|
Sex differences in religion can be classified as either "internal" or "external". Internal religious issues are studied from the perspective of a given religion, and might include religious beliefs and practices about the roles and rights of men and women in government, education and worship; beliefs about the sex or gender of deities and religious figures; and beliefs about the origin and meaning of human gender. External religious issues can be broadly defined as an examination of a given religion from an outsider's perspective, including possible clashes between religious leaders and laity;〔Juschka, Darlene. "Gender." In ed. J. Hinnels. The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2010:245-258.〕 and the influence of, and differences between, religious perspectives on social issues. For example, various religious perspectives have either endorsed or condemned alternative family structures, homosexual relationships, and abortion.〔 ('Unborn Child Protection Bill' ), State Parliament of New South Wales, 2006.〕 External religious issues can also be examined from the "lens of gender" perspective embraced by some in feminism and/or critical theory and its offshoots. In studies pertaining to gender patterns in religions, it has been widely accepted that females are more likely to be religious than males. In 1997, statistics gathered by Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle theorized this phenomenon into three primary causes. The first explanation is that women feel emotions at greater heights than men do, thus women tend to turn to religion more in times of high emotions such as gratitude or guilt. The second explanation is that female socialization is more likely to align with values that are commonly found in religion such as conflict mediation, tenderness, and humility. In contrast, male socialization is more likely to emphasize rebellion, thus making the guideline aspects of religion less appealing. The third explanation, which is also the most recent theory, is that females are more likely to be able to identify with religion as a natural consequence of societal structures. For example, since a majority of religions emphasize women as caretakers of the home, the societal expectation of women to take greater responsibility than men for the upbringing of a child makes religion an appealing commitment. Another example is that traditionally, men tend to work outside the home whereas women tend to work inside the home, which corresponds to studies that have shown that people are more likely to be religious when working inside of their homes.〔http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2095292?sid=21105856845913&uid=2460337855&uid=2460338175&uid=63&uid=3739256&uid=83&uid=4&uid=2〕 == Gender of deities == (詳細はanimist religions, involve deification of characteristics of the natural world. These spirits are typically, but not always, gendered. It has been proposed, since the 19th century, that polytheism arose out of animism, as religious epic provided personalities to autochthonous animist spirits in various parts of the world, notably in the development of ancient near eastern and Indo-European literature. Polytheistic gods are also typically gendered. The earliest evidence of monotheism is the worship of the goddess Eurynome, Aten in Egypt, the teaching of Moses in the Torah and Zoroastrianism in Persia. Aten, Yahweh and Ahura Mazda are all masculine deities, embodied only in metaphor, so masculine rather than reproductively male. Some scholars〔Davidson, Deborah. Class Lecture. Introduction to Women's Studies. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. 21 Jan 2009.〕 suggest that ancient religious Goddesses have been reinterpreted to follow specific gender roles. For example, the Nordic goddess Freya first represented war and love, but after centuries, she was transformed into only representing love and a sexual behaviour. The Hindu goddess Kali is interesting because she breaks the typical gendered role of women representing love, sex, fertility and beauty because she is simultaneously the goddess of the life cycle as well as destructive war. An example of the typical female goddess is Aphrodite, who is shown as vain, simple, and beautiful. Various 19th-century scholars of comparative religion proposed that prehistoric animism worshipped nature viewed predominantly as matriarchal religion, a feature notable also within neopaganism. However, anthropological research of the early 20th century, among many pre-literate cultures, established a consensus against this theory. In Christianity, one entity of the Trinity, the Son, is believed to have become incarnate as a human male. Christians believe that the other two entities in the Trinity, the Father and the Holy Spirit, have never been incarnated, hence having masculine gender rather than male sex. Islam, on the other hand, has a tradition that the name Allah, like its referent, can be allocated neither grammatical nor natural gender. Masculine pronouns for Allah in the Qur'an are interpreted as generic. The gender or genderlessness of God is a controversial issue in many monotheistic and some henotheistic religions. While God has traditionally been portrayed as a masculine figure, this deity is also called Mother, and there has been an increasing view that God is synonymous with mother nature, and is feminine. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sex differences in religion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|