L’appartenance catholique des femmes au Québec: Pour une approche genrée du rapport à la religion

Abstract

While the place of women in Quebec Catholicism was brought to light by feminist research, it has mostly remained absent from the study of Catholicism, or has been centred on the relation to the Catholic institution. This article explores the gendered dimension of Quebecois’s relationship to religion through examining women’s belonging to Catholicism. An analysis of interviews with women and men identifying as Catholics permits a typology of ways of women’s belonging to Catholicism while highlighting three distinguishing aspects: religious socialization, transmission and relation to the Catholic institution. The modalities of belonging identified indicate that women’s belonging is less individualized and more relational compared to that of men. These results provide possible ways of rethinking an individual’s relationship to religion by taking a gendered approach, thus providing further nuance to the exculturation and individualization thesis by underlining its relational dimension.