rights protection, including copyright infringements, the Author is obliged to take all possible measures necessary to protect against these claims and, when as a result of legal action, the Publisher, or any third party licensed by the Publisher to use the Work, will have to abandon using the Work in its entirety or in part or, following a court ruling in a legal challenge, to pay damages to a third party, whatever the legal basis
7.2. The Author will immediately inform the Publisher about any damage claims related to intellectual property infringements, including the author’s proprietary rights pertaining to a copyrighted work, filed against the Author. of liability, the Author is obliged to redress the damage resulting from claims made by third party, including costs and expenditures incurred in the process.
7.3. To all matters not settled herein provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the Polish Copyright and Related Rights Act shall apply.