Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Gender & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (5)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chen, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A Self of One’s Own

Taiwanese Immigrant Women and Religious Conversion

Carolyn Chen

Northwestern University

Although recent scholarship focuses on the importance of religion to immigrants in the United States, relatively little attention has been given to how religion shapes the everyday lives of immigrant women. This article examines how Taiwanese immigrant women as religious converts use Buddhism and Christianity to construct a distinct sense of self from the family. Buddhism and Christianity challenge traditional gender roles by offering alternative conceptions of a genderless self. Women’s new religious commitments may compete with their traditional commitments to their families. Through religious conversion, women carve out spaces of independence and authority for themselves, albeit never at the cost of threatening the nuclear family.

Key Words: religion • immigration • gender • conversion • personhood

Gender & Society, Vol. 19, No. 3, 336-357 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0891243204273125
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Gender SocietyHome page
O. Avishai
"Doing Religion" In a Secular World: Women in Conservative Religions and the Question of Agency
Gender Society, August 1, 2008; 22(4): 409 - 433.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Gender SocietyHome page
Immigration "Reform": Gender, Migration, Citizenship, and SWS
Gender Society, October 1, 2006; 20(5): 569 - 575.
[PDF]