Abstract
While religion spaces as public institutions (e.g., Christian churches, Buddhist temples) are subject to careful governance, spirituality in Western modernity appears as depoliticized. This paper derives from the post-secular turn in feminism and religious studies which denotes that also within religious traditions that are overwhelmingly patriarchal, women have created alternative spaces for developing their own religious practices. It is based on the case study of the Red Tent movement, established within Women’s spirituality movement in 2008 in North America, which exists as a physical red fabric space and as a virtual space (the form of blogs, Facebook groups). The Red Tent fills a contemporary need for sisterhood and women’s community and could be placed within the sphere of feminist-spiritual menstrual activism. It exists as a women-only space to claim safe and sacred space, but often “women-only” means “cis women only.” While deriving from intersectional feminist conceptual tools this paper explores the meaning and the role of the Red Tent as a menstrual movement in contemporary society by understanding if it is open to include diverse identities such as transgender and non-binary people. The paper argues that in this way the Red Tent would be a politically progressive spiritual movement with the potential to overcome the traditional conservative gender essentialisms present in many religions and spiritualities. Methodologically the papers is based on ethnographic fieldwork performed in Red Tent gatherings, semi-structured in-depth interviews and in-depth content analysis of interactions manifesting through digital communications.
Presenters
Polona SitarAssistant Professor, Department of History, University of Primorska, Slovenia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Spiritual Space, Menstrual Activism, Red Tent, Trans and Non-Binary Exclusion, Women-only Space
